To say the personal audio space is crowded would be an understatement. From smartphone brands to established audio brands to homegrown brands, the space has many, many options to choose from. A somewhat less common category within the industry is open wireless earbuds.
AI+, a company launched less than two years back, apart from its smartphones, has launched an open-design wireless earbuds. The AI+ Novopod Clips come at ₹1,999. Let's see how well they perform:
The buds come in a plastic oval-shaped case that has a matte finish on the lower half and a smooth finish on the upper half. The front carried the LED lights in spectrogram style along with the AI+ logo; while on the back, you have the USB Type-C port.
The box bundles a short USB type A to C cable along with three pairs of accessories that you can attach to the clips while wearing them, or you can accessorise clothes such as ties and cufflinks.
The charging case has a magnetic fit for the buds, and they fit in without any trouble. These come in two colour options - Gold Chrome (which I tried) and Rose Gold. The buds are IPX4 splash-resistant. In terms of aesthetics, the buds themselves are of two tones to give that blingy look. There is also a small LED on the outside half of the buds to indicate connection status.
The buds are equipped with 10mm drivers, support Bluetooth 5.4, and include AAC and SBC audio codecs. In terms of audio quality, the NobaPod Clips offered clear vocals and decent bass for the price tag. Treble is okay, though background instruments can, well, take a backseat at times. There's very little distortion that I could notice, which can be the case with some budget wireless buds. Noise cancellation is not expected to be high since these are open design buds. Mic quality is okay, so you can use it for calls—both indoors and outdoors, but don't expect the most crystal clear voice, which isn't surprising, considering the price tag.
The buds are powered by a 180mAh battery and last around 6-7 hours on one full charge. It can be charged fully in close to two hours without any heating issues seen.
In brief, the Novapod Clips are a comfortable pair of OWS that do a decent job at handling bass and vocals, no AI enhancements, while being okay in terms of mic quality to make calls, for the price tag.
