Better than Bose? soundcore C40i open-ear earbuds

The soundcore C40i open ear earbuds are an update to the previous C30i model. Promising a better fit, better sound, but still cheaper than other open earbuds from the likes of Sony and Bose.

Why Open-Ear Earbuds?

Whilst open-ear earbuds don’t generally sound as good as their in-ear counterparts, they do have several advantages.

Firstly, both are compact and small. This makes the earbuds easy to wear, and the case easy to put in your pocket.

If you don’t like shoving things in your ears, then clip-on style earbuds, like these, are perfect.

These fit securely on your ears. So whether you’re wearing these whilst jogging, or doing any physical exercise, these really do stay put. Unlike some in-ear earbuds that can fall out.

They’re also allow you to stay aware of your surroundings as they don’t shut you away from your environment. So if you’re going out for a jog, taking the dog for a walk, or you’re jogging through traffic, then you have the added security of knowing what’s going on around you.

All these pro’s have certainly made open-ear earbuds a trending style of earbud now. It’s easy to see why they’re getting so popular.

The C40i Design

The soundcore C40i delivers on pretty much all the pro’s of open-ear earbuds.

The case, and the earbuds, are small, compact and super light. The earbuds themselves only weigh about 5g too. The case is also the perfect size for putting in your pocket or bag.

The C40i’s have a flexible design that makes putting them on and wearing them is super easy. This is an improvement over the previous generation C30’s which were rigid. This makes the C40i’s more suited to a wider range of ear sizes. They stay in place well too, even during exercise.

If you find them a bit loose on your ears then you can add either the medium or large earbud covers to the earbuds to give you a tighter fit.

So if you’re the type of person who found the soundcore C30i too small, or too tight, then these are going to fit you better. I have worn these for hours at a time and they’ve been super comfortable to wear.

These are especially well suited to those that wear glasses as they clip on the bottom of your ears rather than looping over the top and so don’t get in the way of the arms of glasses.

I now only wear open-ear earbuds when I’m out walking the dog so I can hear cars on the road, people walking past, other dogs etc.

Controls

Controlling these earbuds is super easy as soundcore have added physical buttons rather than touch sensitive controls. This works really well, especially if your hands are hot and sweaty as touch controls generally don’t work then.

This also solved one of the problems that I had with the previous C30i’s, which had touch controls. My neck kept accidently triggering the touch controls on those whenever I moved my head. To the extent that I had to turn touch controls off. Now with buttons, I don’t get that problem with the C40i’s.

You can also configure what each button action does in the soundcore mobile app, be that a single, double, or a long press. There is one action that these earbuds have that I’ve been missing for a long time. With a long press on the button, the longer you hold it down for the more it changes the volume up and down. That might seem like a small thing but it’s something that I haven’t seen many do recently.

The Sound

These earbuds consist of a pair of 12 x 17mm drivers. Now that is physically the same size as the drivers inside the C30i’s, however it’s not the same driver because the drivers that drove the C30i were a 16 ohm driver, and these are a 22 ohm driver. So there’s more power needed to drive these drivers than there was in previous versions.

Still, despite the more power required by these you do still get 7 hours of battery life on a single charge. This is similar to other open ear earbuds offered by more premium brands like Sony and Bose. You also get a total of 21 hours of battery life with the case.

Getting back to the sound though, that improved driver does give you better sound. There is a richness and a fullness to the bass that wasn’t in previous versions. There’s definitely a need to EQ it though because out-of-the-box they sounded too bright, with far too much treble.

Changing the EQ of these earbuds is super easy thanks to the soundcore mobile app that provides either four different presets to choose from, or you can jump into the eight band custom EQ and tweak it yourself. That’s definitely what I’d recommend doing.

After EQing these do sound pretty good. You don’t get bone rumbling bass, these are open-ear earbuds after all, but there is more than enough bass for these type of earbuds. The mids and the highs are good enough and it’s certainly pleasant enough to listen to. They also go pretty loud as well. Do bear in mind though that these are open ear earbuds so the louder you go the more people around you are going to be able to hear what you’re listening to.

Conclusion

So the soundcore C40i open-ear earbuds are an improvement over the previous version and plenty of features, good battery life, and good sound, to please most people, especially at the asking price of $100 which is considerable cheaper than the likes of the Bose Ultra open earbuds, which cost $299!

With the soundcore C40i’s you certainly get an awful lot for your money.