Review cover Creative Outlier Air headphones (Hardware)
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Wireless earphones are all the rage these days, with most smartphones doing away with the ol' reliable headphone jack. Is it worth cutting the cord?

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Summary

Creative have kindly sent us their "Outlier Air" headphones for review. These aren't any normal headphones, however, as they are completely wireless, similar to Apple's Airpods, except about half the price. They have a microphone, Bluetooth 5.0 support, and effectively have 30 hours of battery life with the charging case.

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Ease of Use

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Something that has always concerned me about these fancy new wireless earbuds is the ease of use. With my wired earphones it's a plug and play experience, whilst the concept of Bluetooth earphones has always struck me as something tedious. That said, I'm pleasantly surprised by how quickly it is to get up and running with the Outlier Air earphones. I'm sure this is standard for wireless earphones to connect so easily, but it was impressive nonetheless. After the initial sync, the earphones connect to my phone automatically after turning on, making them just as easy to use as my wired earphones.

Unfortunately, though, there's a glaring problem. The in-ear controls are uncomfortable. In order to use them, you need to press the large, circular button that sticks out of your ear, and it can be a pain. In order to use them effectively, I need to take one out and input the command. I'm not sure if this is something to do with my ears in particular, but a few Amazon reviews mention this, too. I've been informed of other products utilising a touch panel instead, and that sounds like a far superior implementation. For now, though, I'm going to opt for my phone controls instead.

Wired vs Wireless 

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The advantages and disadvantages between wired and wireless earphones may seem obvious, but how many of them really matter? The most obvious disadvantage with these newfangled wireless earbuds is quite simply the fact that they aren't wired. This means that any device that doesn't support Bluetooth audio devices is left in the dust. This includes hardware such as the 3DS and Switch, which can be a bummer if you want to play those in public. Quite simply, you'll have to end up carrying around a pair of wired earphones. This is not a small deal to me, as I do like being able to use earphones with my consoles. There's also the disadvantage of the battery life, but with 30 hours of playtime when including the charge from the case, I don't think it's too big a deal. There's also considerable latency if you're not using Bluetooth 5.0.  This can be a problem when watching videos or playing games, but is otherwise not an issue. The good news is that devices with Bluetooth 5.0 fare much better, and seem to have far less perceptible latency.

Clearly, the disadvantage of wired earphones is that they are wired. Funny how that works out, huh? I was never too into the idea of wireless earbuds, but after actually trying them on, the experience is liberating. I don't have to worry about the wires getting tangled, or getting caught on something as walk. This is a completely untethered experience, making the wireless earphones significantly more convenient than wired earphones. You're free of that annoying cable you'd usually have to deal with. I'd even argue that it would be harder to lose them, since they come with the nice little case.

Compatibility

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Review image

I personally only have two Bluetooth compatible devices, excluding consoles that use it for their controllers. These are my Samsung Galaxy S6, my OnePlus 6T, and my Windows PC. I mostly use my PC's capabilities for controllers, and very rarely use my phone's Bluetooth. With my S6, the earphones worked flawlessly. Sound quality and range were good, and I never got disconnected. This was only improved on the OnePlus 6T, with seemingly better range, and less latency. Calls worked well on mobile devices, with the other participant being able to hear me most of the time. The only problems I had were in loud areas such as trains or busy roads, where I was frequently asked to repeat things. While they aren't advertised to work with PC, I decided to give them a go anyway, and the results weren't so good. There was audio distortion and disconnection problems. I see little reason to use these with a computer anyway, but if you would like to do that, keep in mind that the experience isn't great.

 

Battery Life

Creative claims that the earphones themselves have a ten-hour battery life when fully charged, with the charging case providing an additional twenty. I think this is reasonable for a set of wireless earphones. After all, you should be placing them in the charging case when finished anyway, and most people don't listen to so much music that they'd encounter battery problems in less than a few days. It is worth mentioning, though, that Bluetooth is a huge drain on my phone's battery life, so I would absolutely have my phone die before using up the 10-hour charge.

 

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • Decent sound quality
  • Good battery life
  • Unbridled freedom
  • It uses USB C!
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Mediocre in-ear controls
  • Latency with older versions of Bluetooth
8
out of 10

Overall

Overall, the Outlier Air earphones are super cool. They're liberating, comfy, and subtle. The sound quality is good enough for me, and they'll probably become my main set of earphones. A few things could be improved, such as better in-ear controls, and maybe even noise-cancelling, but overall, they're wonderful. If you don't have a headphone jack, these are a fine choice.
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For the Switch (and maybe even the 3DS), I have the Trond adapter that requires charging, but it plugs into the 3.5mm jack on both devices and acts as a BT transmitter. Sucks that you have to buy another peripheral, but then again, yours truly has a lot of money that he's earned from his retail job to get everything he wants before moving out in a year or two!
 
