If you're after some discreet wireless earbuds, this 1More Comfobuds Mini review is a good place to start. They’re some of the smallest earphones in the world, which is what earned them their place as some of the best cheap headphones you can buy.
1More is a growing audio brand offering fantastic value and bang up to date devices. The 1More Comfobuds Mini are a great example of that, they’re well made with great sound and have some useful features like active noise cancellation and wireless charging.
In this 1More Comfobuds Mini review, I’ll help you to figure out if these true wireless earbuds are right for you, or not. If you want to keep your options open, take a look at T3’s guide to the best true wireless earbuds as well.
1More Comfobuds Mini review: price and availability
You can buy the 1More Comfobuds Mini now from Amazon for $100 in the US and £92.99 in the UK. Take a look at the widgets on this page to see where else you can pick them up as well as the best deals on them right now from across the web.
1More Comfobuds Mini review: design and fit
When it comes to the design of the 1More Comfobuds Mini, the clue is in the name. They are teeny, tiny true wireless earbuds that are super discreet in the ear. So small that it’s unlikely anyone will realise you even have them in.
The round buds weigh just 3.7g each which at the time of writing is the lightest I have ever seen, and ultimately, makes these some of the most comfortable earbuds I've tried. You can barely feel them in your ears. You get three sizes of silicone eartips to choose from to help you find the perfect fit for your ears as well.
When I was using them, they stayed securely in my ears even during workouts. They have an IP57 rating which means they’re fully waterproof so you’ll be fine to use them when you get a bit sweaty or even if you were to drop them in a puddle.
The 1More Comfobuds Mini come in black or white with a matching plastic charging case, it’s ovate in shape and measures 56.5 × 50 × 24.5mm so will quite easily fit in even the smallest, tightest pockets. There’s a small LED light on the front to let you know its battery level and a button on the side to pair them to a new device.
You’ll get 6 hours of music from the earbuds if you keep the ANC switched off, but if you have it turned on, you’ll only lose an hour of battery life. Charging them up again takes about 70 minutes.
The charging case provides a total of 24 hours of listening time with ANC switched off or 20 hours with it on.
When you do plug it in, it’ll take about 90 minutes to charge the case back up to 100% or if you don’t mind a longer wait, you can use a wireless charger. While the battery life isn’t going to blow you away, it’s not terrible either, sitting towards the middle ground in comparison to the competition.
Touch controls on the outside of the buds allow you to pause or play the music, answer or reject calls and summon your phone’s smart assistant. If you long-press them you can switch between noise-cancelling modes as well.
You can change the gestures to add in controls like volume adjustment or the ability to skip through tracks but you can only have four gestures in place at once so you’ll have to leave some out.
1More Comfobuds Mini review: performance and features
You can’t expect the 1More Comfobuds Mini wireless earbuds to produce award-winning audio but for a small pair of affordable headphones, they do actually do a decent job.
I’d describe the sound as clear, powerful and balanced even though it isn’t detailed enough to hear every single instrument and vocals won’t push through with the same amount of force as you’d get from more expensive earbuds. Some people might prefer a much more thumping bass but for most genres it sits at a good level, not too much but not too little.
During certain songs, like There She Goes by The La’s, I did find the treble sometimes had issues with distortion, making it sound a little empty on the higher frequencies. But it wasn’t always that noticeable, especially in more bass-heavy tunes.
While there aren’t manual equaliser settings to play around with the sound, you can create your own SoundID through the 1More Music smartphone app. It prompts you to pick your favourite song out of a list, and then asks you a number of times which of two options sounds best to you, before using that information to create your personalised sound profile. The results will obviously person to person but I did find it made the music sound slightly better to my ears.
You get three different modes to choose from using the touch controls, those being ANC, Transparent mode and Off but through the app you’ll be able to pick which level of noise cancellation you want. The choices are ANC Strong, ANC Mild and Wind Noise Resistance.
When I had ANC Strong switched on, it not only cut out some annoying noise from around me, but also added more depth to the sound which I very much appreciated. It’s not the best ANC you’ll find but it’s good enough to dull the sound of the train or annoying office chatter. In contrast, the Transparent mode was less effective, while it does work I also found it negatively impacted the overall sound quality.
Another feature worth knowing about is ear detection. There are sensors on each earbud so when you take them out of your ears, they will automatically pause the music. That’s also a great safeguard against losing them as you’re more likely to notice if one falls out.
1More Comfobuds Mini review: verdict
If you like the idea of having miniature true wireless earbuds that are so discreet no one will even know you have them in, then there’s nothing else like the 1More Comfobuds Mini right now. And the best part is they won’t break the bank.
You can use these for your runs, gym workouts, commutes and even while you’re at work. They have a decent amount of battery and not to mention the noise cancellation which will help you keep your attention on the music and not what’s going on around you.
The sound quality can be a little hit and miss but for the most part, it’s pretty solid and it’s great that you can create your own SoundID through the app, even if that doesn’t give you manual control over the audio.
1More Comfobuds Mini review: also consider
Another tiny pair of true wireless earbuds to consider are the EarFun Free Pro 2, they’re cheaper than the 1More Comfobuds Mini so aren’t as feature-packed but you’ll still get noise-cancelling and wireless charging.
If you priortise sound quality over anything else, then the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 Plus are your best bet. The audio could fool you into thinking they’re a much more expensive pair of earbuds than they actually are, and they’re also very small. You will miss out on active noise cancellation though.
