Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/

Apple's AirPods have conditioned us all to feel that you have to drop at least$100 to get a decent set of earbuds. 

But what if I told you that you could pick up almost five pairs of fantastic earbuds for that sort of money?

Also: This power bank charges 3 ways, works great for iPhoneandAndroid, and even has a kickstand

Interested? You should be, because theBaseus Bowie MA10 earbuds are out-of-this-world good! 

RECOMMENDS

Baseus Bowie MA10 earbuds

Fantastic sound quality, awesome noise cancelation, an unbelievably long battery life, and a crazy-low price tag make these earbuds an amazing deal.

View at Amazon

Baseus Bowie MA10 features

• -48dB Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) earbuds
• 8 hours of playtime on a single charge, 140 hours of runtime with a full-charged case, and 1.5 hour fast charging
• IPX6 rated, so perfect for the gym
• Four built-in ENC (Environmental Noise Cancellation) mics that filter your voice out from all the background noise
• Ergonomic fit
• 0.038 seconds low latency
• Bluetooth 5.3 for a fast, stable wireless connection 

I've tested a lot of earbuds, and I've always felt that while sub-$50 earbuds are OK, I wouldn't call them great, which I why I came to the Bowie MA10 with low expectations. After all, I'm used to my priceyAirPods Pro and Shokz bone conduction hardware.

Also: I tested a water-resistant power station, and it's as game-changing as it sounds

And these aren't$50 earbuds; they're under$30.

But within moments of using them, I was blown away by how good they were.

There are four things that I want from a decent set of earbuds. 

Baseus Bowie MA10 

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/

First is audio quality.

Now, I'm no audiophile, but I've been around long enough to know if the sound is tinny or weak, or there's too little or too much bass, or if there's lag or distortion or dropouts. I had no problems at all with the Bowie MA10.

Sound quality was excellent whether I was listening to music or audiobooks, or on a call, and this was right out of the box, without having to tweak them in the settings.

To be honest, I couldn't tell the difference between these and my AirPods Pro.

Top marks here from me.

Also: This is the$300 Android phone to beat in 2023 - and it even has a stylus

Then there's the active noise cancellation, which nowadays is a must for me. TheBowie MA10's offer, in technical terms, up to -48db of noise canceling, blocking out 95% of ambient noise.

What this means, in reality, is that as soon as you pop them in your ears, the world goes away.

Nice.

And if you do need to keep an ear out as to what's going on around you, you can disable noise cancellation and enable transparency mode.

The second thing that I look for is good battery life, and the Bowie MA10 earbuds will keep going and going and going, with each charge of the buds offering up to 8 hours of runtime, and a fully-charged case extends that to a whopping 140 hours.

Also: Give iPhone or Android satellite messaging powers with this handy device

That's almost six days!

That, combined with fast recharge, means that you're rarely without your earbuds.

The crazy battery life does mean that the charging case is big, dwarfing the AirPods Pro case. But remember, the$249 AirPods Pro offers a total runtime of only 30 hours.

Size comparison: 2nd-gen AirPods Pro (left) and Baseus Bowie MA10 (right)

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/

Then the third thing is comfort.

Now, everyone's ears and ear canals are different, and I've only two ears for testing, so my experience could very well be different from yours, but I found the earbuds to be lightweight and super comfortable out of the box. If these don't work for you, there are spare eartips to experiment with to get a fit that works for you.

Spare eartips

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/

Finally, there's nothing that's going to kill earbuds or headphones quicker than sweat, so a high level of water resistance is a must. The IPX6 rating on these earbuds means that rain and sweat or a fall into a puddle isn't going to be a problem.

Oh, and there's an app.

The app features 10-level noise cancellation, 12 equalizer modes, and there's also a handy "Find My Buds" feature for when they go for a wander.

The Baseus Bowie MA10 earbuds have a retail price tag of$30, but right now you can pick them up on Amazon.com for just over$21 (remember to click the coupon!). For that price, they're a steal, and are great as both your main earbuds or the sacrificial earbuds you use at the gym or when running.

I can't recommend these earbuds enough!

Featured reviews

I tried Meta's Quest 3 VR headset and the mixed reality experience was next levelI spent a week with the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and here's what stood out the mostChatGPT vs. Bing Chat vs. Google Bard: Which is the best AI chatbot?I demoed the$299 Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses and they're way better than I expectedI challenge you to find a better-looking laptop for under$1,000 than this

• I tried Meta's Quest 3 VR headset and the mixed reality experience was next level
• I spent a week with the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and here's what stood out the most
• ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat vs. Google Bard: Which is the best AI chatbot?
• I demoed the$299 Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses and they're way better than I expected
• I challenge you to find a better-looking laptop for under$1,000 than this