They remind me of the Jabra Elites...

If anyone is thinking about getting the Jabra Elite 65t's, DO NOT. The rubber pieces provided are all extremely uncomfortable and scrape the ears, and the sound quality is horrible, unlike what all the reviewers glorify it to be. Sony's WF-1000XM3 are the best at the moment.
 
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If anyone is thinking about getting the Jabra Elite 65t's, DO NOT. The rubber pieces provided are all extremely uncomfortable and scrape the ears, and the sound quality is horrible, unlike what all the reviewers glorify it to be. Sony's WF-1000XM3 are the best at the moment.

A SONY WF-1000XM3 BRUTHA! IT'S ALL ABOUT 'DAT BASS, YO!?
 
A SONY WF-1000XM3 BRUTHA! IT'S ALL ABOUT 'DAT BASS, YO!?

I don't believe this is one of those haha, look it up. It's currently adored by headphone communities, and while it does have good bass, it's balanced well. (not the bass overpowers everything else kind of thing)
 
I don't believe this is one of those haha, look it up. It's currently adored by headphone communities, and while it does have good bass, it's balanced well. (not the bass overpowers everything else kind of thing)

It's that and the noise cancellation. (yes, I got these yesterday via pickup at Best Buy because it seems like the S10+ Glow and these, regardless of the color, can't stay in glass cases at my local Best Buy, and I understand why!)

Have you tried pairing these with Windows 10, btw? Do they suck as hard as using the over-ear models? Because that was what put me off of them before I got my Sennheiser HD650 for home listening and gaming; if it even connected, the audio would lag all over the place, but on my phone? It worked like a charm! Just curious.
 
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It's that and the noise cancellation. (yes, I got these yesterday via pickup at Best Buy because it seems like the S10+ Glow and these, regardless of the color, can't stay in glass cases at my local Best Buy, and I understand why!)

Have you tried pairing these with Windows 10, btw? Do they suck as hard as using the over-ear models? Because that was what put me off of them before I got my Sennheiser HD650 for home listening and gaming; if it even connected, the audio would lag all over the place, but on my phone? It worked like a charm! Just curious.

I don't have it yet lol, was just speaking from good sources, I've only owned the Jabra Elites when it comes to true wireless, but I am planning to get this sometime next year if it doesn't get surpassed.

Your wired over-ears lag on Windows 10? That's a serious issue, that isn't supposed to happen. Unless you mean using your Sony's, there must be something wrong with your Bluetooth adapter, or drivers+settings.
 
I don't have it yet lol, was just speaking from good sources, I've only owned the Jabra Elites when it comes to true wireless, but I am planning to get this sometime next year if it doesn't get surpassed.

Your wired over-ears lag on Windows 10? That's a serious issue, that isn't supposed to happen. Unless you mean using your Sony's, there must be something wrong with your Bluetooth adapter, or drivers+settings.

Sorry, I meant some Sony MDR950BTs that I had until the lagging became so bad that I switched to a pair of Sennheisers after giving a pair of ATH-M50xs a try that I'm planning on selling this week. It would lag like crazy over BT. Sure, I could use a wired connection to my PC for those, but that kind of defeats the point, doesn't it? :/ So I decided to sell them to an older brother at a price that was a steal that goes to the gym and uses his phone more often than I do. (not that I don't use mine often, of course!)

I'm just curious if these lag over Windows 10 like the 950BTs did as well. I even tried the over ear variant of the 1000XM3 and that had the same issues with lag and connection loss and everything else!
 
Sorry, I meant some Sony MDR950BTs that I had until the lagging became so bad that I switched to a pair of Sennheisers after giving a pair of ATH-M50xs a try that I'm planning on selling this week. It would lag like crazy over BT. Sure, I could use a wired connection to my PC for those, but that kind of defeats the point, doesn't it? :/ So I decided to sell them to an older brother at a price that was a steal that goes to the gym and uses his phone more often than I do. (not that I don't use mine often, of course!)

I'm just curious if these lag over Windows 10 like the 950BTs did as well. I even tried the over ear variant of the 1000XM3 and that had the same issues with lag and connection loss and everything else!

