Creative Zen Air Pro (Black) Lightweight True Wireless Sweatproof in-Ears with Active Noise Cancellation, Ambient Mode, LE Audio, Bluetooth 5.3, IPX5, Up to 33 Hours Battery Life

Love theseGreat value for the $ and the sound is crisp and clear

I got these Zen Air Pro in July 2024 (currently Oct. 2024)... what a disaster! Some of the ugly stuff:1) When it connects to my laptop, using Intel Bluetooth adapter, it always connect in low quality call mode, I have two connect two times in order for high quality mode to be picked up.2) Sudden movements of the head (looking at a side, or moving the head upwards) makes the connection to drop for an instant, then it takes about 2s for both earbuds to sync, meanwhile sound is all over the place. Sometimes this happens out of nowhere, while looking directly at the laptop screen or just sitting and listening to music... random loss of connection between left/right earbuds, so some clicking takes place, very annoying!3) Sometimes only the right earbud connects.4) Touch controls don't always work, I have to keep the booklet at hand because most of the time it enters a random mode because the number/duration of taps doesn't get picket up correctly.I noticed that may reviewers said that there is a firmware update, I'm going to try to do that, but out of the box this has been a very unpleasant experience. I use it with my laptop and Android phone. Issues 2-4 are the same with both devices.Sound quality isn't a huge improvement over the Oontz earbuds that cost about half. I'm very sad! Also, my main purpose to buy this is to test LC3 codec, but maybe I'm missing firmware updates on my Intel adapter, I don't see it anywhere.

While they solved the reconnection issues and the audio/mic quality is good for the price (in fact, I've initially replaced my 1 star review to a 4 star review), the feeling of very, very unpolished firmware/software is unacceptable. They're $50 now but I've paid full price ($80) for two of them, unacceptable for the current state and being poorly updated still.- Audio randomly cuts out when slightly moving the head, even being in front of the device, although it reconnects soon after- There's no way to know if firmware updates were released without connecting them on normal mode to a phone and loading the app, there should at least be a website with firmware dates and changelog, specially on an alpha-feeling device- LE mode, while it works, didn't allow me to select LC3 codec on either a Pixel 7a and a Galaxy Fold 5, and in both cases, it spams the "LE Audio connected/disconnected" playback at least 3 times before connecting- Sometimes they only display HSP profiles and codecs until reconnected- When I connect them on normal mode, the headphones never stop being discoverable so anyone can pair to them on LE mode (which means microphone access for anyone who connects without me knowing) how is this not a major issue? Should be fixed ASAP but after half a year with the devices, I already doubt it will

EDIT: So I am editing my review after prolonged usage of the earbuds. I still think they sound amazing for the price, but the battery life is really not as good as advertised. On a 100% charge, the earbuds last closer to 7-7.5hrs instead of the advertised 9. The charging case itself also seems to only be able to do 2 full charges. What's even more frustrating is that there's no indication when the case would be unable to charge the buds to 100%. There have been many times where I see two dots on the charging case before putting my earbuds in, but when I take them out, they're only 60% charged. The case still shows a single green dot instead of a clearer red dot or even a flashing green dot to indicate it's critically low. It just doesn't make for good user experience. If you want to ensure your buds are fully charged, you really have to baby it or keep it constantly plugged in.==========Like many reviewers here, I was also running into issues with one earbud disconnecting by itself, but with the latest Firmware 1.0.240618.1601 update, this seems to have been resolved! I almost returned these because of that issue, but I am glad they were finally able to fix it using software because the earbuds themselves are quite nice.The sound quality is amazing for the price, but that's par for the course with Creative earbuds in my experience. They fit well in my ears and don't come loose easily. The charging case is small and compact, which is a great departure from the blocky bricks that they previously provided with their Outlier product line. i do wish the earbud battery life was longer though, I tend to prefer 15 hours but 9 hours is certainly not bad.I was not able to test out the LE Audio functionality as trying to purchase a LE Audio capable USB Bluetooth dongle for your PC is practically impossible at this point in time. It really feels like LE Audio needs more time to penetrate the market before you can expect LE Audio everywhere, which is a shame considering it was the sole reason why I bought these earbuds in the first place.

It took several tries to get the firmware to update (which I presumed was why the left earbud thought it wasn’t charged). Had to select Help in the Creative Zen app and then the firmware updated. Even then, when the left earbud said 100% charged, I had it on for 10 minutes when it lost charge again.Also, the earbuds are difficult to remove from the case and the case has to lie on its side to plug in the charging cable. The magnetic case top is annoying.The sound quality on the one earbud that held the charge was very good and the Creative Zen app had great ambience options.My son has this set and he loves them. They were way more trouble than they were worth for me though.

I like lots of their product. Great price and excellent product. This earphone are very good. You have to download their app and have equalizer and you can change between mode (noise canceling, ambient, off). The only hard thing is some time to take out the earphone from the case. For me it’s not an issue. I have 3 of these. They are great.