I’m generally not a fan of the emerging ‘open-ear’ style of earbuds. The kind that sit just outside of your ears, and play your music in the general direction of your ear holes.
I’ve tried several, but they’ve all felt… lacking, in some way or another. Be it sound quality, battery life, bass reproduction, or comfort, this style of open buds never quite compares to the best wireless earbuds.
Even the otherwise excellent Bose Ultra Open earbuds don’t really do it for me. They’re the most impressive, but they don’t fit with enough security for me to like them.
Honor is the latest manufacturer to try its hand at open earbuds with the Earbuds Open, launched at MWC 2025.
I’m skeptical given my lackluster experience with the form factor and yet, Honor might’ve finally done it. I’ve got a pair in my ears right now and, so far, they’re the best open-ears I’ve ever tried.
The cream of the crop?
Let’s start with what I like: The Honor Open look stylish. From their positively paper-like case to their shiny touch surfaces, the buds have a unique style that perhaps other open buds should start thinking about.
The colorway that I’ve got here is so-called “Polar Gold”, and it’s made up of a creamy beige and shiny golden accents. I like it — in a world of white and grey earbuds, it’s nice to have some different shades to shake things up.
They’re a pretty pair of buds, that’s for sure. There’s a leather effect on the case to make things feel more premium (despite a lower price), and everything feels like it’s made of top-notch materials.
That said, I’m still not 100% sure if I’m on board with the open-ear concept to begin with, aesthetics-wise. Sure, Honor’s are easily the best looking, but they’re still large and obtrusive.
Admittedly, I don’t think there’s much you can do with the format beyond Bose’s madcap clip-on earring design, so perhaps this is as good as things can get with this form factor.
Just like Apple’s AirPods 4 (which I suppose you could also call open — and I had my own issues with those), the Earbuds Open feature ANC. But, like… why? I’ll be going over the ANC in my full review, but I’ll just say this here — I’m not sure why ANC is present, and it doesn’t really work well enough to justify its existence.
While it’s not worse than the ANC, the touch controls are just adequate. It’s no secret that I don’t much like touch controls, whether that’s on a pair of earbuds or a pair of the best wireless headphones. I prefer buttons to wildly touching my ears in futile attempts to change track or switch ANC modes.
When done well, touch controls are almost tolerable — and the touch controls here are almost fine. But they’re attached to a bud that, when pressed, moves into your ear cavity. My touches were often not registered, and there was an uncomfortable scraping as they rubbed my inner ear.
Would a button have solved this? No, but I think the fit might have. If the touch panels were on the ear hook-stem things or the buds fitted better in the ear, it might not have been a problem.
The saving grace
Look, my biggest problem with open earbuds has generally been the way that they sound. Thanks to the way that they fit, they often struggle with bass, and even the lower mids.
Honor seems to have done the most admirable job here — despite their open fit, the bass reproduction from the Honor Earbuds Open is excellent (for the class). There’s some real depth here.
I’m not saying they’ll outdo any of the top-tier in-ear earbuds like the Sony WF-1000XM5, but they get very close, and that’s not something I thought I’d be saying about a pair of open buds.
Slipping into my favorite Devin Townsend tracks revealed some hefty bass weight that, for a moment, made me forget that the buds weren’t inside my ears.
Slipping into my favorite Devin Townsend tracks revealed some hefty bass weight that, for a moment, made me forget that the buds weren’t inside my ears. Distorted guitars were crisp and well-defined, and dancing basslines showed some grunt.
They manage well for Jazz classics too — John Coltrane’s Blue Train sounded big and smooth, with emphasis on the double bass. They sound conventionally good — which in my eyes outweighs some of my perceived issues with the open-ear format.
Opening my eyes (and ears)
I still need to spend more time with them but, despite my generally negative opinion of the form factor, these open earbuds have genuinely opened my eyes.
The Honor Earbuds Open seem to have ironed out the sound issues I’ve had previously with the format, and the fit is more secure than the Bose Ultra Open. They look nice and they’ve got some interesting features if you’ve an Honor phone, too.
The lackluster 6-hour battery life is about par for the course (although not exemplary), and it is a shame that the AI translation features are only available on the latest Honor handsets.
But given that open-ear ‘buds will only get more popular, it’s perhaps high time I got on board — and the Honor Earbuds Open might be my way in.
