EarFun Air Pro 2 review
The Air Pro 2s boast active noise cancellation, a 30-plus hour playtime and touch controls – all for under £70. But are they worth your time?
3.7
Our review
The Earfun Air Pro 2s may look like another Apple AirPods clone at a quick glance, but they offer active noise cancellation for under £100, on-bud touch controls and a lengthy 30-plus hour battery life. We found that with ANC switched on, the audio quality was superb, but the other listening modes reflected the budget price point. Still, if you want ANC on-the-go, the Earfun Air Pro 2s are worth your time.
Pros
- Very affordable
- With ANC on, audio is very solid
- Responsive touch controls
- Strong battery life with case
Cons
- Design choice is familiar
- There’s no dedicated app
- Some background fuzz
- No other colour variants
Don’t let the word “fun” trick you into thinking the new EarFun Air Pro 2 earbuds are a toy product. The name is jovial, but they deserve to be taken seriously.
The spec sheet alone teases that they may be special: with active noise cancellation (ANC), a 30-plus hour playtime, IPX5 water protection rating, on-bud touch controls and a case that can be charged wirelessly – all for a price tag of under £70.
But the specs on the side of the box mean nothing if the audio quality ends up being terrible. Luckily, we found in our hands-on tests, that was not the case.
From the distorted guitars and screaming vocals of Biffy Clyro’s early Vertigo of Bliss album to the folksy acoustics of Villagers’ new Fever Dreams record to a chilled but bass-heavy low-fi beats playlist – the EarFun Air Pro 2s handled them all well.
That’s great for anyone who wants a budget alternative to the AirPods or the Galaxy Buds 2, but do make sure to keep your expectations in check.
The touch controls worked consistently, but the multi-tap commands often clashed with each other and won’t be to everyone’s taste. We encountered light fuzziness in the ambient listening mode, and there’s no app to tinker with the audio mix.
With a stem design and both “Air” and “Pro” in the name, it would be very, very easy to instantly dismiss the earbuds as just another Apple AirPods clone.
Ultimately, that would be a mistake, especially if you don’t want to pay a flagship price for a set of earbuds. The Air Pro 2s are comfortable, easy to set up, and the sound profile should complement whatever type of music or podcasts you listen to.
We have spent roughly two weeks testing the EarFun Air Pro 2 to see how the specs perform in the real world, and this review will run through the design, features, sound quality, battery life and more. So read on to find out if they are worth the price.
To see how the latest EarFun Air Pro 2 earbuds compare to another set that’s in the current ANC line-up, be sure to read our in-depth EarFun Free Pro review.
We have tested a lot of earbuds here at RadioTimes.com, so if you are unsure which model to go for, why not also check out our Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 review, Nothing ear (1) review, Beats Studio Buds review and 1st-gen Apple AirPods review.
Jump to:
- EarFun Air Pro 2: summary
- What are EarFun Air Pro 2s?
- How much are EarFun Air Pro 2s?
- Design
- Features
- Sound quality
- Battery life
- Set-up
- Our verdict
- Where to buy
EarFun Air Pro 2: summary
The EarFun Air Pro 2s are impressive for the price. After our testing, we would easily recommend them to anyone who needs a set of wireless earbuds with good audio and active noise cancellation at a highly competitive sub-£100 price tag.
The buds are comfortable to wear over long periods and have an IPX5 sweat/water resistance rating, which means they work well for commutes and the gym.
But as with all technology in this price range, they are not perfect and occasionally, the EarFun Air Pro 2s lack some of that A-list sheen. We encountered some fuzziness in the buds when audio was low in some listening modes, the USB-C cable is very short, and there’s no iOS/Android app that lets you play with the sound mix.
While these are far from deal-breakers, perhaps worst of all is the EarFun Air Pro 2s only come in black. Despite the name of the company, black isn’t that fun.
Price: EarFun Air Pro 2s are available at Amazon, priced at £69.99.
Pros:
- Very affordable at under £100
- With ANC on, Audio is very solid
- Responsive touch controls
- Strong battery life with case
Cons:
- Design choice is familiar
- There’s no dedicated app
- Some background fuzzing
- No other colour variants
What are the EarFun Air Pro 2s?
