Great for fitness, but how are they for gaming?
You might think with ‘Sport’ in their name these new earphones from Cleer wouldn’t be a great fit for gamers. But you’d be wrong. Read on to learn more.
These wireless earbuds have, as you might expect nowadays, a gimmick. Yet it’s a feature that we agree with – mainly as it’s the antithesis of the many noise canceling sets available out there.
It involves their open-style design, which makes it easier to hear your surroundings. Whether that be your partner telling you dinner’s ready, the doorbell with your Amazon delivery, or when you’re out on a run and want to hear that bicycle that’s ready to tear by your wing. The latter possibly being the most important reason of those three considering the sporty focus of these earbuds.
Our first concern with this feature upon charging these up and giving them a try was that there would be excessive noise leaking. Surely the death (deaf?) knell for any set of headphones, especially if you’re to use them when around others.
These fears were increased with the open-ear design, which includes flexible earhook hinges. However we need not have worried, as the sound is impressively clear and focused.
What did cause some concern was the comfort of the fit. Although we didn’t have any issues short term, someone with larger ears on our team did have some discomfort wearing these for extended time periods.Â
Also someone else with glasses struggled to get them to fit well initially, although eventually they managed to adapt – the unique design means we’d certainly recommend sticking with them, as they may not seem to fit properly at first.
As for the actual quality of the earbuds, they’re excellent. Although much larger than a few competitors they don’t feel cheap, and the case that houses and charges them is impressive.
It’s thin and sleek, even boasting a UV light which is implemented to keep the headphones bacteria-free. Something hugely useful when it came to using these for workouts.
However seeing as this is a gaming site, we can hear you asking how do these hold up when it comes to playing actual games. The answer is, very well.
The earbuds were a comfortable fit for most of our team, and the aforementioned focused sound was a huge boon when it came to playing more complex titles on mobile and our Switch. Epic soundtracks lost none of their majesty thanks to large drivers, and important SFX notifications were never missed during hours of play due to the clarity of the output.
There’s the impressive battery life and quickness these charge too, meaning these earbuds don’t lack in the fundamental areas either.
Although we didn’t think they’d hold up well for gaming sessions, they most certainly do – meaning if you’re a gamer who also works out the Arc II Sports are a very sensible choice, and we’re looking forward to what Cleer come out with next.
