I've tested scores of wireless earbuds but nothing quite like this

I've loved Nothing's earbuds ever since the UK-based tech firm started making them. In fact, the company's first ever product was the Nothing Ear 1 in 2021. Since then, there have been a few iterations, and I wrote more than once about my love of last year's Nothing Ear A, a budget set of wireless buds that punch well above their £89 price point.

Now we have the Nothing Ear 3, flagship earbuds that, despite the numbering, are actually the fourth iteration.

That means Nothing is promising improvements to sound quality, noise cancellation and AI smarts.

But that also comes with a considerable price increase on the outgoing £119 Nothing Ear, with the new Ear 3 priced at £179.

I've been testing the Ear 3 for a couple of weeks, and I'm not sure the £60 price bump is justified.

Nothing has given the buds a minor makeover despite the carry case and basic design looking practically the same as all previous generations. It's still a great look, and Nothing is still able to successfully carry the transparent tech aesthetic in 2025.

But the addition of aluminium to the buds and case feels a little like change for change's sake, a way for Nothing to differentiate its fourth flagship earbuds in five years. Perhaps we don't need a new pair each year.

That's actually already the strategy for Nothing's flagship smartphones, and the Nothing Phone 3 was all the better for coming two years after the Phone 2.

Also new to the Ear 3 is a microphone and button labelled 'TALK' on the charging case. The idea is you can press the button to engage with Google Gemini or Siri, depending on whether you're using an Android phone or iPhone, as well as other functions such as recording voice notes. You can even use it on calls.

I found the feature, called Super Mic, worked well enough, if with a little lag, on both platforms for voice assistants, but it's not obvious how to get the button to work in other apps. In fact, it doesn't work to record voice notes in WhatsApp and it wouldn't work in video calling apps.

The addition of the mic on the case also seems to be a direct admission that the mics on the earbuds you necessarily need to be wearing at the same time to use then aren't up to the job.

It felt weird to be wearing the earbuds to hear calls while using the case as the mic. If I want the cocoon of noise cancellation or the hands-free effect from wearing buds, I want to rely on the buds alone. Adding a mic on a case to the mix seems odd. When using it on a call I felt like I should just be holding the phone to my ear and not be using buds at all.

If this feature made the Ear 3 £60 pricier than the older version, I'll mark that down as a wrong move.

Sound quality is about as good as the previous Ear and Ear A, with no vastly noticeable improvements between generations. That could well be because we live in an audio hellscape of Spotify's awfully compressed files over Bluetooth, so it does depend on what you're listening to.

When I took the time to tune into Apple Music, which has better audio quality, and fiddled with the EQ settings in the excellent Nothing X app, things sounded more to my tastes.

The buds are also very comfortable to wear for hours at a time thanks to the non-circular tips that are actually shaped like an ear canal, and the lightweight build. Noise cancellation is above average but not as good as AirPods Pro 2, and the transparency mode is also behind Apple's best-in-class chops, but Nothing has done a solid job.

It's just that the solid job was more acceptable when it cost about £100. At £179, the Ear 3 feels overpriced and overengineered. I recommend buying the £89 Nothing Ear A instead before they go out of stock.

For £90 less than the Ear 3 you can get virtually the same audio and noise cancellation quality in buds that come in a smaller case. If you don't care about wireless charging or the Super Mic feature, they're a no brainer.

The Nothing Ear 3 are available to pre-order now and go on sale on September 25 for £179 from Nothing