Review: Wireless earbuds from Action

If you want to buy cheap wireless earbuds or speakers, Action is worth a look. It's great that Action sells earbuds at such low prices. But are the earbuds you get there any good? That's what we wanted to find out. We bought 3 pairs to give you our honest opinion. And 1 thing is certain: we were surprised! Whether that was a good thing is another story.

Action: the cheap earbuds we tested

Pulsar Bluetooth

Well, the price is incredibly low. I think these might be the cheapest wireless earbuds you can buy in the Netherlands. But let's get straight to the point: skip this version. Go for the most expensive of the 3 versions we bought instead.

Sound

The sound lacks depth. Still, we want to judge these earbuds fairly for the price you pay. You could perhaps argue that they'd be fun for kids. But there are plenty of alternatives at a similar price for them too. We previously wrote an article about 

Ugh. The Pulsar Bluetooth earbuds sold at Action are really bad. Of course, you can't expect great earbuds for €7. But these are something else.

Annoying

There's a block-shaped control unit on the connecting cable. Connecting cable? Yes, connecting cable. A cable runs between the 2 earbuds. So these aren't true wireless earbuds.

That isn't a problem in itself. In fact, it makes sense for earbuds this cheap. The pairing technology that connects 2 completely wireless earbuds is expensive. So using a cable between them is a perfectly reasonable solution.

What's annoying is the heavy block hanging from that cable. It isn't positioned in the middle. If it were, you could at least wear the earbuds like a necklace.

Instead, the control unit sits to the right of center. That makes these cheap Action earbuds extremely annoying and practically impossible to wear for any length of time.

Pulsar Bluetooth Sport

We didn't have particularly high expectations for these earbuds. They're from Pulsar, and we paid €7.95 for them. It's incredible that you can buy earbuds for so little.

Sports

These earbuds are designed for exercise. That's why they have a small ear hook that fits inside your outer ear. And it's surprisingly comfortable.

But in our view, the cable connecting the earbuds makes them unsuitable for running. It bounces against your body with every step, which gets annoying.

These wireless earbuds from Action are better suited to the gym. The connecting cable is less of a nuisance there. The earbuds offer good passive noise isolation. In other words, you don't hear much of what's going on around you when you're wearing them. Handy if you want to block out the thumping music at the gym.

Sound

The sound is exceptionally good. For €7.95, that is. We weren't expecting any bass, but we got some. We weren't expecting much in the midrange either, but it was reasonably good. The sound quality is better than we expected for the €7.95 we paid.

That said, you can get so much better sound for €20. That's logical, of course, but still worth mentioning. We put together a comparison of all QCY earbuds. For €20 more, those earbuds offer so much better quality. And there's no connecting cable. We don't know your budget, but if you can stretch to it, go for earbuds like those.

Grundig Bluetooth Stereo

This is the most expensive of the three. Though "expensive" is relative: you can get these wireless earbuds for less than €9. Again, they're 2 "wireless earbuds" joined by a cable.

Sound: best of the 3

The sound actually surprised us. It's pretty good for the €9 you pay.

Build quality: the cable could easily snap

The flat cable between the earbuds is extremely thin. So thin that it feels as though a firm tug would snap it.

They've clearly cut costs on the cable connecting these wireless earbuds. It really feels as though pulling the two cheap earbuds apart would snap it.

The heavy control unit hangs awkwardly

The control unit for these Action earbuds (shown in the hand in the photo above) is heavy. Again, it sits slightly to the right, so it hangs awkwardly on one side of the connecting cable. That puts all its weight on one earbud.

No wonder that earbud, the right one, keeps falling out. The cable also swings back and forth, and you can feel it in your ear. It's very awkward and makes it impossible to walk around with these Action earbuds for any length of time.

Conclusion

The best "wireless" earbuds you can buy at Action are the Grundig earbuds. One major annoyance, though, is the weight of the control unit on the right side of the cable. All that weight pulls on one ear.

If you can spend just a little more, it's definitely worth it. Take a look at our other articles. They're full of useful tips on finding quality earbuds at a low price. For example, check out the best earbuds up to €50 that we've tested. The nice thing is that they're truly wireless, too.

Earbuds really don't have to be expensive to sound good. But for genuinely good earbuds, you'll need to spend around €15 more. You certainly won't regret that choice.

Have a suggestion or comment? Let us know below. We always reply. And we often update an article if you have something useful to add. So don't hesitate to leave us a friendly message.

Others also viewed:

• Browse all our wireless earbuds blog posts
• These are the best earbuds under €50
• Prefer budget in-ear earbuds? Check out our in-depth blog post about QCY earbuds
• Also check out our blog post about alternatives to AirPods
• Explore the 3 best earbuds for running
• Check out our hands-on review of the Eardopes B6 pro