My favorite is still semi-in-ear headphones: Edifier Lolli ANC unboxing

Preface

Lately I've really been crazy shopping for all kinds of headphones…

The XClip open-ear headphones from last time hadn't even warmed up yet, and I already picked up the Lolli ANC semi-in-ear headphones.

Clip-on open-ear headphones still don't feel that natural for everyday use; by comparison I'm more used to the semi-in-ear style, so I'll leave the XClip for workouts.

This Lolli ANC is also in the 200-yuan price range. I've been using it for nearly a month, and the experience has been pretty good.

Packaging

Packaging very similar to the XClip; it seems Edifier uses the same packaging for all their TWS headphones.

The back.

The side

Unboxing

This time I bought the white one; I still prefer lighter colors.

The box contents are simple: just a charging cable and a manual.

The Headphones

The case build quality is pretty decent. It feels like a pebble in the hand, without the cheap plastic feel of the previous HECATE GT2S 2.4g.

The interior layout is also fairly standard

The design of these earbuds is pretty nice—quite restrained.

Experience

The seal of these headphones is quite a bit better than I expected!

The first time I put them on, it felt like I was wearing in-ear headphones 😂

The good seal brings decent noise cancellation. Compared to the Huawei FreeBuds 3 I used before, the experience is noticeably better. It probably still doesn't handle wind noise well, but for a 200-yuan pair of headphones it's good enough. I didn't have high expectations for ANC on semi-in-ear headphones before buying, and I don't turn on ANC for everyday use anyway.

As for sound quality, it's pretty good. Like the XClip, the bass is very full, but correspondingly, instrument layering and soundstage may be a bit weaker. For my everyday audiobook listening needs, though, it's more than enough.

I also found that the listening experience differs quite a bit across devices. For example, on a Xiaomi phone the bass is full and the layering is distinct, while on a vivo phone and a Lenovo tablet it sounds much flatter. Xiaomi may have its own audio tuning; I switched among "Dolby Atmos," "Xiaomi Sound Effects," and "Original" in the settings, and found they all sounded pretty good.

iPhone hasn't been tried yet—I'll give it a go when I have time. Also, connecting Bluetooth headphones to a Windows laptop is not recommended: devices with a microphone will connect in call mode, and the sound quality drops a lot.

App

Finally, a few App screenshots.