Best Earbuds for Phone Calls for 2024

If you're able to get a tight seal with one of the three sizes of included ear tips, there's little to complain about with Samsung's Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. Yes, the noise cancellation might be a touch better, but the earbuds' excellent sound quality is clearly a step up from that of the Buds 2 Pro. Plus, they have a robust feature set, and their voice-calling performance is truly top-notch.

If you're looking for basic AirPods, the standard AirPods 4 ($129) certainly have their appeal and should cost closer to $100 during flash sales. They may not be quite as cheap or as small as the AirPods 2, but they sound a lot better and have a lot more features.

Ultimately, the AirPods 4 With Active Noise Cancellation are simply more special. They're the first open buds I've tried to have active noise canceling that actually works. That makes them the first noise-canceling earbuds for people who don't like having ear tips jammed in their ears. That's pretty cool and worth the extra $50 if you can afford it.

When Sony's WF-1000XM4 earbuds came out in 2021, we awarded them a CNET Editors' Choice. And while they're excellent, we had some quibbles. They're on the large side and aren't a good match for certain ears. Clearly, Sony took those gripes to heart when it set out to design its next-generation WF-1000XM5 flagship noise-canceling earbuds. Not only are the XM5s smaller, but they also offer improved performance pretty much across the board, with better noise canceling, sound and voice calling. Are the XM5s perfect? Not quite. At $300 -- $20 more than their predecessor -- they're also costly. Overall they're really impressive, and easily among the very top earbuds on the market.

Status Audio's earbuds aren't exactly the sleekest or most attractive earbuds you can buy, but if you don't mind their utilitarian look and giant stems, you are getting an excellent-sounding set of earbuds. The Between 3ANC, the company's first noise-canceling earbuds, also do a good job muffling ambient sound, although they aren't up to the level of the Bose QuietComfort 2 earbuds for noise-canceling prowess. They did perform very well in my voice-calling test, reducing much of the background noise around me in the streets of New York while picking up my voice clearly, or so callers told me.

They have multipoint Bluetooth pairing -- you can pair them to two devices simultaneously -- but they are missing a few features, including ear-detection sensors. They also only support the AAC audio codec (they're equipped with Bluetooth 5.2), not LDAC or aptX. Some people with Android devices that support those codecs may not be thrilled with that, but they sound quite good using AAC, offering clean sound with punchy bass and good clarity. That's partly due to their driver design, and why the buds are on the larger side. They feature two balanced armature drivers, plus one 10mm dynamic driver in each earbud.

Despite being heavier than earbuds like Apple's AirPods Pro 2, they fit my ears comfortably and securely. Their case charges wirelessly and battery life is very good, at up to 8.5 hours with ANC on. There's also a transparency mode that sounds only OK, not great (a physical button on the earbuds activates it) and they have an IPX5 water-resistance rating, which means they can withstand a sustained spray of water. The companion app for iOS is fairly basic, but you can upgrade the firmware and tweak the sound profile with a customizable EQ option.

Google's redesigned its Pixel Buds Pro 2 to fit more ears better. Not only are the Pixel Buds Pro 2 smaller than their predecessor but Google's equipped them with its new Tensor A1 chip, which offers more processing power and enables its new "hands-free, eyes-free" Gemini virtual AI assistant. So long as you get a snug fit and tight seal (yes, that's critical for sound quality and noise-canceling performance), these buds deliver excellent sound, strong noise-muffling capabilities and a robust feature set, particularly for Android and Google Pixel phone users.

Earfun is one of our go-to brands for value earbuds. Its Air Pro 4 buds aren't a major upgrade over the earlier Air Pro 3s, but they do have a few enhancements that make them slightly better earbuds. (Note: Input code EAP4CNET at checkout on Amazon to get an extra 10% off).

Earfun has moved from Qualcomm's QCC3071 to the newer QCC3091 that supports aptX Lossless Audio for a select few Android devices. The buds also support Sony's LDAC audio codec, which is available with more Android smartphones, and the AAC and SBC codecs.

Like their predecessor, the Air 4 Pro are lightweight and comfortable to wear -- I got a good seal with the largest ear tip size -- and they feature slightly improved noise canceling and sound quality along with better battery life (up to 11 hours with noise canceling off and 7.5 hours with it on, according to Earfun). While the default sound leans slightly warm with a touch of bass push, you can tweak the sound in Earfun's companion app for iOS and Android, and I did think the sound measures up well to earbuds that cost twice as much.

