Every other major player in the smartphone arena has tossed their hat into the wireless earbuds ring and now it’s Nokia’s turn. Like the company’s space in the smartphone pecking order, Nokia Clarity Earbuds carve their own path at a competitive price. And like their smartphones, stamina is a major selling point.
Business-Like
Nokia Clarity Earbuds differs a little from its smartphone cousins in the visual department. Where Nokia phones offer distinctive colours and textures, Clarity is muted and business-like.
When closed, our black review model is punctuated by a muted Nokia logo, functional LED, singular device button and a lick of icy green. This lick expands to fill the inside of the lid on opening the device – it’s a nice tease. The glossy cool blue with a hint of green breaks up the matte black and offers a neat contrast.
In spite of the splash of colour and the contrast it offers, the device overall wears a functional look. The colour and contrast lend Nokia Clarity Earbuds some uniqueness. The choice of colour helps tie the set to Nokia’s smartphone designs.
The buds themselves wear a glossy black in the visible surfaces and a matted black where the pair will meet your auricles. The stalks and driver housings are small and don’t dominate the ears visually. A nice touch to harmonise the package is the icy blue call light that illuminates on each ear when on a call.
Light and Easy
Nokia Clarity Earbuds’ case is in the treasure chest format. It’s a little chunkier than other ear buds cases at around 22mm thick. The case is somewhat light for its 45 x 25 x 21.8mm size at 42 grams.
Despite the light weight Clarity don’t feel flimsy. The lid closes with a firm snap while the hinge opens to to light click and stays open when you want it.
Sounds Surprisingly Good
For a pair offered at less than €70, Nokia Clarity Earbuds deliver excellent sound quality. Forgivably, the set lack the instrumentation, floor and clarity of premium buds but they do deliver a well-rounded sound.
The low-end is relatively smooth and accurate, handling heavier bass without washing away the higher registers. Only the bass-iest of tracks betray the price-point of the set and that’s impressive.
The mids are similarly pleasant. Bright without being harsh and detailed for the price. The upper register is detailed and mostly retains its audibility under walls of noise.
Nokia aren’t exactly selling Clarity as ‘entry-level audiophile’ but pitching the set as an ‘all-rounder that does business’ so I was pleasantly surprised at the musical quality across a wide range of genres.
Call Rounder
The ‘business’ part of the proposition is centred on the noise-cancelling system. Nokia Clarity uses two mics in each buds to level out the user’s voice and strip out echoes and background din.
In practice, it works well. Speaking somewhat quietly on the bus and train didn’t stop my callers from hearing me – which is what was promised.
The set doesn’t have Active Noise-Cancellation for audio but relies on a snug fit to attenuate the outside world. For lighter household or library noise, it’s effective.
But the sound damping can do little to stop the rumble of engines. An ANC system for the audio output would improve flights, buses, trains etc.
Luckily, Nokia do have a Clarity set in their range equipped with Active Noise-Cancellation (ANC), Nokia Clarity Earbuds Pro.
A Good Shift
One of the set’s stellar selling points is its stamina. The buds themselves can do up to nine hours – we generally got around eight. The case then carries up to 36 hours for a maximum runtime of 45 hours.
In practice, we hit closer to 40 but that’s a magnificent number nonetheless.
Mid-Range Connection
The device offers excellent clarity over BT 5.2 but it can degrade readily. When walking at pace with a phone bouncing around a bag or pocket, the sound quality scales aggressively. A little more bounciness and it can cut out.
While this isn’t a dealbreaker at this price, especially considering sound quality when the going is good, it’s something you’ll notice if you do jog for the bus or rush up a staircase while late for work.
Remote Control
Nokia Clarity Earbuds use an asymmetric layout with a relatively complex set of touches, taps and holds offering a large set of features without touching your phone.
While a lot of people love intuitive, limited, mostly symmetric schemes, others will gladly learn a more involved scheme to keep their phone in their pocket or bag as much as possible.
From the buds, you can perform eight individual actions, ten if you count contextual commands. The user can adjust volume, skip tracks, turn the buds on or off etc, answer or reject calls and a few more that might be worth a little effort to learn.
Additionally, each bud can be used separately as a mono earpiece, lending more business credibility.
