CMF BY NOTHING Buds 2 Plus

The CMF Buds 2 Plus deliver shockingly good mic quality and marathon battery life in a fun, bass-forward package. You'll want to EQ them to tame the low-end and hunt for a price under $80, but if you do, they embarrass plenty of more expensive buds. For value-hunters who take a lot of calls, these are a top pick.

The 12mm LCP driver pushes out a fun, energetic sound, though right out of the box it leans heavily into bass. You'll want to grab the Nothing X app and play with the EQ or the personalized sound test to dial things in, especially if you listen to a lot of classical or vocal-forward tracks. The adaptive ANC is a standout, hitting the 88th percentile in our database and doing a solid job hushing commutes and office chatter. Call quality is the real surprise here, landing in the 97th percentile for mic performance, which means those six mics and wind reduction algorithms actually deliver on their promise of clear calls even when it's breezy.

Stacked against the heavy hitters like the Sony WF-1000XM5 or Apple AirPods Pro 2, the CMF Buds 2 Plus hold their own in surprising ways, especially with mic quality and battery life. The Sonys will beat them on pure sound refinement and more polished ANC, and the AirPods win on ecosystem integration if you're deep in Apple's world. Compared to something like the EarFun Air Pro 4+, the CMF offers a more unique design and that LDAC codec, but EarFun often delivers a more balanced sound out of the box. You're trading a bit of polish for raw features and a killer price when you grab the CMFs.

This is where things get weird and wonderful. We've seen these listed from $59 all the way up to an absurd $812, so you absolutely have to shop around. At the lower end of that spread, these are a steal. You're getting a feature set that rivals earbuds costing three or four times as much. If you find them for under $80, it's a no-brainer. Just don't pay anywhere near that upper range, because at that point you're in Sony WF-1000XM5 territory and the game changes completely.

CMF by Nothing is basically Nothing's more affordable, experimental sibling, and the Buds 2 Plus pack a frankly ridiculous spec sheet for the price. You're getting LDAC, adaptive ANC rated at 50dB, a 12mm driver, and a case that holds over 60 hours of total battery. On paper, it reads like a flagship killer.

Skip these if you're an iPhone user who lives for the seamless, automatic device switching of AirPods. The ChatGPT integration and some ecosystem tricks are locked to Nothing phones, and you won't get LDAC on iOS. Also, if you hate tweaking settings and just want a perfect sound out of the box, the bass-heavy default tuning might annoy you.

If you want a pair of earbuds that sound great after a little tweaking, last forever on a charge, and make you sound like you're calling from a studio, these are a fantastic pick. They're ideal for Android users who want to tap into LDAC and don't mind spending five minutes in an app to perfect their EQ. The value here, assuming you find a sane price, is genuinely hard to beat.