1MORE ComfoBuds Pro Earbuds Review: Some Good, Needs More
Purchase Price: $69.99
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With a unique design and well-advertised active noise cancellation, the 1MORE ComfoBuds Pro retail for $70 and look like the standard-bearer for the next generation of slim and modern earbuds. How do they perform when put to the test with real life usage? Let’s take a look.
What’s Included
I’ve opened my fair share of headphones and earbuds at this point for The Sypnotix. The 1MORE ComfoBuds Pro True Wireless headphones come standard with a charging case weighing in at 39.6g and each ear piece weighing individually at 5.5g. Overall, both the case and earbuds are lightweight and easily transportable. The case is a subtle matte black oval shape that feels soft to touch. The earbuds are unique looking consisting of a pin-shaped design in a dark gray color. They’re modern and look different from the typical white plastic AirPod pattern seen on many other earbuds. Included in the box are three sets of ear tips, a USB-C charging cable and a small cloth carrying pouch. While this is mostly standard in earbuds nowadays, all of these contribute nicely to the overall packaging and presentation.
When it comes to battery life, 1MORE claims a 28 hour battery life as well as fast charge, allowing for a 15 minute charge to get 2 hours of playtime. The ComfoBuds feature adjustable Active Noise Cancellation: ANC strong mode, ANC mild mode, wind noise resistant, pass-through-mode (transparency mode), and ANC off. There’s also an app to help users navigate through the different ANC settings and touch feature customizations on each earbud.
How Does it Hold Up?
First, let’s talk about battery life and how these perform with day to day use. Without a doubt, the 1MORE Comfobuds held up great for over two weeks of continuous testing for me. They charge quickly as advertised and I experienced zero drops in usage or random battery issues. When charging, the earpiece lights up to indicate when it’s currently being juiced up. There’s an additional battery indicator light on the case as well. While in theory this is a useful concept, the LED light on the charging case is small and difficult to distinguish between the yellow or green color. As a result, I found myself always uncertain what my battery life truly was while using these earbuds. It ended up never being a huge concern because the battery life held up without ever dropping down to zero, but I would have liked to see a better indicator status solution. You can also see battery life in-app as well, but to be completely honest, I’m not one to constantly mess around on another app for settings like that. It’s great for changing ANC and some customization settings, but at the end of the day, many of these earbud brands have the same finicky app that simply takes up more storage on our phones.
Fit and Comfort
The largest drawback for me when it came to the Comfobuds Pro was the fit. The comfort was never an issue, considering I would wear them on and off for a full day. However, I was unable to get the fit right. I alternated between different ear tips yet none of the three options felt snug enough for me to comfortably move with them on. I felt as if they were always on the verge of becoming loose and slipping out of my ear if there was too much shuffling about from my body. It could very well be the unique stem design that feels larger than the form factor would suggest when placed in my ear, but I felt as though I was also experiencing sound quality issues due to the improper fit on the earbuds. Additionally, I was unable to find information on whether these were water-resistant so I didn’t want to use them for vigorous exercise. Having been worried about the fit alone, I felt most comfortable wearing these just around my desk with minimal movement.
Form and Function
On the other hand, the 1MORE Comfobuds Pro are by far the fastest connecting headphones I have ever seen. They’re ready to play music before I can even get them in my ear. One of the best features is when you take the earbuds out of your ear when talking to someone, they will automatically pause the audio. I’ve seen this function on other earbuds, but the ComfoBuds Pro have done it the most consistently thus far. This playback is also customizable on the app.
When it comes to sound quality, I think ANC is a buzzword that brands feel they have to add to earbuds in order to advertise good sound functionality. As great as it is having ANC on a pair of earbuds, the sheer number of modes the ComfoBuds Pro have on it seems excessive. But don’t get me wrong. The ANC on the ComfoBuds Pro is actually quite good. However, if I’m going to use ANC to begin with, I’m trying to block noise out, so why are there even two modes (strong and mild) to begin with? The wind noise resistant mode is probably the most useless function 1MORE offers from my experience. I drive most of the time, and I don’t see my walks to the kitchen and bathroom giving me turbulent winds so it’s pretty unnecessary. What’s even more excessive is you can’t cycle through all the ANC features without having to use the app. I’m happy to use the app to simply turn ANC on or off, but I don’t see the benefit of having different versions of virtually the same setting. The differences are minimal for the redundancy to exist. Even for those who work and live in cities and take public transportation, you don’t need this many versions of ANC to find a useful experience.
This leads to the most disappointing feature of the Comfobuds Pro: the touch control features. As nice as it is to have my playback paused when I remove the earpiece, my success rate of starting tunes again with a touch of the finger was below 50%. If I double tap or triple tap, it seems to register better but to play and pause music with a single tap was virtually out of the question. It was a frustrating experience that never felt reliable and made me almost wish there was a cord with buttons at some point. Touch features aren’t a new concept to earbuds and you can find them in a lot of affordable brands nowadays. 1MORE should have spent less time creating various versions of ANC and instead focused on improving their hardware to make touch functionality more usable on this particular design.
How’s the Sound?
As I mentioned earlier, the ANC quality of the ComfoBuds Pro is quite impressive. The ComfoBuds Pro pack a 13.4mm dynamic driver and there’s decent depth behind the bass within the earbuds that produces crisp sound. I only wished the earbuds fit my ear canals better so that I would have been able to fully enjoy the sound these earbuds had to offer. I’m not typically one to constantly use ANC since I’d rather save my battery life, but I genuinely have nothing but praise for the sound quality of these earbuds.
Final Thoughts
My review of the 1MORE ComfoBuds Pro is a bit of a rollercoaster. The highs on the earbuds are very high, yet the lows are truly disappointing. My favorite features include the sound quality, amazing connectivity, and ANC functionality, but the inconsistent touch controls, unfortunate fit, and cumbersome settings on the overall sparse app make me inclined to not recommend the ComfoBuds as much as I’d like. For a retail price of $70, I would have expected a lot more consistency in the function and features of these earbuds. Sometimes sheer performance doesn’t outweigh the user experience. This is one of these cases. I hope future iterations of this model are improved through these critiques and I’m looking forward to seeing what 1MORE alters for the next version.
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Martin
Always in tune with the beat, audiophile doesn’t even begin to describe Martin’s intense passion for music. Whether it be in the front row of an Anderson .Paak show or popping to a Lizzo track in the back of a coffee shop, this Mechanical Engineer is meticulous with what goes through his earlobes simply because he knows exactly what it takes to make a quality headset.