Hi I’m Gidon from thetechnologyman.com. The Creative Outlier Air true wireless earbuds
seem to have it all. A massive 10 hour battery life, an IPX5 water resistance rating, volume
controls, aptX codec support and even the latest USB-C charging. At £75 or $80 they
are roughly half the price of Apple’s AirPods and a good deal cheaper than Galaxy Buds that
they are more closely related to. I was very excited to put them through their
paces and also find out if I’d finally found the perfect pair of true wireless running
earbuds! Getting started
The compact, premium packaging contains the charging case, the earbuds themselves, a USB
Type-C charging cable, one set of larger ear tips to accompany the already fitted standard
sized tips and a getting started guide that covers all the basics.
This is one of the largest charging cases I’ve come across for true wireless earbuds.
It weighs 65g with the earbuds enclosed and measures 78mm by 44mm by 28mm. But I like
the design and the build quality is very good with a mostly aluminium exterior with the
Creative branding across its top. One end of the case has the USB-C charging
port and four status LEDs. You push from the other end to slide open the case. The battery
status indicator lights up blue when there’s more than 30% and red when there’s less
than 30% charge remaining. The earbuds drop in the case and are held
in securely with magnets. You do need to make sure they are properly seated, especially
if you install the larger ear tips. They’re relatively easy to extract from the case,
although the magnets do have quite a strong pull.
They are lightweight at 5g and average sized for this style of earbuds with a narrow end
at the driver, that attaches to the ear tip - which should help with fit.
Their build quality is good with a matte black finish, which is the only colour option, the
Creative logo on the front side, a microphone at the bottom side of each earbud and a very
soft, flexible ear tip. There’s a physical button on each earbud
circled by a coloured LED. So no touch controls. This LED pulses red when returned to the case
until it reaches full charge at which point it turns off. You can see the charging status
of the earbuds with the case closed with the L and R LED turning off when fully charged,
steady blue when there’s over 30% battery remaining, and red when charge is less than
30%. The case charges via the USB-C port with the
included USB-C to USB-A cable. The lightning bolt charging status led lights blue whilst
the case is charging. It’s refreshing to see this modern, more
robust charging port that doesn’t care which way you insert the connector. There no fast
charging though - the 380mAh battery takes up to two hours for a full charge, charging
at 0.16A. The case provides two full charges for the earbuds which are already quoted at
an impressive 10 hours. Bringing the total playtime to 30 hours.
The earbuds have a 60mAh battery and also take up to 2 hours for a full charge from
flat. Bluetooth pairing
All the wireless earbuds I’ve reviewed recently have a slightly different pairing process.
The Outlier Airs are interesting, if a little confusing at first.
When you take the earbuds out of the charging case, the first one you remove becomes the
main unit, and flashes red and blue to indicate pairing mode. In this case I removed the left
earbud first so I choose Outlier Air L from my tablet’s Bluetooth settings. A few seconds
later you receive another pairing request for the other earbud which you’ll need to
accept. This earbud then auto pairs with the main unit. Both earbuds will pulse blue slowly
while they are connected and not playing music. These lights go off when you start playback.
Next time, regardless of whether you take out the left or right earbud, your device
should automatically connect to the whichever earbud you remove first, and then transparently
pair with the other earbud. And if you just take one earbud out of the
case, either the left or right, your device will just connect to that earbud. If you later
take the other earbud out it will automatically join them together. What’s more if you then
return the main unit to the charging case, thus turning it off and disconnecting it,
your device will automatically switch across to the other earbud. Your music will pause,
you just need to start it playing again. It’s a clever implementation once you realise
how it works, and really does make each earbud usable on its own. This built in intelligence
does mean that I couldn’t find a way of connecting each earbud to a different device,
like I can do with the SoundPeats TrueFree+’s. The earbuds don’t support multi-pairing
so if you want to connect to another device, the most reliable method is to turn off Bluetooth
on the device you’re currently connected to. Then press and hold the multi-function
button on one of the earbuds that will become the main unit, for three seconds until is
flashes red and blue. If you don’t know what device you’re already connected to,
you can still press and hold the multi-function button for three seconds and it will force
a disconnection and enter the pairing process. You can then just connect across as before.
If you have any issues you can reset the earbuds by returning them to their case, and holding
the multifunction buttons on the left and right earbuds for five seconds until both
earbuds light blue. There are audible prompts accompanying powering
on and the pairing and connection status. Fit and controls
Like many true wireless earbuds, there is a knack to getting a good secure fit. You
need to insert them into your ears and then push and twist them towards the back of your
ear. Even with the already fitted, standard sized
ear tips the fit is my ears was very good. They feel comfortable and I could barely notice
them, also thanks to their light weight. I installed the larger tips which had an even
more secure fit in my ears. The ear tips are very soft and flexible and where they attach
to, at the driver, is narrower than other earbuds. This helps to create the most secure
fit of any true wireless earbud I’ve tried so far, that doesn’t have a fin.