Are you using a desktop PC? If so, are you using one of those cheap bluetooth adapters? For the Sony MDR950BT's, you need a Bluetooth 3.0 adapter or higher, a previous version may cause issues like you were having. And line of sight is also very important, if you're plugging it behind your PC, you definitely can expect a lot of lag, which is why on your phone it's much better; the headphones are directly in sight of the bluetooth transmitter.

There's nothing wrong with Windows 10 specifically here. If it is a software issue, updating the bluetooth drivers or doing some troubleshooting should help eliminate the issue if that's the case.
 
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If anyone is thinking about getting the Jabra Elite 65t's, DO NOT. The rubber pieces provided are all extremely uncomfortable and scrape the ears, and the sound quality is horrible, unlike what all the reviewers glorify it to be. Sony's WF-1000XM3 are the best at the moment.

i want to get the Sony one but it's not dust/sweat/spray proof.
 
Yes that's sadly one of the only cons, though it should be fine unless you plan to go gymming or something.

I use my Bragi Dash Pro for the gym and I wanted to replace it with the Sony. It's sad but I don't have a use for the Sony as I have a better Sennheiser OTE headphones for home listening. :(
Hopefully they'd come out with a WF-1000XM4 with good IP ratings.
 
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If anyone is thinking about getting the Jabra Elite 65t's, DO NOT. The rubber pieces provided are all extremely uncomfortable and scrape the ears, and the sound quality is horrible, unlike what all the reviewers glorify it to be. Sony's WF-1000XM3 are the best at the moment.
I got the Jabras, I've had them for a little over half a year now. I think they're wonderful and quite comfortable. Sound quality is great, especially bass wise. I think the biggest determinate of whether you like the Jabras or not can depend on your phone because they sucked on my google pixel 1 and had a terrible connection, but after recently getting a Pixel 3a I've had great connection quality and I feel like the audio quality has improved a bit as well. My only gripe with them is the case is not as modern or convenient as the case for Galaxy buds or Airpods.
Personally, I would wholeheartedly endorse the Jabras. I love em.
Edit: there's an audio equalizer on the Jabra app, I found that your listening quality greatly varies between which setting you use. The default setting is rather underwhelming, in my experience, using the bass boost function of the equalizer dramatically increases the audio quality of the Jabras. I feel like they have a lot of potential, they're just held back by the default preset.
 
I got the Jabras, I've had them for a little over half a year now. I think they're wonderful and quite comfortable. Sound quality is great, especially bass wise. I think the biggest determinate of whether you like the Jabras or not can depend on your phone because they sucked on my google pixel 1 and had a terrible connection, but after recently getting a Pixel 3a I've had great connection quality and I feel like the audio quality has improved a bit as well. My only gripe with them is the case is not as modern or convenient as the case for Galaxy buds or Airpods.
Personally, I would wholeheartedly endorse the Jabras. I love em.

Well, speaking from the sound quality perspective, this is coming from someone who uses a med-high end pair of headphones, even the ATH-M50x is much better. I used the Jabras with a DAP suited to do bluetooth well but that didn't change the quality much, it was still disappointing. It is alright though when compared to something like airpods, the sound quality in that case is much better. For the price they're alright, but when reviewers mention it has really good sound quality, that's an exaggeration and was very misleading.
 
Well, speaking from the sound quality perspective, this is coming from someone who uses a med-high end pair of headphones, even the ATH-M50x is much better. I used the Jabras with a DAP suited to do bluetooth well but that didn't change the quality much, it was still disappointing. It is alright though when compared to something like airpods, the sound quality in that case is much better. For the price they're alright, but when reviewers mention it has really good sound quality, that's an exaggeration.
Sorry, I just added an edit to my other comment. Did you ever try the music equalizer function on the Jabra app? I found that depending on the setting you use, it can change your listening experience a lot.
 
Sorry, I just added an edit to my other comment. Did you ever try the music equalizer function on the Jabra app? I found that depending on the setting you use, it can change your listening experience a lot.

As I've said in the past, if you need EQ to compensate for the sound quality of a product, it's not a good product. But thank you, I will try using EQ for this, that way I can use it for certain things, but it is still uncomfortable for my ears which smarts when I wear them, and mind you I'm not the only one on this boat.
 
As I've said in the past, if you need EQ to compensate for the sound quality of a product, it's not a good product. But thank you, I will try using EQ for this, that way I can use it for certain things, but it is still uncomfortable for my ears which smarts when I wear them, and mind you I'm not the only one on this boat.
Right, yeah. I get what you mean. And Jabras definitely aren't for every ear-shape, I'm just lucky to have the ears I have.
 
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