Optus Mobile Review ALDI Mobile Review Amaysim Mobile Review Belong Mobile Review Circles.Life Review Vodafone Mobile Review Woolworths Mobile Review Felix Mobile Review Best iPhone Plans Best Family Mobile Plans Best Budget Smartphones Best Prepaid Plans Best SIM-Only Plans Best Plans For Kids And Teens Best Cheap Mobile Plans Telstra vs Optus Mobile Optus NBN Review Belong NBN Review Vodafone NBN Review Superloop NBN Review Aussie BB NBN Review iiNet NBN Review MyRepublic NBN Review TPG NBN Review Best NBN Satellite Plans Best NBN Alternatives Best NBN Providers Best Home Wireless Plans What is a Good NBN Speed? Test NBN Speed How to speed up your internet Optus vs Telstra Broadband ExpressVPN Review CyberGhost VPN Review NordVPN Review PureVPN Review Norton Secure VPN Review IPVanish VPN Review Windscribe VPN Review Hotspot Shield VPN Review Best cheap VPN services Best VPN for streaming Best VPNs for gaming What is a VPN? VPNs for ad-blocking But people with pickier tastes who need better battery life, or some semblance of noise cancellation will need to spend a little more. In the space of weeks, my circle of spotty-faced mates were selling off stocks in Fall Out Boy faster than a WeWork investor. Opinions filtered down from print punk-rock magazines to Tool-obsessed older siblings, until, finally, the sour dregs sat on my friends’ pierced lips. It was official; Fall Out Boy was lame. None of that mattered, though. Fall Out Boy was good enough for me. My knock-off Sony Walkman MP3 was good enough for me as were my dollar-store earbuds with frayed and exposed wires. Just like Fall Out Boy, the BlueAnt Pump Air 2 true wireless earbuds aren’t going to impress any of the audio snobs in the room, but just like Fall Out Boy, they’ll be good enough for most. I think $169 is the most you should spend on a teenager, especially for a product that’s so easily misplaced. That’s no shade on teenagers, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a wallet-chain out of necessity, rather than an ill-informed style choice, at that age. The price is right, whichever way you slice it. The sound quality is mediocre on a good day (more on that in a moment), and I’ve experienced some severe dropouts while testing the BlueAnt Pump Air 2 earbuds. The Pump Air 2 buds don’t cope with disruptions very well, and disruptions are frequent. Passing cars, traffic lights, nearby Bluetooth devices; everything emitting a signal can throw them off-kilter. But that’s not the weirdest part. It’s when the buds attempt to recover that things get especially strange. I’ve experienced three different behaviours when trying to reconnect. The first I noticed was where the left and right buds would fall slightly out of sync, resulting in a severe echo between the left and right buds. The second was an underwater effect that made listening to a podcast almost impossible. And lastly, there was one situation where the disruption kicked the audio back to my loudspeaker as I stood in line at Woolworths. It drew my fellow shoppers’ attention, but what do I care if they heard five seconds of the Binge Mode podcast? Now, if I’d been listening to an audiobook of my favourite erotic fiction, things might have been awkward. Speaking of dropouts, I’ve also had trouble keeping the Pump Air 2 buds in my ears. I’ve tried just about every tip (of which there are seven), and while I’ve had no problem with overall comfort, these slippery suckers can’t seem to stick. Every visit to the loo is a high-risk activity. This might not be an issue for you; maybe the BlueAnt Pump Air 2s are your ear’s glass slipper. If that’s the case, you’ll enjoy a super lightweight pair of buds that are discreet enough to go unnoticed. There’s no active noise cancellation, which you would expect, but even the passive noise isolation isn’t too crash hot. I struggle to listen to podcasts in crowded areas and, most of the time, I don’t even bother pausing what I’m listening to when I get caught in conversation. There are plenty of pricer buds out there that will only last just as long or less (the otherwise excellent Sennheiser Momentum buds is one example). But there are sturdier options available, such as Audio-Technica’s ATH-CKS5TW buds, that last a lot longer if battery life is a deal-breaker for you. If you’re throwing down in your living room, you might lose an earbud, but you won’t do any damage if you work up a serious sweat.