I tried them for running, one of the hardest tests for these wire freeearbuds, and I didn’t
even have to adjust them mid run. I still can’t say I was 100 percent confident that
they wouldn’t fall out - I’d still love some optional fins, but there’s definitely
been some considerable thought gone into their fit for sports.
There’s no touch controls as I mentioned earlier, but the controls are very well thought
out. If the earbuds have powered off, a one second
press will turn them on. A single press on either earbud will pause or play your media
and answer incoming calls. A two second press will end a call. During playback, a double
press of the left or right earbuds plays the previous and next tracks respectively. If
playback is paused a double press will activate your voice assistant.
And I’ve saved the best feature for last, you can adjust the volume by pressing and
holding the left or right earbud during playback to decrease or increase the volume respectively.
A very welcome feature that I haven’t seen in any of the true wireless earbuds I’ve
tested so far. I did find the physical buttons quite firm
though, and it’s uncomfortable pressing them further into your ears every time you
interact with them, especially adjusting volume which requires a fairly long press. Pushing
them up rather than further into your ear helps a bit.
Even if you use the earbuds singly, you can still pause and resume playback, use your
voice assistant and handle phone calls. There’s no in-ear detection, so you’ll
need to remember to pause your audio manually if you’re not returning the earbuds to their
charging case. Audio quality, battery life & performance
Creative aren’t a newcomer to the sound market - anyone my age and into this sort
of stuff will remember their SoundBlaster PC sound cards around 30 years ago - the de
facto sound card at the time. Although cheaper than offerings from the most
popular earphones brands, these still aren’t budget earbuds and with Creative’s heritage
I was expecting good sound quality. And I wasn’t disappointed. The 5.6mm drivers
with a graphene diaphragm deliver very good clarity across the range and sound bright
compared to other earbuds I’ve tried under £100. They don’t have the over emphasised
bass a lot of earbuds have, especially at the budget end. Some may find this a negative
point depending on what you’re used to and what music you like to listen to. Occasionally
they sounded a little coarse especially at the higher end and at louder volumes. But
I think overall you’d struggle to find a better pair of earbuds at this price point.
I would have liked an app to adjust EQ settings but on iOS at least, if you’re listening
via the Music app you can adjust the sound to your tastes in the settings.
They support both the AAC and aptX higher quality audio codecs, although if you’re
using an Apple phone or tablet you won’t have aptX support and not all Android devices
support aptX. Both these codecs are superior to the basic SBC codec.
Although the earbuds have a good fit, they don’t have as much noise isolation as other
in-ear earbuds I’ve tried. For me this a good thing, sometimes it can feel like you’re
in a vacuum which I find disconcerting. It does mean there is some sound leakage at high
volumes but nothing of major concern. The volume was still loud enough even in a noisy
cafe, and running. There’s no active noise cancellation.
The earbuds support binaural voice calls, with audio coming from both sides. Voice calls
sounded very good on both ends of the calls. And because of the non-excessive sound isolation,
calls with both earbuds fitted were perfectly acceptable - I could still hear my own voice
without it sounding too muffled. I still got audio sync issues with YouTube
on iOS, as I have with all TWS earbuds I’ve tested. Netflix was fine, and playing YouTube
on an Android tablet was also fine - so it’s an issue with YouTube on iOS.
Battery life was really impressive. I’m not sure about the quoted 10 hours - it’s
not stated what volume that is at. But even at around 60-70% volume I got around 9 hours,
which is twice as much as most other TWS earbuds. You could happily leave the charging case
behind even going out for the day. The earbuds use Bluetooth 5.0 and range was
good. I had no dropouts in the next room around 10m away, although when I went just out of
that range they broke up quite abruptly. Their IPX5 “sweatproof” rating was certainly
put to the test running in some unusually hot conditions by UK standards. As I mentioned
earlier, I had no issues with the earbuds falling out, even in these sweaty conditions.
Conclusions The Creative Outlier Airs tick nearly every
box if you’re after a pair of true wireless earbuds. Battery life is excellent, as is
their secure fit and comfort. Sound quality is very good and the controls are well thought
out. I’m pleased to finally see volume controls built into TWS earbuds. And they’re versatile,
allowing each earbud to be used singly for more casual listening or voice calls.
They aren’t perfect though. The buttons are very firm - it’s really quite uncomfortable
interacting with when they are in your ears. Touch controls would have been nice.
The metal finished case feels very premium but it’s too large to slip in a jeans pocket.
And there’s no wireless charging. But it is nice to see a USB-C charging port.
I think overall they justify their asking price with an excellent range of features
and good balanced sound. I may finally have found an almost perfect set of running earbuds
and I would have no trouble recommending them. If you’ve got a pair of these earbuds, what
do you think of them? Is there a better pair of earbuds under £100 or $100 that I should
take a look at? Please let me know down below. And as always, if you have any questions,
please ask - I read every comment and will do my best to respond.
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