News
News Categories

Creative launches the flagship-level earbuds you’ve been waiting for

By Oscar the Grouch - on 14 Aug 2021, 10:08am

Creative launches the flagship-level earbuds you’ve been waiting for

Note: This article was first published on 5 August 2021.

In our Creative Outlier Air V2 review earlier this year, we complained that they were just a few features short of being a true flagship killer.

Creative appear to have taken these criticisms to heart, and checked virtually all of the boxes in the new Outlier Air V3. What’s even more stunning – the company managed to drop the launch price of the earbuds down to just S$89. Even its usual retail price of S$99 is unbelievably affordable for flagship-level specs.

So what exactly are these flagship-level specs?

Active noise cancellation (ANC) finally makes its debut on the device, making it on par with the rest of the premium true wireless earbuds pack.

Creative claims the Outlier Air V3 has a total rated playback time of 40 hours, up from the 36 hours of its predecessor. We also get wireless charging at last, which is increasingly a must-have in modern gadgets.

At last, Creative made a companion mobile app for its true wireless earbuds, which will launch together with the Outlier Air V3. A well-made companion app greatly enhances the user experience of earbuds, and Creative promises a full suite of personalisation features like toggling ANC and ambient mode, touch control customisation and EQ adjustment.

Sound quality should technically be better, as the Outlier Air V3 comes with bigger new 6mm bio-cellulose drivers, compared to the 5.6mm drivers found in its predecessor. Will it hold up to its promise of “detailed highs, well-balanced mids and immersive bass”? We’ll have to spend more time with an actual unit to find out.

Call quality also gets a boost, with quad microphones for better voice pick-up.

Regardless of the sound quality, you’ll still get Creative’s award-winning Super X-Fi technology in the Outlier Air V3, which attempts to recreate a high-end speaker soundstage within the tiny earbuds. But limitations of Super X-Fi still exists. For example, it only supports local music or video files, and not through streaming services like Netflix or Spotify.

Unfortunately, the design of the Creative Outlier V3 seems to look exactly like the V2. It retains the same chunky appearance and slide-out mechanism, even though Creative says it’s “sleeker and better-fitting form factor”. Maybe we’ll have to see it in real life to experience that.

And that’s exactly what we’ll be doing, so stay tuned for our full review! If you can’t wait, you can grab the Outlier Air V3 at Creative's store.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.