- Sometimes it's almost unfortunate
when a brand sponsors a video, like LG sponsored this one,
because the TONE free FP8s are hands down
the most comfortable in-ear wireless earphones
that I have heard yet.
Not only that, but they've got a super compact hearing case,
24 hours of battery life with the battery included
in the case.
And they are super small.
Look how tiny these things are.
I mean, next you're gonna tell me they've got some kind
of bacteria killing light inside that destroys bacteria
on the mesh inside the ear.
They got that too?
Well, we're gonna have to take a closer look
at these, aren't we?
(upbeat music)
LG sent me a fancy package with a few fun things inside.
We've got the FP5, FP8 and FP9 TONE free earbuds here
to check out.
They've all got active noise cancellation
and they share the same physical design.
But the FP9s have LG's new plug and wireless feature,
which is great for devices that don't have Bluetooth
or that have really janky Bluetooth implementations, like
(Linus clearing his throat)
certain mobile game consoles that bug out
if you try to connect Bluetooth audio
and a Bluetooth controller at the same time.
So all you have to do is plug in a three
and a half millimeter to USB-C cable,
and then you can actually use your case to forward the audio
to the earphones.
Super cool, right?
That's actually great for things like playing, treadmills,
like there's any number of things that still use the three
and a half millimeter jack,
but you don't necessarily wanna carry
around two different pairs of headphones
with you all the time.
The FP9s retail at 1.99.
So if you want a cheaper option,
you can check out the FP5s here.
You just won't get the plug in wireless
or their UV nano feature.
We've mentioned that on the channel before,
but now the UV light inside the case works twice as fast,
killing 99% of the bacteria on each ear mesh
within just five minutes of charging.
These ones also lack wireless charging,
that's available only on the FP8s.
So choose wisely based on which features you care
about the most.
As for which feature I care about the most,
LG apparently sent a special version of the FP8s.
These are so cool.
Why are more electronics not translucent?
LG, on behalf of everyone watching this video,
I'm calling upon you now to sell these.
It really makes you appreciate all the tech built
into them so much better.
In terms of colors, LG's TONE free lineup is available
in white.
They're calling this rose gold, that's gold.
And black.
They call that rose gold apparently,
but I don't buy it.
At this point, I've already hit most of the talking points
that LG asked for in the sponsored video.
So let's focus on what really matters.
Inside, you get small, medium
and large medical grade ear tips.
The medium ones are the right size for me.
Your mileage may vary.
You got a USB-C charging cable.
Charging is handled by these three metal contacts
on both sides and you just pop them in,
little something like that.
They're magnetic, so they should snap
into place pretty easily.
And since you're in here, you can also see
that these were developed in collaboration with Meridian,
the high-end audio manufacturer that LG actually
also sponsored a tour of their facility
a couple of years ago,
back when touring facilities was a thing.
On the earbuds themselves is a total
of three microphones per earbud.
And these contribute to a couple of features.
One is apparently exceptional call quality.
So we're gonna go ahead and record a call to Plouffe,
who's sitting over there in a minute.
But another one is that the FP8 support
active noise cancellation,
just like the top tier competitors that LG is up against
at this price point.
The mics are located here, here and right there.
They've also got proximity sensors in them
so they can detect if you take them out of your ears,
as well as touch sensitive buttons right here
that can be configured in LG's app
to serve various functions.
Hopefully the setup procedure is pretty painless,
but it should be because I tried it once before we started
and it was like
(Linus snapping his fingers)
super easy.
Connect, prompts you to download the app,
boop, touch twice end call volume control, three times
to play the next song and long press is ambient control.
Colored light indicator tells you how much battery life
is left on your case.
Hey!
Oh, right, that makes sense, I closed it.
So it went away.
I was going through the user manual,
let me have my fun.
Time to put these in.
Let's try a couple of different EQs.
I'm gonna start with natural obviously,
that's usually my preference.
Let's just have them be noise blocking,
but not noise canceling by default.
Touchpad lock.
Oh, interesting.
Well, how do you unlock it?
No, it's just locked right now.
Now it's working.
So you can see, I changed over to ambient mode there.
Noise canceling mode.
Huh.
So you've got different levels of noise cancellation.
You know that kind of pressure feeling on your ears
when you have noise cancellation on?
I mean, honestly it's not especially noticeable to me
on these anyway, but you can decide
if it's over your threshold,
then you can turn it down to low.
Normally, noise cancellation doesn't do a great job
of things like human conversation.
But.
(Linus mumbling)
I could hear it kind of like that.
Like I could just barely make out little bits
of what Colin was saying.
Game mode.
Whoa, cool!
Lower latency.
Whispering mode.
Hold the right earbud near the mouth to speak softly
on the phone.
Okay, we're gonna have to try this.
Okay, I'm calling you.
Hello?
- [Nick] Can you hear me?
