Earfun Air Pro 4 review: the best budget earbuds

When Earfun introduced its first set of wireless earbuds, it redefined our expectations for sub-$100 products. And every new model has pushed those expectations further. The company’s newest wireless earbuds — the Earfun Air Pro 4 — are no exception to this trend. At $90, they remain among the most affordable buds you can buy, but their feature set and sound quality challenge (and in a few cases, exceed) competitors from Sony, Apple, and Bose that cost as much as three times that price. Moreover, they address the few downsides I noted on their predecessors, the Air Pro 3.

Whether you’re an iPhone user or an Android fan (in fact, especially if you’re an Android fan), the Earfun Air Pro 4 are the best budget wireless earbuds on the planet. Period.

Before we get into the full review, let’s take a quick look at the Air Pro 4’s feature list because, frankly, it’s astonishing.

• Wireless charging
• Wear sensors (new)
• IPX5 water resistance
• Active noise cancellation (ANC) and transparency modes
• Bluetooth Multipoint
• Google Fast Pair (new)
• Bluetooth LE Audio with Auracast compatibility
• Sony’s LDAC hi-res codec (new)
• Qualcomm Snapdragon sound (aptX Adaptive hi-res codec, aptX Lossless CD-quality codec, low-latency mode, and HD voice transmission) (new)
• Up to 52 hours of playtime (new)
• 30 EQ presets, 10-band equalizer (new)
• App support with customization for EQ, controls, and earbuds locator

About the only thing that’s missing is head-tracked spatial audio, and the jury is still out on whether that’s a feature people actually want.

I’m not going to spend much time talking about the design. If you’re familiar with Earfun’s previous stem-based Air Pro lineup, or similar products like the Apple AirPods Pro or Soundcore Liberty 4 NC, you know the drill. It’s a very comfortable shape that will easily stay put for most daily activities.

Only those with the most vigorous workout routines will need to consider something more secure. The Air Pro 4 ship with a very generous selection of five sizes of silicone eartips (one more than the Air Pro 3), more or less ensuring that everyone will get a good fit. With IPX5 water resistance, rain and sweat won’t be an issue — you can even rinse them under the tap.

The charging case is a basic affair. Not quite as pocketable as the AirPods Pro — but close — and with the lid in its open position, it gives excellent access to the earbuds. Wireless charging is standard, and you get a short USB-A-to-USB-C cable in the box for wired charging.

I suppose these days more people would prefer a double USB-C cable, but I’m guessing you also have a few of these lying around already. Indicator lights on the front tell you the case’s charge level, and a second set of lights in the earbud charging sockets give you feedback on things like pairing modes.

The Earfun app provides an overwhelming number of ANC modes, including a couple that claim to be adaptive and powered by AI. My feeling about these modes (on all wireless earbuds that offer them, not just the Air Pro 4) is that they’re generally pointless.

My attitude toward ANC is somewhat binary: I want to reject as much noise as possible or let in as much as possible. Having an AI decide which sounds to cancel and when is just distracting. The only exception to this is Apple and Bose’s wonderful loud-noise detection, which quickly turns on ANC when a potentially dangerously loud sound happens and you’re in transparency mode.

The good news is that the standard ANC mode is excellent — a big improvement over the Air Pro 3 — and the wind noise mode does exactly what it promises.

Transparency mode is blissfully free of weird AI extras, and it’s very good at letting you hear your surroundings. I’d prefer it include more of my voice, which remained fairly muffled. This isn’t an Earfun weakness. Every set of wireless earbuds I’ve tried that use Qualcomm ANC tech suffers from this problem.

Here’s one thing that Earfun can and should fix: If you want to switch between ANC and transparency without cycling through the normal mode (ANC/transparency off), you have that option. But good luck finding it in the app. It’s buried in the app’s Customize Controls menu. To access it, you need to access the Long Press gesture, then tap on Noise Control — even if it’s already selected — and that will bring up the options.

The Air Pro 4’s sound quality might be one of the few areas that haven’t been significantly improved from the Air Pro 3. And yet your ability to maximize that sound quality has increased considerably. That sounds a little contradictory, I know.

Here’s what I mean:

The new model, just like its predecessor, sounds great. Especially since we’re talking about earbuds that cost only fractionally more than a tank of gas. (Assuming $3.45 per gallon for a 23-gallon F-150, for those who were about to object.)

Clarity, detail, soundstage definition, and bass response are all top-notch, though if you’re a true bass-head, you should look elsewhere. But having access to so many optional hi-res audio codecs (LDAC or aptX Adaptive) and the additional EQ tweaks in the app increases the likelihood that you’ll get the best possible sound.

With either LDAC or aptX Adaptive, you’ll get better detail and nuance, and it reduces the sharpness of certain highs, as compared to the standard AAC codec. Sorry, iPhone users, you’re stuck with AAC.

