Crystal clear audio at a sensible price: HONOR Earbuds 2 Lite review

With so many sets of earbuds and headphones on the market, What's The Best is on a mission to pull out the ones you should be splashing your hard-earned cash on. HONOR's latest offering, the Earbuds 2 Lite, promises big things for a purse-friendly price. But can it deliver? Deputy Commercial Content Editor, Jade Moscrop, puts them to the test.

Build

As someone who's been lucky enough to try out a variety of HONOR products thus far, I was excited to get my hands on the Earbuds 2 Lite. Compact and lightweight, they look great, guarantee industry-leading battery life and a nice variety of impressive features.

Straight out of the box, the case is much lighter than the Magic Earbuds I've previously tested, plus the case doesn't have annoyingly overpowering magnets that try to steal them from your clutches. A small niggle I am glad to see the back of. The headphones are similar in design, but the case is more akin to the Apple AirPods' style.

The quality is impressive, they're sleek and well-made, with three earbud sizes and a charging cable included in the box. In the ear, they're ridiculously lightweight (5.5g), comfortable and didn't irritate my ears - although, I did only ever wear them for around two hours at a time.

The case features a handy charging light on the front to keep you informed about the battery level and, again, is feather-light and easy to throw into your rucksack.

Related: The best wireless earbuds for fuss-free listening

Usability

The Earbuds 2 Lite connected up quickly to my iPhone during the initial setup and took mere seconds to sync from then on. The Magic Earbuds I tested previously had a habit of staying connected long after they were back in their case, something that's eradicated with the Earbuds 2 Lite.

They're simple to use; press twice while music is playing to play/pause, press twice while using your phone to answer/hang up and press and hold to cycle through the modes.

When you take out a single headphone, your music or podcast is paused to let you get on with whatever you need to do. Once reinserted, playback is resumed. You can also double-tap to pause the song you're listening to.

Performance

So, is the 'industry-leading battery life' all it's cracked up to be? In a word, yes. A ten-minute charge will get you four hours of music playback (without noise-cancelling), and all-in-all you can expect 32-hours battery life when you include the case for around an hour's charge.

I used them for a couple of hours at a time, always returning them to their case after use, and found that they were more than capable of getting me through a full day. Ideal for the commuters among you.

I even left them in the kitchen overnight, not on charge, and when I came to use them the next afternoon, the case confirmed there was still plenty of juice in the tank.

The Active Noise Cancelling is good, but don't expect it to totally block out extremely loud noises, such as cars passing close by. Music playback is crystal clear, with everything from A Day to Remember's All I Want to Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You sounding spot on.

Voice calls were pleasant and clear, although, on particularly windy days, the caller on the other end did note that they could notice the breeze.

Now, on to my favourite feature - Awareness. It's genius. If you regularly run with headphones in or take the tube, this will probably be your favourite setting. By switching to Awareness mode, you can hear ambient sounds around you, such as cars, people saying "excuse me" and even the birds chirping. Now, you can listen to your favourite tunes without fear of missing your name being called in the line at Starbucks.

Related: The best Sony headphones: on-ear, in-ear, premium and budget

Price

One of the best features of the Earbuds 2 Lite is the price. Despite being just £69.99, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd spent a fair bit more on them. HONOR is also very generous when it comes to Black Friday deals, so keep your eyes peeled if you're looking for a discount.

Verdict

All in all, the Earbuds 2 Lite are a solid piece of kit. For someone who's commuting, listening to a podcast while they walk or regularly taking calls on their phone, you can't do much better - especially for the price.

Of course, they don't have all the bells and whistles of the Apple AirPods or other high-priced models, but they get the job done - and well. The battery life is absolutely stellar, beating many of the more well-known brands in this area, that's a real standout feature for this product.

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How we tested it

I tested the headphones over a period of three months, using them for listening to music on walks and runs, taking calls and listening to podcasts at least once a day. Find out more about how we test.

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Jade Moscrop is the Deputy Editor for WhatsTheBest, specialising in lifestyle topics. She also writes for Closer, Heat, and Mother&Baby.

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