A retro yet futuristic design and sound by KEF, this is what makes the Nothing Headphone (1) such an exciting audio product to check out and in typical Nothing fashion, they are doing many things different from the rest, but despite that, is it worth spending RM1099 or $299 on this unique pair of cans?

Compared to most over-ear headphones in the market, the Nothing Headphone (1) really stands out with its unique square-shaped earcups and transparent round case, the build quality is pretty decent and I like the high quality plastic used on the headband that feels like aluminum, the adjustment arm is also smooth similar to a pair of premium headphone.

The Nothing Headphone (1) uses a PU memory foam on the earcups and headband, which feels very comfortable when you put on the first time, but just like any PU material, it gets warm after a while which can be a little uncomfortable, definitely not something you will like to wear outdoors in a tropical weather, but in an air conditioned room, it is pretty manageable.

Although the Headphone (1) can’t be folded, I’m glad that Nothing as provided a pretty nice hard case to store the headphone and it even has a pretty big compartment for storing cables and other stuff. However, I’m not a fan of the invisible zip as it feels fragile and can break in the long term.

In terms of connectivity, the Headphone (1) features the best set of connectivity options that you don’t usually get on similar priced headphone, it supports 3.5mm wired audio, USB-C audio and LDAC wireless streaming, while you can connect to two devices at the same time with Bluetooth 5.3.

The headphone supports Microsoft Swift Pair and Google’s Fast Pair so you will see a popup instantly on your Windows computer or Android smartphone when it is in pairing mode, so connecting for the first time is going to be a breeze and it reconnects back fast as soon as you flip on the power switch.

I love that the Headphone (1) does away with swipe gestures and awkward button presses that you find on most other headphones, the Paddle control is great for skipping music tracks, the roller feels very natural when you want to quickly adjust music volume, there is a customizable button on the right earcup that lets you do either channel hopping between Spotify and Apple Music when you connect the headphone to a Nothing Phone 3, and on other phones, it lets you talk to your phone’s voice assistant.

Having these individual controls are great, but you see, there are reasons that most headphones give you capacitive controls on the earcups because you can either use either one side to control the headphone, but all these controls I mentioned are on the right earcup and it feels really weird to put my thumb on the back to use the roller and paddle, I would have preferred if they made them on the front which feels more natural for my hands to reach them.

When connected to the Nothing Phone (3), the Headphone (1) is able to quickly switch between playlists of different music streaming apps, you can save up to 99 of them which I think is pretty cool, but I think it is a feature that needs more polishing as I find adding my favorite playlists a little too troublesome as I need to switch between the music app and Nothing X to add them.

Also, the voice prompt isn’t accurate as it doesn’t read my playlist name but rather, the first song title and artist of that particular playlist. The button can also activate ChatGPT live which is really nice, but I would rather talk to Gemini Live as ChatGPT Live isn’t the most up to date when I want to ask about more recent stuff.

So, you might be wondering what does the partnership with KEF has to do on this headphone, because the audio company is more well known for speakers rather than headphones. According to Nothing, the Headphone (1)’s acoustics performance and sound profile is co-engineered with KEF, which like pretty much every premium audio headphone, claims that it produces sound that the artist intended.

Well, I’m no artist to judge whether the sound quality of the Headphone (1) meet the artist’s requirements, but I find it to do particularly well in vocals and instrumentals, they sounded crystal clear and realistic and gives me real satisfaction, you will be particularly immersed in Adele and Billie Eilish’s music where their great vocals really resonate with your ears, and for those who prefer to listen to music genres with more dynamic frequencies such as K-Pop, the Headphone (1) leaves no details unheard and produces very natural sounding bass, it isn’t a super bassy pair headphone but it gets the thumping job well done.

The Headphone (1)’s active noise cancellation performance is pretty decent for what it is, it greatly reduces rumbling of plane engines and moving cars which you can still hear them a little if you aren’t listening to any music, I’m impressed with the Transparency mode as it lets in ambient noise without the artificial low quality microphone recording sound effect.

Battery life on the Headphone (1) is very impressive, not unless you listen to them like 7 hours a day, it is hard to kill it even in a long hour flight. The headphone goes up to 80 hours without ANC and on AAC codec, and even when you have ANC turned on, you still get up to 35 hours which is very impressive, a quick 5 minute charge will offer 2 hours of listening which is really good if you happen to run out of battery.

In contrast to the Nothing Phone (3), the Headphone (1) presents an excellent value over more expensive headphones, it looks cool and definitely grabs attention around you, it is packed with great connectivity and useful features, but most importantly, it delivers stellar sound quality that you won’t usually get on headphones of the similar price segment.

Get the Nothing Headphone (1) here.