EarFun Free

EarFun Free

Editor Rating: Excellent (4.0)
EarFun Free - EarFun Free
  • Pros

    Inexpensive. Solid audio performance with rich bass depth and clear highs. Waterproof.
  • Cons

    Could use more high-mid presence. On-ear controls lack volume, could be more graceful.
  • Bottom Line

    The EarFun Free true wireless earphones combine quality audio performance with a waterproof design for an impressively low price.

Not everyone is interested in dropping upward of $200 on true wireless earphones. If you're looking to spend significantly less, the EarFun Free earphones deliver a surprisingly good experience for just $49.99. They have a gym-friendly, waterproof design; the included charging case packs a decent amount of extra battery life; and most importanly, they sound quite good for the price. The on-ear controls can feel a little clumsy and the overall design isn't exciting, but for $50, you're getting a lot of value for your money.


The EarFun Free earpieces and battery case come in either black or white eggshell finishes, and the earpieces have a vaguely snail-like contour. Visually, there's not much going on here, but the earpieces aren't ugly.

You get three pairs of silicone eartips in small, medium, and large sizes. The in-ear fit, like most true wireless pairs, is quite secure, but the design lacks any extra stabilizing fins. The earphones should probably be fine for the gym, but there are pairs that offer more fit security.

An impressive IPX7 rating means the earpieces can withstand being submerged up to one meter under water for up to 30 minutes. That means they can definitely get rained on, sweat upon, and be rinsed off or soaked in the sink without issue. However, the rating applies to the earpieces only—don't put wet earpieces in the charging case.

Earfun Free inline

The on-ear controls use push-buttons on the outer panels of the earpieces, which can get annoying as you press the buttons into your ears to operate them, but the controls do at least work. The left ear's button controls playback and track navigation, depending on how many times you press it, while the right also handles playback, as well as incoming calls and Bluetooth pairing. Pressing and holding the right button will also summon your mobile device's voice assistant, and both buttons control power. Again, we've seen more elegant on-ear buttons, and the lack of volume controls is disappointing.

EarFun estimates the battery life to be roughly 6 hours, with an extra 24 hours in the battery case. That's a little better than average for the true wireless field, and impressive considering the price, but remember that your results will vary with your volume levels.

The earphones use Bluetooth 5.0 and supports AAC and SBC Bluetooth codecs. There's no support for AptX.


On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the earphones deliver powerful low-frequency depth, and at top volumes, they don't distort. At more moderate volumes, the bass response still feels powerful, but there's a decent balance with the highs so things don't sound overly boosted towards the lows.

Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Free's general sound signature. The drums on this track have a lovely bass depth to them—they aren't overly thunderous, but they certainly pack some bass punch. There's boosting in the lows, but it isn't over the top, and things still sound closer to natural. Callahan's baritone vocals get a pleasant low-mid richness matched with enough high-mid presence to give them a slight treble edge. If there's one thing we'd like to hear more of here, though, it's the high-mids and highs—there's balance, but the crispness we expect is slightly dulled. Still, generally speaking, this is a pleasant bass response matched with articulate highs.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop receives less high-mid presence than we're used to hearing, and the attack is therefore slightly dulled. The vinyl crackle and hiss, however, is boosted to a degree that moves it to the forefront of the mix, so there is some boosting and sculpting across the high-mids and highs, it's just not always obvious or uniform. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with impressive power—it's not quite like there's a club PA system in your head, but there's plenty of sub-bass represented here. The vocals are all delivered cleanly and clearly, and there's no hint of added sibilance, but if we could boost the high-mids a little, it would be pretty close to ideal.

Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound balanced through the Free. The lower-register instrumentation isn't boosted too much, nor does it stand back in the mix. The higher-register brass, strings, and vocals could certainly use a little more brightness and shimmer, but the overall mix sounds balanced, not dulled. Those seeking a crisp sound signature will likely want to look elsewhere, but the earphones do a good job of not boosting the bass too much, either, and thus we get a relatively balanced, almost mids-focused sound signature.

The mic offers average intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every word we recorded, but there was the typical Bluetooth distortion around the edges (perhaps a bit more than usual), and the mic sounded a little distant. It should be fine for phone calls when you have a decent signal, however, and this is par for the course with true wireless in-ear mics.


At $50 for a pair of true wireless earphones, the fact that the EarFun Free's audio performance is even decent is noteworthy—that it's actually pretty good is impressive. There's no real curb appeal here—these are ergonomic earphones that fit well and have a waterproof rating, with good battery life for the price. In the sub-$100 realm, we also like the Anker Soundcore Liberty Air, but at $80, they're nearly twice the price of the EarFun Free. And for more money, the $120 JBL Endurance Peak and the $130 Samsung Galaxy Buds are quite good. For $50, however, the Free earphones get plenty right for the price.