Best wireless earbuds 2024: top pairs tested by our experts (2024)

Wireless earbuds are unsurprisingly a hugely popular category of audio products, offering tons of choices available at every level. Small, Bluetooth in-ears are now the go-to choice for many music listeners thanks to the constantly improving quality they can provide paired with the convenience of going wireless.

After just a few minutes of looking, it can feel like there are millions of models out there and it can be difficult to know where to focus your attention. Luckily, we have tested hundreds of wireless earbuds so you don't need to.

We know the market inside out and can confidently pick the best pairs out there across all price points. Through our reviews, you can be confident that you're buying the best wireless earbuds for your particular needs.

The guide you can see below shows the best pairs to have passed through our test rooms that are available to buy right now. Every pair here has been tested by our team of audio experts who have over 100 years of collective experience in reviewing, so you can trust our buying advice.

You can see a detailed breakdown of what we look for when testing Bluetooth buds below, or use the links to jump down the page and see our choice of the best wireless earbuds money can buy right now.

The quick list

The best wireless earbuds overall

With the WF-1000XM5, Sony has managed to produce another sensational pair of wireless earbuds.

There's a new design to behold, and we think it's a big step forward. During testing , we found the XM5 to be comfortable and nice to use, while their noise-cancelling and call quality are up there with the competition. Looking for the clearest and most detailed sonic performance from a pair of wireless earbuds on the market right now? The WF-1000XM5 produce it – and by quite some distance.

They're not quite as rich or full in the bass as we've come to expect from flagship earbuds from Sony but we found there's so much detail and texture to every track you play through them, it makes them a great choice for fans of any musical genre.

Add to that an eight-hour battery life (plus 16hrs from the case), Multipoint Bluetooth (so you can connect to two devices simultaneously), excellent noise cancellation (they seem to remove an extra layer of midrange noise compared to their predecessors, the XM4) andIPX4-rated sweat resistance, and this is a solid offering across the board.

There's no shortage of competition at this price, including the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II and AirPods Pro 2, which also feature in this list for different reasons. We've also got the recently announced Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 to look forward to reviewing in the next couple of months – they could be real contenders if previous form is anything to go by.

But for most people, most of the time, the Sonys are great all-rounders. Keep an eye out for price drops around big sales events like Black Friday.

Read our full Sony WF-1000XM5 review

Best cheap wireless earbuds

These wireless buds aren't from what you'd consider one of the larger, heavy-hitting brands, but they are ridiculously affordable and they sound great for the money too!

The Earfun Air are also packed with features. Noise-cancelling is out of the picture at this price, but there's excellent noise isolation and these well-fitting wireless earphones feel comfy too. They're also waterproof to IPX7 standards (submersible in one metre of water for up to 30 mins), support virtual assistants and include Qi wireless charging if you've got a suitable charger to hand.

Calls sound clear, and the battery life is seven hours from the buds and a further 28 hours from the charging case. Amazingly it all feels fairly premium too. The Bluetooth 5.0 connection is solid and stable and for the money, the wireless earbuds offer an energetic and spacious sound.

If you’re after something fun-sounding and affordable, the Earfun Air wireless earbuds could be just the ticket.

Read our full Earfun Air review

Best mid-price wireless earbuds

Sony's excellent wireless earbuds slot neatly between the budget WF-C500 (no ANC, below) and premium WF-1000XM5 (above).

And we think they're brilliant options that more than justify their price tag. The buds are impressively small, and their lightweight design helps make them even more comfortable than Sony's XM4. Battery life is competitive at seven and a half hours.

They lack aptX HDandLDAC but do feature noise-cancelling tech, which the WF-C500 lack. Adaptive Sound Control automatically switches listening modes depending on your location, and Sony's DSEE (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) upscales low-res digital audio files to higher quality. A software update has seen Bluetooth Multipoint also added so you can be connected to two devices simultaneously.

We think the Sony's sound quality is superbly balanced too, with deep, detailed bass, expressive mids and engaging highs. They're a very musical listen for the money and a clear step up from the cheaper WF-C500.

Downsides? The lack of support for aptX HDandLDAC is disappointing, and the charging case only provides one extra charge which seems a little mean. But the superb sound and great feature set make these easy to recommend as some of the best Sony headphones available.

Read our full Sony WF-C700N review

Best wireless earbuds for battery life

Think of Sony's WF-C500 wireless earbuds as a no-frills version of the WF-1000XM5 found further up this page. They deliver a lot of what makes those wireless earbuds a success without cutting too many corners.

They're good for running and sports, thanks to their IPX4 rating, while you also get ‘fast pair’ connectivity with Android devices and ‘swift pair’ with Windows 10 PCs.

We think the sound is nicely balanced, there's loads of mid-range detail on show and it's presented in a cohesive and musical package.