The EarFun Air Pro 2s are true wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation, touch controls and water resistance that are attractively priced on Amazon. They went on sale in early August 2021 and are one of six earbuds sold by the company, which separates its bud line-ups under two names: the Air series and Free series.
EarFun Air Pro 2 features at a glance:
- Noise cancellation up to 40dB
- 30+ hours total playtime with case
- Supports fast charging
- Connects with Bluetooth 5.2
- On-bud touch controls
- IPX5 water/sweat resistance
- In-ear detection technology
- Supports wireless charging
- On-bud voice assistant activation
How much are EarFun Air Pro 2s?
The EarFun Air Pro 2 earbuds sell for £69.99 on Amazon.
EarFun Air Pro 2: design
The EarFun Air Pro 2s have a stem design that won’t win any awards for originality, but who can fault the aesthetic choice: it looks good and fits well in the ear.
The buds, which are roughly 3 cm in length, have a nice two-tone finish – with the section closest to the ear tips a matte black and the stem itself a glossy black. They are lightweight, with only a small inoffensive EarFun logo on each stem. The buds come inside a rounded-off charging case (65mm x 52mm x 31.8mm) and are held in place with a satisfying magnetic snap. The lid is the only section that could be an issue in the future. Because it’s made of plastic, pushing it back even slightly too far may cause it to break. Yes, it’s not a unique look, but, hey, it works.
We would have liked to see the earbuds come in different colours – the black is nice, but we couldn’t shake the feeling it was a missed opportunity for EarFun to embrace its name and push the same product in more vibrant shades. It would make them stand out on the busy Amazon listing page, which is full of black budget buds.
We found the tips that came on the Air Pro 2s fit really well, but inside the box, there are multiple other sizes – separated into small, medium and large. You do also get a USB-C charging cable, but it’s almost comically short. That may be a problem for some, but personally, we have so many of these cables it was not a major issue.
EarFun Air Pro 2: features
For a £70 set of earbuds, the EarFun Air Pro 2s are surprisingly feature-heavy, and aside from ANC, you end up getting a pretty full package for the money.
They have on-bud touch controls, which means you can tap the side of the earbuds to play or pause music, skip tracks, change the volume or answer/end phone calls. We found that while these are consistently responsive, not everyone will love how they work in reality – largely due to how different commands overlap each other or require the side of the buds to be held down for multiple seconds at a time.
For example, you can pause a music track by tapping the left or right buds twice. But this is quite similar to the controls for changing the volume, which is a single tap on the right to increase and a single tap on the left to decrease. We did find that often we would end up changing volume when we meant to pause, and vice versa.
Similarly, changing between the listening modes requires a two-second hold on the left bud, but doing the same on the right bud will boot up the voice assistant.
We get it, though. There’s only so much that EarFun can do with the real estate on a pair of earbuds – it’s understandable some commands end up conflicting. After a few days we did find the taps became second nature – so it’s just a case of getting used to how the tapping system works. However, if the earbuds were paired to a laptop or phone, we often found ourselves ignoring the tap commands altogether.
A feature that was incredibly welcome was the IPX5 water/sweat resistance rating, which is more than enough to make the Air Pro 2s worthy for heavy gym sessions. In this rating system, IPX5 means they have enough protection to be safe against water projected from a nozzle, while IPX4 is protection from splashed water.
We tested the EarFun Air Pro 2s multiple times in the gym while doing both weights and cardio. There were no complaints. The ear tips were very comfortable, didn’t fall out when running, and the ANC numbed out the gym’s terrible dance music.
Another nice feature is that if you do take one of the earbuds out, the EarFun Air Pro 2s will automatically pause your music or podcast, which will then resume once it’s put back in. It’s great to see the earbuds using Bluetooth 5.2 standard, so we also never had an issue with connection strength to our Android phone or laptop.
