I Ditched AirPods for These Cheaper Earbuds. Now They’re a Black Friday Steal

Black Friday Alert: Need a new pair of headphones? Don't sleep on Earfun's Air Pro 4 headphones, which are serious competitors to Apple's AirPods. What's more, they work great as backup headphones because you can never have too many pairs. Even at full price of $80 they are a real find, but during Amazon Black Friday Saleyou can get them even cheaper: they are currently 34% off, which reduces their price reduced to $56.

I like to use mine Sony over-ear headphones for work, but they are bulky, so I started looking for inexpensive headphones with decent noise cancellation for home use.

That's how I ended up buying it Air Pro 4s headphonesCNET Editor's Choice 2024 For affordable in-ear headphones.

In short, they are great and the black ones are in stock now. on Amazon for $56That's about the lowest price we've ever seen them sell for. Other colors are also sold; That glossy white And royal blue both cost $68.

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How these headphones drown out the noise around you

I prefer in-ear headphones because they offer active, electronic, and passive noise cancellation. Passive noise reduction basically involves plugging your ears with the rubber tips that come with your headphones.

The Earfuns fit me well when I'm using the second largest of five replacement ear tips, and they stay closed and comfortable for hours. Sometimes I have to close one of them after I yawn or something, but that goes for other in-ear headphones too.

For reading, I prefer the Earfun's “Strong ANC” noise-canceling mode, which makes a big difference in blocking out the noise around you, but there are plenty of other noise-canceling options. The Ambient Sound feature comes in handy when I want to pay attention to my surroundings.

Overall, I found the app easier to use than the Sony app and just as functional. The main difference is that Sony's app has an adjustable ambient sound slider.

The Earfun app also includes a white noise section. I usually prefer Spotify for the white noise (and download my favorite playlists for offline listening), but this feature is useful for people who don't have another music service. It includes birdsong, waves and rain – all short videos that repeat automatically.

Why I preferred these headphones to AirPods

These headphones have all the other features I expected, including the ability to connect to two devices at once and programmable touch controls on the headphones. Plus, the battery life is more than enough for me, even after a marathon reading session.

There's also a search feature if you've lost any of your headphones (however, unlike Apple's FindMy, they must be connected and within Bluetooth range). In terms of music and voice call quality, they sound good, although not as good as my larger Sonys.

I have an iPhone and briefly thought about buying Apple AirPods, but I didn't want to spend the money. AirPods 4 noise-cancelling ones cost $115 more than these Earfuns and have an open-ear design, so they rely entirely on an electronic (rather than passive) method. AirPods Pro 2 The in-ear ones are excellent, but I didn't want to spend $250 on a pair of extra headphones.

Yes, I could probably save some money on an even less expensive pair of noise-cancelling in-ear headphones, but I'm not sure I'd be as happy with their fit, long-term comfort, battery life, and noise-canceling performance. The Earfun Pro 4 headphones help me relax and concentrate on a book, and that's invaluable to me.

For even more savings on headphones, check out our roundup of them all best deals on headphonesor find great deals of all kinds in our review Best Amazon Prime Day Deals happening now.