- Yeah, I can hear you.
How am I doing?
You hear me all right?
- [Nick] Yeah, you're pretty clear.
- Okay, let's give this whispering mode a shot here.
I have to take out the right one and.
Okay, can you hear me all right?
- [Nick] Yeah, you're still whispering.
- Oh, interesting.
I screwed this up, Andy.
The microphones, I dunno, there's four holes in the thing.
So I don't know which three are microphones.
So there's the one here, which I suspect is to listen
to like what makes it past the earphones
so that one's gotta be a mic.
This one's gotta be a mic, but I don't think this one is,
I think it's actually just another port for this one.
Okay, what about now?
Can you hear me better?
- [Nick] Yeah, I can hear you whispering.
It's a little better.
- Okay, but the point of this mode is supposed to be
that you're in a loud environment or a busy environment
where you wanna have a quiet conversation.
So what if there was some ambient noise?
(Crab Rave playing on laptop)
Get some Crab Rave going in here.
Okay.
I've got the speaker like right near to my head.
Can you still hear me all right?
- [Nick] Yeah, I can still hear you.
- I'm having a harder time hearing you.
- [Nick] Oh, yeah.
- Hold on, give me one second.
I just gotta turn a thing real quick.
- [Nick] Crab Rave is coming through loud and clear.
- I'm turning on my noise cancellation
so I can hopefully block it better.
(Crab Rave playing on laptop)
Okay so, how would you describe the audio quality out of 10?
- [Nick] Uh.
I'd say it's a six or a seven,
but considering your whispering.
- Six or seven.
- [Nick] Yeah, your whispering (indistinct).
- Not bad.
I mean, a six under those circumstances is kind of a win.
- [Nick] Yeah, you're clear right up
when you turn Crab Rave off.
- Okay, thanks Nick, that's good for now.
Unfortunately it looks like whisper mode
is something you have to toggle manually right now,
it's in the lab.
But maybe it's something that you can use your buttons for
if you customize that.
Oh, customize touchpad functions.
Here we go.
Cool, so touch three times.
Okay, whisper mode on and off is not a thing
that you can do, but it would be cool if you could.
LG, if you guys are watching, which I know
for a fact you are, it'd be super cool
if you could turn things like whisper mode on and off
in here, rather than just having a limited number
of functions.
They're IPX4 water resistant,
(Linus clicking his tongue)
not the case though.
Five minutes of charging gets you an hour of battery,
but more importantly, these sound great.
Let's see how easy it is to nail those touch controls, okay?
That's on and off.
Responsive so far.
About a third of a second delay.
One of the big things for me is I actually sleep
with my earphones in, so comfort is king for me.
And you know, I've settled in terms of audio quality
in order to have something that's really comfortable.
But part of comfort is what they feel like
when I'm up and about, and part of it is what they feel like
when I am lying down.
Ever since I had kids, I've slept
with noise canceling earphones in,
or at least noise blocking earphones in.
Just helps me sleep through better.
So let's see.
Sorry, this is just a very important benchmark
because this is what ended up killing the Sony WF-1000 XM4
for me is that they're super comfortable
under all circumstances, but the touch sensors
on them were activated by my pillow constantly.
Let me see if I can activate a touch sensor here.
This doesn't look like benchmarking, but I assure you it is.
(phone ringtone playing)
Nope.
Haven't managed to hit it.
And how did they do for a shake test here?
Let's get this pillow out of here, lttstore.com.
(rock music)
(Linus' neck cracking)
Oh, well, I heard my neck crack.
(rock music)
That's pretty good.
Huh.
Sorry, I'm a little.
Woo, I'm fine.
All right, the last thing I'm apparently supposed
to try is the immersive audio mode
that they worked on with LG.
I can pretty much guarantee that I'll hate it
because anything other than just the music
in my ears is generally not my preference.
- [Andy] You can hear me okay?
- Yeah, I can now.
The ambient mode sounds really natural, actually.
That's great.
Like I can converse with you just fine.
What about just passive noise control?
- [Andy] Hi, hi Linus.
- Oh, yeah, I can hear you. - [Andy] Could you put
the phone - I can hear you
reasonably well. - [Andy] Into the center,
please?
- Oh, sure.
I think I'd probably just leave it on high mode, personally.
Honestly, you know what?
Lots of people do like playing around with different EQs
and different audio effects and stuff like that.
I don't personally find that these need
any EQing out of the box.
Your mileage may vary as far as that goes.
But as far as the effects being applied,
a good pair of your phones won't need them,
and I don't honestly think these need them.
Oh, look at that!
There's a nice little custom EQ control.
Love it!
And natural is fine.
And it's fine for this video to be over.
So they're not cheap, but as far as being feature-rich goes,
there's not much else that I'd be asking for.
Thanks LG for sponsoring this video and sending these over.
That's it, bye.