The YouTube-famous Raycon earbuds prove that basic earbuds can be better
Here's the thing: I actually don't want or need budget earbuds to attempt to perform the same as $450 flagship headphones.
Still, as someone who tests the gamut of headphones and earbuds for a living, I know that the cheaper options out there are certainly going to try. While some punch above their weight class in some areas, they almost certainly fall flat in others, trying to pack in premium features like 20 equalizer settings that all sound the same or overly sensitive touch controls that are more trouble than they're worth. So when I saw the Raycon Everyday Earbuds start popping up in many a YouTube sponsorship, I figured they might fall into that class of budget earbuds. I was wrong.
The Raycon Everyday Earbuds succeed because they know exactly what they are: relatively affordable earbuds, meant not to wow, but to be reliable and convenient to use. With them clocking in at $79.99 (or $63.99 if you can grab them on sale), I don't need these earbuds to offer a super-involved app experience or the best active noise cancellation on the market. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out these earbuds didn't even have a companion app.
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This is where I'm going to say something radical: I don't think every device in our lives needs a companion app. I imagine part of the appeal of wired headphones is that you can plug and play. For me, the Raycon Everyday buds get as close as you can to that experience. You open the case, they connect to your device, and you use them. Revolutionary!
That doesn't mean they're short on features: They have decent ANC, preset equalizer options, and the ability to activate a phone's voice assistant. You just access all those features via the tactile on-earbud controls, which is a genius decision for budget earbuds — I've seen too many under-$100 buds fall victim to wonky touch controls (including my favorite budget earbuds) to believe it can be done well.
Their battery life is also excellent, lasting eight hours per charge (and 32 hours with the case). The IPX4 rating and lower price point mean you can wear them while working or working out without worries, and the five gel tips allowed me to find a comfortable fit. The sound quality and ANC, while nothing incredible, are just solidly good. Honestly, they showed their lower price most in their lack of Bluetooth button, which means that without an app, you need to unpair them from any devices if you want to connect them to other devices. My slight annoyance from that was alleviated by the fact that they switched between two paired devices better than headphones twice their price. And as a bonus, they're incredibly compact — like small enough to fit into nearly any pocket.
With the Raycon Everyday Earbuds, you get what you pay for — but in the best way possible.
Bethany Allard is a Los Angeles-based shopping reporter at Mashable covering beauty tech, dating, sex and relationships, and headphones. That basically means she puts her hair through a lot, scrolls through a lot of dating apps, and rotates through a lot of different headphones. In addition to testing out and rounding up the best products, she also covers deals for Mashable, paying an especially obsessive amount of attention to Apple deals and prices. That knowledge comes in handy when she's covering shopping holidays like Prime Day and Black Friday, which she's now done for three years at Mashable.
