Edifier TWS1 Pro True Wireless Earphones Review

The true wireless earphones market is pretty crowded these days, especially around the budget, or – value-for-money areas. You can get some truly remarkable earphones for around £50 these days, and the competition is fierce.

That’s where the Edifier TWS1 Pro come in: small true wireless earphones with excellent battery times, decent sound (though it depends on the type of music you like), the latest Bluetooth standards and sound codecs, and all for an affordable price.

A few connectivity and usage issues, however, spoil the fun a bit – but the value for money here is still impressive. Let’s dig in, to see whether this is the right pair for you…

Who Are The Edifier TWS1 Pro For?

Having been around since 1996, Edifier is a Chinese company that specialises in audio products – from speakers to soundbars and earphones.

The TWS1 Pro is an updated model of Edifier’s TWS1. It comes with all the latest codecs and standards, such as Bluetooth 5.2, Qualcomm’s QCC3040 chipset with the cVcTM 8.0 voice cancellation technology (for voice calls – not for music), AptX Adaptive, and more.

Of course, all the bells and whistles are secondary to the most important thing with earphones – the sound quality.

It’s important to remember that these are £50 earphones, so there’s no point in comparing them to models that cost £200. But there are quite a lot of earphones at this price range these days – so comparisons are still in order.

If you’re a big bass fan, these aren’t the pair for you, especially if you tend to listen to louder songs (such as rock and pop). If you stay around the more quiet musical zones, however, these fare pretty well. Plus, they’re excellent for voice – so if you’re a podcast or audiobook lover, you’ll get super crisp speech.

Using The Edifier TWS1 Pro

Size and Comfort

The earbuds themselves are not the smallest out there, and they stick out of your ears a bit. But they’re very lightweight, they look nice, and they’re available in two colours – dark grey and ivory.

They go quite deeply into your ear canals – I know some people don’t like that, but for me, they were extremely comfortable and I was never afraid they might drop out of my ear.

Although they don’t have any active noise cancellation, the fact that they’re in this deep, means there’s good passive noise cancellation, so outside sounds won’t trouble you too much.

In the box, you get three different silicone ear tip sizes, a USB-C cable for charging, and a cut-down version of the instructions manual. The minimal manual doesn’t explain all the options (or even what the LED lights mean), for some reason.

The charging case is small, and despite feeling quite plasticky, actually looks pretty good – I like its curved edges. There’s a USB-C port on the back of the case for charging, but there’s no wireless charging support.

The earbuds are easy to take out of the case (that’s sometimes an issue with other earphones), though I did notice an issue with putting them back in there – at times, an earbud (on either side) didn’t slip in all the way into the case, and therefore didn’t start charging.

Furthermore, it remained connected and active on my phone, and it took me a while to understand why there were no sounds coming from my phone (because it was still connected to the Bluetooth earphone). This happened to me several times, and now I have to remember to press both earbuds kind of hard into the case – not something one should be bothered with, normally.

The TWS1 Pro have touch buttons, so the whole outer face is a big touch-control surface. That touch surface isn’t so big that you accidentally touch it each time you pull the earbuds in and out, which is good. The buttons worked well for me most of the time, though occasionally they did miss a tap.

The earbuds are IPX5 water-resistant, so they’re splash-proof. That means you should be OK in the rain (or sweating at the gym), but you can’t drop them in a puddle (or God forbid in the toilet).

Pairing And Controlling

The TWS 1 Pro feature Qualcomm’s QCC3040 chip, with Bluetooth 5.2 support. Pairing them with my phone was easy, and whenever I took them out of their case, re-pairing was almost instant.

Qualcomm’s latest chipset supports “True Wireless Mirroring”, so you can instantly switch between dual and single use mode.

That being said, there were instances where I took both earbuds out of the case, and only one of them played any sounds. I then had to put them BACK in the case, let them disconnect from my phone, take them back out again – and things were back to normal with both earbuds working as expected.

Other than that, the connection was stable – even when I was walking in crowded places (well, as crowded as they are these days), there were no Bluetooth disconnections or hissing sounds that you sometimes get with bad Bluetooth connections.

