The Cheapest Earbuds I’d Buy in a Heartbeat

I’ve been preaching about the comfort and easy use of over-ear headphones for a while now (especially after getting a pair of wireless ones last Christmas). That said, I more often than not found myself having to take calls or listen to music on my wired earphones. They’re easy to carry around but they always drop out of my ears or get tangled. So, I started looking at wireless earbuds as a nice middleground and found the TaoTronics TT-BH053, a great looking pair for around a third of the price of AirPods. Can I recommend them? Yes – although they’re far from perfect.

TaoTronics SoundLiberty 53 won’t fall from your ears, no matter what you do

The TT-BH053 wireless earbuds from TaoTronics (also called SoundLiberty 53) might have the pipe design AirPods are known for but thankfully, they don’t share the same “hard” case. This means that when you order a pair, you will get three tips sizes in the box, also.

The medium ones were too big in my case, so I tried the small tips. The first try was a bit tricky – I spend a couple of minutes fitting them but once I got the hang of it, they did not fall off.

A bit of context for you: the slippery design has always been my pet peeve when it came to wireless buds. Therefore, I was reasonably ecstatic when the TaoTronics ones fit snugly no matter what I did. Oh, I ran with them, jumped, danced – they didn’t move a “muscle.”

Long-lasting, easy to power on and off

One thing I hate is having to blindly seek for power or volume buttons on wireless headphones once I put them on.

The TaoTronics SoundLiberty 53 don’t require that from me, luckily. After pairing them with my phone – which is a breeze, really -, every time you pull them out of the case they power on and connect automatically.

It’s fast, easy and hassle-free. I got around 5 hours of listening time – as promised – with the volume at medium and around 4 hours when I braced myself and turned the volume as high as it would go.

Touch controls could be better

How intuitive are the SoundLiberty 53 true wireless earbuds? Pretty intuitive. Play/Pause requires two taps on either bud while volume levels can be adjusted with just one tap on the right bud (to raise) or one on the left bud (to lower).

Now comes the tricky part. If you happen to tap and not remove your finger instantly, the TaoTronics will believe you want to access the voice assistant intentionally. I ended up talking to Siri more times than I intended, let me tell you.

Skipping tracks is worse – you have to tap three times in a row, FAST, to get your earbuds to go forward or backward. Sometimes, I simply gave up and suffered through all the tracks than try to skip them.

Sounds quality vs price

I’ll admit – I tried really hard to see if there was anything sound-related to chastize the TaoTronics for. While noise-cancellation is pretty great for a pair of unassuming wireless earbuds, I find they lack the thumpy bass I’ve come to love (noticeable even with the standard iPhone earphones) and instead have a bit too much treble push, making the sound sharper but not necessarily fuller.

If you’re not a picky listener (and not a reviewer), you’ll find them just fine.

That will ring more true when I remind you that these earbuds cost less than $50!

You can buy them from Amazon, here.

Bottom line: I’d buy them in a heartbeat! For a budget pair of earbuds, they fit great, connect fast and offer good sound, cancelling noise surprisingly well.

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