As I said, these aren't a big upgrade over the Earfun Air 3 Pro, but once again Earfun has delivered a set of earbuds that deliver strong performance for their modest price. They also pack in a lot of features, including a wireless charging case and multipoint Bluetooth pairing (they're equipped with Bluetooth 4 and LE Audio). I do think the voice-calling performance is slightly improved, but the background noise reduction during calls isn't as good as what you get with higher-end earbuds like Apple's AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2, as well as Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. I also thought their touch controls could work a little better than they do.

Nothing has changed with Nothing's latest $149 Ear noise-cancelling earbuds. At least, not at first glance. You'd be forgiven if you thought the buds had taken a step back; while they're the successor to Nothing's Ear (2) earbuds they don't have a 3 anywhere in their name. Nor do they employ Apple's generational naming scheme. They're just the Nothing Ear, and they look the same as the Ear (2). Some changes on the inside deliver legitimate improvements, particularly to sound quality, noise canceling and battery life.

If you can't quite afford this model, Nothing also has the new $99 Ear (a), which comes in a new yellow color as well as white and black. It has different drivers and includes a smaller charging case (it has a lower IPX2 water-resistance rating and leaves off wireless charging), but otherwise has very similar features and may be a slightly better value. The flagship Ear does sound slightly better. 

The Live Beam 3 earbuds look similar to the earlier Live Buds Pro 2, which I like a lot, especially when they go on sale for less than $100. Essentially JBL's AirPods Pro 2 competitor, their distinguishing feature is the 1.45-inch touchscreen LCD integrated into their charging case that acts as a remote control for the buds and allows you to access their features. Equipped with 10mm drivers, not only do they offer clear, well-defined sound with punchy bass but their noise canceling and voice-calling performance are very solid. Their battery is also good -- they offer up to 10 hours of battery life with ANC on and 12 hours with it off at moderate volume levels (a 10-minute charge gives you four hours of battery life). Available in four color options, they're IP55 splash-proof and dust-resistant.

Note that JBL's flagship Tour Pro 3 earbuds also have an integrated LCD but feature dual drivers, which deliver even better sound than these buds with a little more depth and detail. The Live Beam 3 often sells for $50 off their $200 list price, which makes them a better deal overall.

Truth be told, in some ways, I like Sony's new LinkBuds Fit better than its flagship WF-1000XM5 noise-canceling earbuds. While they don't sound quite as good or have noise-canceling that's quite on par with those buds, they're lightweight (4.9 grams) and fit my ears comfortably and securely. Part of that is due to Sony's new Air Fitting Supporters, but it's also redesigned its ear tips and included a wide range of sizes, including XL tips that fit my ears well. Despite being a slight step down from the WF-1000XM5s for performance, their sound quality, noise canceling and call-quality performance are all very good. They also have built-in voice controls. Read our hands-on first take.

There are a lot of new gaming earbuds out there, but what makes the Sony Pulse Explore earbuds special is that they feature planar magnetic drivers, a speaker technology typically found in high-end over-ear audiophile headphones but rarely in earbuds. They're missing some other features found in typical premium earbuds (noise canceling and ear-detection sensors), that they're as good as they are for listening to music and making calls is a revelation. They sound clearer and more articulate than Sony's flagship WF-1000XM5 earbuds and have tight, powerful bass. That doesn't necessarily mean they sound better than XM5s, which sound a little fuller, but I wasn't expecting them to compete at all with the XM5s for music listening.

For those of you who bought the original Beats Studio Buds, which remain on the market for now, I'm sorry to report that these new Plus buds are significantly improved, with better sound, noise canceling and battery life. Additionally, they now deliver top-notch voice-calling performance.

The transparent version is getting a lot of attention (who doesn't like transparent electronics?), but the big changes are on the inside. Beats says 95% of the components are new and improved, and the buds' "acoustic architecture" has been revised. The speaker drivers remain the same, but the Studio Buds Plus are powered by a new, more powerful custom chipset and have three new microphones in each bud, which are three times larger and more sensitive than the ones found in the Beats Studio Buds.