EarFun Air Pro 2: sound quality
One big selling point of the EarFun Air Pro 2s is ANC of up to 40dB (decibels), which is the scale used to show the sensitivity of human ears to sound frequencies. Broadly, 0dB is the quietest sound a human ear can hear, while anything over 140dB is likely to start to cause pain for most people. In one popular example, 40dB is roughly the frequency of a quiet library, while nearby whispers average out at 30dB.
The Air Pro 2s – with ANC turned on and loud music playing – will reduce ambient noises around you – such as lower-level conversations in an office, airplane engine drones, light street sounds and traffic from a distance – but you will still be able to hear normal conversations, car horns, sirens, alarm clocks and handclaps.
The earbuds have three separate listening modes, which can be switched by holding in the left bud for two seconds. Normal mode turns off the ANC, while the “ambient” mode lets in slightly more background noise and “noise cancelling” turns ANC on.
In testing, we found the ANC mode the best option for sound quality. It enhances the bass and provides a fuller audio experience at loud volumes. This drains the battery faster than normal mode, but the difference in quality was noticeable, particularly when compared to ambient mode – which we ended up avoiding at all costs.
In ambient, music was thinner and tinny – and at low volumes produced an unpleasant fuzziness. Thankfully, the fuzz disappears in the normal mode, but that base mode still has too much treble and too little bass for our liking. It seems the EarFun Air Pro 2s are at their best with the ANC turned on, and that’s how we used them.
Each earbud has three microphones, including one outward-facing mic that claims to reduce ambient noise. We found the sound quality during a video call to be solid, but not quite up to par when compared to a wired set of Apple EarPods, which produced clearer audio. But the Air Pro 2s will still be more than suitable for most users.
EarFun Air Pro 2: battery life
Alongside the ANC, the battery life on the Air Pro 2s is another strength, with each bud having a 45mAh battery and the charging case having a 500mAh battery – providing a little over 30 hours total playtime – depending on listening mode and volume.
We found the battery life broadly aligned with the box specs, giving between five and six hours of use with the ANC on, which stretches to seven on the normal mode. Using the charging case tripled the time that was available from a full charge.
It will take between one and two hours for the charging case to reach capacity via a USB-C cable, but the Air Pro 2s do have a fast charging feature, so you can gain two hours of playtime from a 10-minute charge. One neat addition is that you can ditch the cables altogether as the charging case can be powered by a wireless charging pad – although this does stretch the total time-to-full to more than three hours.
Ultimately, we found little to complain about with the battery life. They easily lasted through a gym session and would be suitable for short flights and commutes. Do note that the charging case is not water-resistant – that’s only for the two earbuds.
EarFun Air Pro 2: set-up
Another plus is that setting up the Air Pro 2s couldn’t be easier – so they are a good option for anyone who isn’t well versed in messing around with Bluetooth settings.
When pairing for the first time, you open the charging case, and this will automatically power on the buds and look for connections. Launch Bluetooth on your device, and it will show the name of the earbuds. We consistently paired devices in seconds.
The slight annoyance is that to pair with a second device, you will have to manually unpair the earbuds and start the process again. If your device isn’t picking them up, you can put the buds back in the case and hold down a button for two seconds. The case will then start searching for any devices with open Bluetooth connections.
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Our verdict
With solid active noise cancellation for under £100, the EarFun Air Pro 2s are often impressive, and we were left with the impression they are worth the money. When the ANC is on, they shine – with full, bass-heavy audio that works very well with lots of different music genres – from heavy rock to chillout beats to acoustic folk.
The IPX5 rating and comfortability mean they are also an easy recommendation for anyone who needs a pair of true wireless earbuds for commuting or the gym.
But the budget price point does start to become evident when ANC is off, particularly the fuzz-heavy ambient mode. There’s no dedicated app for messing with the audio mix, and the on-bud touch controls may take a while to get used to.
So who are the EarFun Air Pro 2 for? Anyone who wants an in-ear alternative to their over-ear headphones without sacrificing too much quality, but the main selling point will always be those who want ANC without having to pay flagship prices.
Who are they not for? Anyone who wants earbuds from a big brand like Apple, Bose or Sony, alongside haters of the stem shape design and lovers of bright colours.
Where to buy
The EarFun Air Pro 2 earbuds are available at Amazon for £69.99.
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