The latest Nothing Ear 3A review from The Verge lands in the most Nothing place possible: the $99 earbuds deliver a lot for the money, then trip over software behavior that should have been boring by now.
John Higgins of The Verge gave the Ear 3A a score of 7, citing strong overall performance for the price and a capable equalizer as the main positives. The complaints are familiar for Nothing’s earbuds: the default tuning leans hard into bass, adaptive noise cancellation behaves inconsistently, and call quality can show minor problems.
The Ear 3A keep Nothing’s transparent design language, with a clear case and stem-style earbuds paired with a solid-color body. The color lineup includes pink, yellow, black, and white, according to The Verge. The pink option is the new attention grabber, because apparently even budget earbuds now need a small fashion department.
Nothing is selling the Ear 3A for $99 through its own store, with The Verge also listing Amazon and Walmart at the same price. That puts them in the same price band as the original Ear 1, which launched in 2021 at $99 and helped establish Nothing’s pitch: feature-heavy earbuds without flagship pricing.
Is the Nothing Ear 3A worth buying?
Based on The Verge’s review, the Ear 3A look like a reasonable buy for people who want active noise cancellation, codec support, and app-based tuning at $99, as long as they can tolerate some rough edges. The review’s warning is that the bugs are not theoretical: adaptive ANC and call performance may be uneven.
Adaptive ANC is supposed to vary noise cancellation based on conditions rather than applying one fixed level. Higgins reported inconsistencies with that behavior, which matters because the feature is only useful if the earbuds react predictably when the outside world gets louder, quieter, or just annoying in a different way.
What audio features does Nothing include?
The Verge says the Ear 3A use 12mm dynamic drivers and support LDAC, SBC, and AAC codecs. LDAC is the notable one here because it can carry higher-bitrate audio than the basic Bluetooth codecs, assuming the paired device supports it and the connection behaves.
The default sound profile, according to Higgins, puts too much weight on low frequencies. He wrote that the extra bass gives bass lines more force, but it can crowd the midrange where vocals and guitars sit. The review says listeners who like heavy bass may be fine with that choice, while others will probably need the app’s EQ.
That equalizer appears to be the safety valve. The Verge lists the robust EQ as one of the Ear 3A’s strongest points, which means the earbuds are less locked to Nothing’s default bass-forward tuning than many cheap wireless models. Software tuning cannot fix every driver or fit issue, but it can rescue a sound profile that arrives with too much low-end swagger.
The result is a very 2026 budget-earbud compromise. Nothing seems to have improved sound and ANC while keeping the price aggressive, according to The Verge, but the Ear 3A still ask buyers to accept glitch risk alongside the transparent plastic and spec-sheet wins.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