The fact that the Air Pro 4 support all of the major hi-res codecs is remarkable — even earbuds that cost four times as much can’t claim this. Since I happen to have one of the few smartphones that can actually support all three (a Motorola ThinkPhone) I was curious to see if I could tell the difference among LDAC, aptX Adaptive, and aptX Lossless. There was indeed a perceptible difference, but I’m still not sure which one I prefer.

What I can say with confidence is that unless you sequester yourself in a very quiet space and give yourself a few hours with lossless CD quality and hi-res audio sources, you won’t notice much of a difference either. In fact, these may be the only conditions where you’ll be able to appreciate the difference between AAC and any of these superior codecs.

With all that said, when I compared the Air Pro 4 to Soundcore’s $100 Liberty 4 NC (using LDAC for both), they were extremely close.

The Earfun app now has 30 presets, and a 10-band equalizer for creating and saving your own presets. There’s also a personalized sound feature that attempts to create a custom EQ profile based on your ability to hear specific frequency bands. My luck with these personalizers has been mixed, and I can’t say I loved what this one did for the sound — your mileage may vary.

Another area where your specific phone may affect your experience with the Air Pro 4 is call quality.

Using an iPhone, call quality was average. In noisy locations, the earbuds struggled to keep my voice clear, though they did a very good job at blocking the sounds that made my environment noisy in the first place. When things were quiet, my voice sounded much better.

However, as a set of Snapdragon Sound earbuds, if you’re using a compatible phone, you’ll get truly clear voice reproduction.

What you won’t get in either scenario is the ability to switch from ANC to transparency mid-call using the earbuds’ controls. For that, you’ll need to use the Earfun app. And, just like transparency in non-call situations, your own voice will still be quite muffled.

Having Bluetooth Multipoint is a huge convenience, and the Air Pro 4 support this handy feature that lets you stay connected to two devices simultaneously. To use it, though, you’ll need to disable LDAC. AptX Adaptive/Lossless, by contrast, are compatible with Multipoint.

I really like that in the Earfun app’s dual-device settings screen, you can pick any two of your previously paired devices for a Multipoint session.

Since we’re on the topic of Bluetooth, here’s the good and the bad when it comes to Auracast on the Air Pro 4:

It’s great that Earfun has added this feature. I firmly believe that Auracast is not only the future of audio sharing, it’s also the future of public audio. By that I mean TVs in gyms, airport gate announcements, translated content both at live events and movies, etc. It’s really cool.

But enabling Auracast on the Air Pro 4 requires some gymnastics.

You first enable LE Audio from within the Earfun app (which means disabling LDAC and aptX codecs). Then you must go back to your Bluetooth device list and “forget” the earbuds. Then pair them again. Then make sure you enable LE Audio in the earbuds’ Bluetooth settings. Finally, assuming your phone is even Auracast compatible, you use the “Find broadcast” feature to look for and hopefully join an Auracast transmission … which in my case, using the Motorola ThinkPhone simply didn’t work.

Relying on a phone’s operating system for the Auracast Assistant function (the software that scans for and connects the earbuds to an Auracast transmission) is — at this early stage in the development of Auracast — a dicey proposition.

You’ll likely get better results if your earbuds’ companion app has this functionality built-in. I was able to test this with an as-yet-unreleased set of wireless earbuds on my iPhone and it worked like a charm. I’d tell you all about it, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy until September.

I’ll give Earfun the benefit of the doubt. Auracast probably will work with the Air Pro 4 soon. Just not quite yet. What I’m a lot less enthusiastic about is the complex set of steps to make it work. Perhaps all earbuds that support hi-res codecs will need to do something similar — it’s still too early to know.

On the Air Pro 3, I found the touch controls a little inaccurate, but the Air Pro 4 have proven very reliable. Better yet, Earfun has added wear sensors to auto-pause your music when you remove an earbud. For some folks, that single improvement will be worth the extra $10.

The Earfun app lets you modify four gestures per earbud — perfect for control freaks.

Earfun has always provided more than ample battery life on its earbuds, and the Air Pro 4 up the numbers further. From seven hours per charge with ANC on (Air Pro 3), to 7.5 hours. With ANC off, it goes from nine hours (Air Pro 3) to 11 hours. And total ANC off time is now 52 hours (versus 45).

Keep in mind that your choice of codec and volume level will affect these stats. LDAC is more power-hungry than aptX so if you use LDAC and adaptive ANC together, playtime drops to six hours per charge.

Wondering if you should buy the Earfun Air Pro 4? Unless you own the Soundcore Liberty 4 NC, don’t hesitate. With solid improvements across the board, Earfun has delivered a lot of extras for only a tiny increase in price. There’s some definite weirdness around the implementation of Bluetooth Auracast, but I don’t think that’s a reason to avoid them (it’s also very early days for this technology). The Air Pro 4 are an excellent value and might just be the best wireless earbuds under $100.