Urbanears Alby Review: Best Affordable Wireless Earbuds

Scandinavian style is popular in interior design and architecture. People are attracted by simplicity, unobtrusiveness, and visual comfort. The Urbanears headphones are designed with a similar design approach. We have heard many times about the products of this brand, but now we will get acquainted with these best affordable wireless earbuds, which compete in price with products from various best cheap wireless earbuds vendors.

Simple yet stylish

The packaging immediately shows that the Urbanears Alby is from the homeland of Greta Thunberg: no plastic and polymer inserts – 100% paper. Yes, and it’s not a pity to throw it away, just don’t confuse the container. The shape of the Urban ears is traditional: these are in-ear best budget wireless earbuds from Urbanears, but with long “outgrowths” (like AirPods). This design allows you to reduce the case and make them more convenient by moving part of the electronics outside of them. And at the same time, bring the microphone closer to your mouth for better speech intelligibility during phone conversations.

The weight of each earbud is 3.7 grams, and together with the case, the budget wireless earbuds kit weighs about 50 grams. In a word, if you keep it in your pocket, nothing else will be seen outside. The functionality is also simple. No active noise reduction, 3D sound processor, and advanced codec instead of AAC – SBC.

These are the best cheap earbuds, so don’t even think about the mobile app. Everything is extremely simple, even a child can handle it. The only thing you need to know: immediately after removing the earbuds from the charging case, you must wait 5 seconds and only then start the pairing process on your smartphone.

Control

Despite the simplicity of the device, the controls are touch-sensitive, and the sensitive area processes are concentrated in the upper part. All commands are given exclusively by double-tapping, so there are no false positives. But you need to practice a little to get the right interval between taps. They can be used to pause and restart playback, as well as to answer and end calls. In addition, the touch of any of the earbuds is triggered, because they are equal. Nothing prevents you from getting out of the case and using it in headset mode, as well as prolonging battery life.

There is a mini charge indicator on the case, but it only turns on when the earbuds are returned to the charging pin. Each earbud also has a mini LED – with a short white pulse, it indicates that the device is in working order.

Battery life

Claimed total runtime is 15 hours. Considering that the case is enough for 4 cycles, we get 3.5 hours of work from a single charge. Not very much, but quite enough to continuously listen to music on the way to work and back. Note that a comfortable volume is achievable somewhere around 60-70% of the maximum, depending on the recording. And for more than 3 hours, the Urbanears headphones can work at a level of about 50%, as stated in the documentation. In our conditions, we got 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Connectivity

The Bluetooth connection is excellent: two interior partitions and a massive refrigerator door made their way through without hesitation. But until recently, these obstacles could be insurmountable for Urbanears Alby earbuds. The audibility of your speech during call conversations is normal – the voice sounds a little muffled, but intelligibility is very good. As you can see, one microphone per earpiece is enough.

Sound

Even with an SBC codec, these best cheap wireless earbuds play smoothly and clearly. There is nothing to be surprised about here because the matter is not in the codecs, but in the settings. Obviously, Sweden has configured SBC so well that in subjective perception it is hardly inferior to AAC, or even aptX. We’ve seen headphones with advanced codecs sound worse – dirtier, thicker, and lower resolution.

The sound is typically harmonious, balanced, without obvious humps and dips. The bass is round and thick where necessary. Not as deep as the $150 models, but nothing at all. High frequencies are transparent. Percussion is perfectly conveyed: cymbals, brushes. The stage, of course, is not as large-scale as, say, full-size models, but it is not crowded for musicians of small compositions.

Urbanears Alby does not show any genre preferences. They honestly play everything from jazz and symphonic music to hard rock. Only on hard and metal can you notice that the fronts are slightly blurred due to not the smallest latency. But metal lovers know that this genre requires advanced headphones.

Urbanears Alby specifications

• Type: TWS earbuds
• Functions: headset, playback control
• Acoustic design: In-ear closed
• Noise Suppression: Passive
• Control: Sensor
• Microphones: One per earpiece
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0
• Codec: SBC
• Battery life: 15 hours in total
• Charging port: USB-C
• Water protection: IPX4

Final line

The Urbanears Alby has only those features that you will use consistently in everyday life. And for a few days after the purchase, there are no fashionable solutions. Do you want multipoint with advanced codecs, noise reduction, and other bells and whistles? No problem, just have to pay more. They work clearly and stably, unlike state employees full of technologies from the past. They keep in touch strongly, and most importantly, they play surprisingly well. Yes, and they look Scandinavian fashionable.

All of that said, the lack of active noise cancellation and app support does hold these best budget earbuds back a bit. These best affordable wireless earbuds are focused on the music listening experience and are a little simple with everything else. While we do recommend the Urbanears Alby for anyone focused on music listening on a budget, it might be worth considering the Jabra Elite 3 (REVIEW), which is more affordable and has active noise cancellation as well as app support.

Price and availability

Talking about the price, the Urbanears Alby is the best affordable wireless earbuds that cost $47.29 / £49.99 on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk stores. They are available in five color tones: Liberty Green, Charcoal Black, Dusty White, Teal Green, and Ultra Violet options.