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0 Welcome to the Edifier W240TN True Wireless Noise Cancellation Earbuds review.
There seems to be an abundance of wireless earbuds coming to the market right now. No more so than from Edifier themselves.
Slotting into the ever-popular midrange price point of only £79.99 do the W240TN earbuds stand out above so much competition? Read on to find out.
If like me you love all things audio, feel free to check out some of my previous reviews here.
Budget price with big sound
Design and Control
First things first, the design. Edifier has really broken the mould here. So many earbuds seem to stick with the tried and tested airpods style design. Not Edifier. Available in 3 colours, black, white or the brand new blue. With something resembling a car engine piston, the W240TN look really striking.
With a selection of 4 different ear tips to choose from and a no stem design, finding a perfect fit is super easy. The W240TN have one of the most stable fits for me out of any earbud I have ever tried. They simply become an extension of your ear canal, they’re that comfortable.
This is really important when exercising. Whilst testing multiple times on 10km runs there is never any movement whatsoever. Couple this with a sweat and water resistance rating of IP55, the Edifier W240TN are an excellent choice for fitness fanatics.
I’ve tried a couple of Edifier earbuds in the past and found their touch sensitive controls to be a little temperamental at times. These however, have no touch buttons at all. There’s just 1 physical button on each earbud. Even though I do quite like this, I did find that when pushing on the buttons, this has a tendency to push the earbud further into your ear making it a little uncomfortable.
My biggest problem with the Edifier W240TN comes when selecting what the physical buttons actually do. This can be done once they’re paired to the Edifier Connect app.
Nearly all earbuds nowadays have editable controls. Normally, single tapping, double tapping, triple tapping and holding the button can all be edited to customise how you control your earbuds.
On the W240TN single tap on both buds cannot be edited at all, so that is always left to pausing whatever content you have playing. Then there’s the double tap, triple tap and hold commands. These can be customised, which is great. However, they can’t be customised per earbud. So, whatever you set the left earbud to do, the right one does exactly the same command!
For example, I would normally set the double tap function on the left earbud to go back a track, with the right earbud skipping to the next track when listening to music. On the W240TN double tapping the left earbud would go back a track, but so would double tapping the right earbud. I would have to set skip to next track on triple tap if I wanted to have that option. But then that would also be set to both earbuds. Thus, leaving me with only 1 more command left to customise. With noise cancellation/ambient sound mode a must have option. I would be left without an option to adjust the volume at all, as like the skip track function. That would take up 2 separate commands.
This personally is a massive oversight from Edifier and something that would put me off ever using as my daily earbuds. Whether it could be addressed in a software update remains to be seen. I’d like to think Edifier is aware of this and is working on a fix but the fact its in there as standard makes me think it was intentional.
The rest of the Edifier Connect app is pretty simple to use, there’s a couple of preset EQ options, Classic and Dynamic. With the latter adding a much fuller bass heavy sound for those lovers of hip-hop.
The 3rd option is a fully customisable EQ to tailor the sound to your liking.
There’s also a neat little option in the app called Shutdown timer. This function allows you to tell the earbuds when to power off. Just in case you fall asleep whilst listening, the buds can power down, thus protecting your ears and saving power.
There is unfortunately no in ear detection on the W240TN. So, when popping them in your ears, or taking them out they don’t automatically pause or play. This might be the reason why the single tap button is fixed to play/pause on both buds.
The smooth textured charging case for the W240TN is very angular in design and has the usual Edifier strobing light on the front, resembling something from Knight Rider! This can’t be customised but it’s still a cool looking feature that you can’t help love.
Connection
The Edifier W240TN has a pretty solid 25 hours of battery life. That’s 8.5 hours of playtime from the earbuds and an extra 17 hours from the charging case with ANC off. With ANC on it’s 7 hours and 14 hours respectively. There’s also a fast-charging option that gives you 2 hours of runtime from a quick 10-minute charge. This is always a nice little feature to have. The case is charged via the supplied USB-C cable.
There’s Bluetooth 5.3 here which is the latest version of Bluetooth. However, so many modern devices don’t even support this yet. You therefore may not be able to take advantage of the newer more reliable connection that it brings. That being said, even using older Bluetooth 5.0 and 5.2 I never had any dropouts or connection issues at all. So, no need to worry if you don’t have the latest version.
The one major drawback here is the lack of any decent codec support like aptX or LDAC. The only codec the W240TN support is standard SBC which is such a shame as there are a lot of earbuds now at this price point packing in high-res codec support.
There is a Game Mode accessible via the app. This activates an ultra-low latency mode, allowing an under 80ms synchronised gaming experience. When testing this there was definitely an improvement when watching fast paced content, including movies and YouTube content. However, there is still noticeable delay whilst playing something like an FPS shooter.
Sound and Performance
The Edifier W240TN feature a dual dynamic driver. Rather than the more commonly used single dynamic driver. This comprises of a 6mm tweeter and another 10mm woofer in each earbud.
Having separate drivers helps create a more immersive sound and generally speaking offer a wider frequency response. Which for those interested is 20Hz-20Khz.
For the price point, the sound as a whole really delivers and potential buyers won’t be disappointed.
The 6mm tweeter handles the highs really well, with excellent natural sounding detail. They also help add some clarity to the mids vocally as well. There is good height to the treble on offer here, but never to an extent it gets harsh or too bright.
Bass is here in spades, especially in Dynamic mode. This does depend on what genre of music you listen to though. For orchestral music or film scores and even heavy rock, I found the sub bass to be weirdly lacking. Don’t get me wrong the bass is there. But for a dedicated 10mm woofer I expected a deeper more accurate sub-bass. They just lack that slam.
The imaging isn’t outstanding, but its by know means bad. Especially when you consider the price. Instruments and vocals are easily distinguishable. Just sometimes during classical genres, jazz or film scores there a bit of instrumental bleed. But its only really noticeable in certain demanding tracks.
Even though the mids don’t do anything overly special. The clarity of the vocals is surprisingly excellent. Definitely the forte of the W240TN. Throughout all genres vocals come through with ease and always stay refreshingly clear.
In general, to my ears when comparing to other various earbuds I’ve tested and owned. The overall signature of the Edifier W240TN is warm and colourful, whilst remaining pretty well balanced. Giving an enjoyable listening experience across a myriad of genres.
Call quality on the W240TN is nothing to write home about. But just does the job. Voices are fairly clear in most environments. Only when in noisy or windy environments does pickup and noise become and issue. This goes the same for the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC).
Low frequencies are dealt with surprisingly well for earbuds at this price point. Low engine rumbles of passing cars are almost completely blocked out. It’s in windy environments that the ANC struggles a bit. But I can’t knock it too much as just to have ANC at this price point is impressive and one that buyers will definitely appreciate.
Edifiers Ambient Mode or Transparency Mode however, is excellent. When activated, voices are easily picked up and clearly let into the earbuds with little to no hiss or sibilance.
Final Thoughts
In summary then, is the Edifier W240TN a worthy entry into the mid-tier wireless earbud market?
Well, yes definitely. There may be a few niggly issues that I would struggle with day to day but don’t let that detract you from the overall package on offer here.
The dual drivers are really accomplished performers. They offer a fun colourful soundstage with great battery life. With the latest super reliable connection and best in class comfort. All in a price that won’t break the bank.
The Edifier W240TN get the Thumb Culture Gold Award!
Disclaimer: A product sample was received in order to write this review.
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