As for controlling the action, as with any touch-based earphones, you have to memorise a set of taps. Things are quite straightforward – one tap to play and pause, double-tap (left or right) to skip forward and back, and a tap-and-hold to raise/lower the volume.

You can’t use the buttons to activate your phone’s voice assistant – though that can usually be done by voice these days, if you set things up correctly on your phone.

TWS1 Pro’s Audio Quality

This is where things get a bit more complicated. Don’t get me wrong, the sound is quite decent, especially for earphones at this price range. The sound is crisp and quite accurate – but it also falls a bit flat.

Starting with Enya’s Carribean Blue, the delicate intro synth melts well into Enya’s angelic rich vocals. As the song progresses, piling up vocal and synth layers, there is good definition and overall the sound is clear but not harsh. The lower end, however, remains a little thin.

Moving on to Beat it by Michael Jackson, the song as a whole is bright in nature. With soaring electric guitar riffs and energetic vocal performance, the high end of the spectrum stays nice and clear. But the bass and drums are quite thin, which really drains a lot of power from the mix.

So if you’re into fast/loud/bigger-than-life songs that are supposed to send shivers down your spine – the TWS1 Pro might disappoint you. If you stay on the quiet/calm side, however, the sound is quite pleasant, though again – is missing some more oomph (manual EQ settings might have helped here – but Edifier don’t have an app for that at the moment).

As for phone calls, the TWS1 Pro work very well. They use Qualcomm’s cVc 8.0 tech which helps with voice clarity on calls. As usual with these technologies, I didn’t witness any miracles here – when I was in a noisy environment, calls were noisy. But overall, the voice quality was good.

The same can be said about podcasts and audiobooks – the TWS1 Pro handle speech really well, so these are great for long talk-radio sessions.

Watching Movies with The Edifier TWS1 Pro

With so many people watching films and TV on their phones these days, I always make a point of testing that with earphones as well.

And thanks to Bluetooth, you can connect the earphones to any device that supports the format – so phones and computers, but also streaming devices like the Amazon Fire TV stick.

One thing to note when watching films, is that Bluetooth is notoriously laggy, so lip-synching can become an issue.

But I had no such problems with the TWS1 Pro – the connection was stable, and when I watched videos on my phone, there were never any lag or lip-synch issues.

As for the sound, I tested it with Aquamen, and the earbuds repeated their strengths and weaknesses – the speech was clear and crisp, sound effects on action scenes were decent (the bass felt better than it does with music on this pair), but the overall mix was a bit lowkey, with some oomph missing. That shouldn’t trouble you at all with dramas – but is less impressive when you’re watching a loud action flick.

Battery Times

When fully charged, you can use the TWS1 Pro earphones for up to 12 hours, which is very impressive (at any price range!). The charging case holds another 30 hours, for a respectable total of 42 hours – not the highest out there, but quite good for the price – and for the physical size of the case.

There’s only one LED light on the case, which makes it difficult to know when it’s time to charge it (or the earbuds themselves) – plus, there’s no mention of that light in the manual. It’s my understanding, though, that if it flashes rapidly – it’s time to charge the case.

Your actual battery mileage may vary, of course, because it depends on what you do with the earbuds (volume level, distance from your phone, etc.) – but after a full week of usage (about 2-3 hours a day), I haven’t had to re-charge the case at all.

Bottom Line: Are The Edifier TWS1 Pro For You?

Now we get to the £50 question. A couple of years ago, and at this price and performance level, I would have called the TWS1 Pro perfect.

Today, the competition – at this low price level – is quite fierce, and there are earphones out there that outdo the TWS1 Pro – at least in terms of audio quality (the EarFun Free Pro come to mind, for example).

That being said, these are still very good earphones for such a low price (and if you can get them during a sale – value for money gets even better). They have most of the features one would expect these days – except for Active Noise Cancellation, which I’m not a fan of at this price range anyway.

If you’re looking for good all-rounders that won’t shake your body, but will still sound pleasant, and in particular, if you’re a fan of podcasts or audiobooks – these are worth considering.

Note: The earphones were supplied by the manufacturer for this review. As always, this did not influence my unbiased opinion of the product.