Battery life is 10 hours from the buds themselves, which is a real highlight and should be plenty for most, and the case provides another 10 hours. If you're looking for the best Bluetooth earbuds with great battery life and don't want to spend a fortune, the Sony WF-C500 should be on your shortlist.

Read our full Sony WF-C500 review

Best noise-cancelling wireless earbuds

We all know Bose knows how to make a great pair of wireless headphones and the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds have to be considered its finest wireless earbuds to date.

The Ultra provide a comfortable fit and lots of features. Bluetooth 5.3 is a big bonus, while they are also Bose's first in-ears to offer its very own spatial audio tech, Immersive Audio.

The Bose app allows you to alter the amount of noise-cancelling on offer via a number of customisable presets and, speaking of noise-cancelling, the new Bose are still at the top of their game. They can automatically adjust the amount of ANC on offer so your music isn’t drowned out by particularly loud noises and the effect is deeply impressive. As for sound, it's balanced and neutral and overflowing with fine detail. Call quality is good for the money too.

It's a shame there's no support for high-quality wireless audio codecs such asLDACoraptX HD, nor is there wireless charging or Bluetooth multipoint (both of which the Sony WF-1000XM5 cater for). But we don't think this is the end of the world when you consider that these classy buds ooze such sophistication.

The Ultra actually replace the company's 2022 What Hi-Fi? Award winner – the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, so shop around and you might be able to find a big chunk of cash slashed off the older pair. It's an option worth considering.

Read our full Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds review

Best AirPods

Apple's in-ear AirPods have always been decent wireless earbuds, but unremarkable. They've picked up quite a number of four-star reviews over the years. But with the AirPods Pro 2, Apple has made a pair of wireless buds that delivers the goods.

How? Noise-cancelling is better, battery life is longer, and you get new features and, more importantly, much improved sound quality. They also cost the same as the original AirPods Pro, which helps.

Fit is very good, and the tweaked design feels a lot less intrusive than some in-ears. Apple has finally added on-bud volume controls, which takes the user experience up a level too.

The noise-cancelling works a treat, while Adaptive Transparency muffles loud noises when letting in ambient sounds. And the sound quality? With weight, detail and a good dose of dynamic subtlety, they really are accomplished performers.

Read our full Apple AirPods Pro 2 review

Best wireless earbuds for running

Yes, you can get wireless earbuds not geared towards sport that, for a similar price, deliver more detail and dynamic subtlety (look further up this list for inspiration). But, unlike these JBLs, they won’t have the finely-honed ergonomics or rugged design that's required to be hailed as ideal fitness buddies.

Within the context of wireless earbuds for exercise, the Reflect Flow Pro perform well across the board. They're waterproof, lightweight, comfortable and come with multiple ear tip fin options. Battery life is a very decent 10 hours (or eight with ANC on) while the wireless charging case stores an extra 20 hours. They also produce a lively, detailed sound that makes them easy to recommend.

Read our full JBL Reflect Flow Pro review

How to choose the best wireless earbuds for you

One thing you will need to bear in mind is that everyone's ears are different, which means that whether or not a pair of earbuds are comfortable tends to come down to personal preference. We can give a bit of guidance comfort once we've tested them, but there's no substitute for sliding them into your own ears. If you've got ears on the shallow side, for example, we'd go for a physically smaller or flatter earbud that won't stick out much.

After comfort, you'll want to think about when and where you're going to use them. Do they need to be water-resistant, sport-friendly earbuds or do they just need to pair to your smartphone and survive your daily commute?

How we test wireless earbuds

How we test wireless earbuds

Before we start our listening tests, we first experiment with any tips provided to make sure we've got a perfect seal. This ensures that sound quality (particularly bass) isn't affected and we can also evaluate the level of comfort on offer too.

We'll also start with a full charge and see how accurate battery life claims are and just how it's drained during day-to-day use.

Although we have dedicated testing facilities in London, Reading and Bath, the bulk of our wireless earbuds testing happens outside those facilities, whether that's on the street or in our busy office.

It's only when nailing down the finer details of audio quality, we head for quieter environments where we compare the wireless earbuds we're testing to price comparable models and current class-leaders at the money. This gives us the chance to come to solid conclusions and peg each pair on sound quality.

Obviously, testing ANC wireless earbuds requires quite the opposite - here we venture outside to put noise-cancelling algorithms through their paces and also test any transparency mode to see how well it works.

We'll also test the call quality of the earbuds, to make sure the wearer can be heard in both calm and windy conditions (weather permitting, of course).

As with all headphones, we run wireless earbuds in for several hours before evaluating sound quality. We'll also download and fire up any Android/iOS apps that are available that can affect the user experience. How easy is it to use, what features does it offer, how useful are they and how well are they executed?

All our review verdicts are agreed upon by the team rather than an individual reviewer to eliminate any personal preference and to make sure we're being as thorough as possible, too. There's no input from PR companies or our sales team when it comes to the verdict, withWhat Hi-Fi?proud of having delivered honest, unbiased reviews for decades.

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