A prolific manufacturer of speakers, headphones, and gaming-related products for nearly 30 years, Edifier is unsurprisingly no stranger to wireless earbuds; in fact, they’ve been making waves and winning design awards with their unique True Wireless Stereo (TWS) line of earbuds since as far back as 2021. The Edifier LolliClip Open-ear True Wireless Noise Cancelling Earbuds thus represent the company’s latest in its fashionable clip-on, open-ear offerings.
The LolliClip certainly doesn’t lack for style or uniqueness. With a shape that resembles a curvaceously-bent, miniature exercise weight, each bud slides onto the earlobe and holds itself securely in place like a paperclip. When viewed by themselves, the earbuds look quite futuristic, but when installed in one’s ears, they take on a more conspicuous, fashion-forward appearance that might not appeal to everyone.
When I wear them and see myself in the mirror, I feel like I’m wearing a pair of mini-hoop rings and that perhaps I need the right hat, glasses, or outfit to go with them if I’m going to be successful in “pulling off the look.” Having said that, everyone’s ears are different, which will naturally affect the look for each individual.
Initially, I felt rather awkward putting on the LolliClip, as a key part of fitting the earbuds securely on one’s ears is ensuring that the sound outlet (the sound-emitting part of the earbud) is directed towards the ear canal and is properly nestled in, as it literally forms half of the clip mechanism. Once they were firmly clipped to my ear, however, I not only found them light and comfortable but also that no reasonable amount of head-shaking would dislodge them.
While not specifically described by Edifier as “Sports Headphones,” the Edifier LolliClips have an IP56 rating for dust and water resistance, so even in the event that an earbud manages falls off during a jog and gets a little wet, it’ll be…uh, no sweat (it even has a drainage function in its companion app).
As someone who does a lot of writing, reading and watching plenty of online content on the daily while also having to contend with my wife’s obsession with loud Japanese variety TV programming from the other end of the apartment, I take Adaptive Noise Cancellation features very seriously. To be honest I’ve yet to encounter any pair of open-ear buds that actually accomplish ANC in any effective fashion.
“…the Edifier LolliClips have an IP56 rating for dust and water resistance…”
Lately, listing ANC as a feature on most earbuds is rarely more than just ticking a box on a spec sheet than anything else, and as a result, I’ve grown quite skeptical whenever the feature is mentioned. So I’ll just get the unwelcome news out of the way: the LolliClip is no exception to this trend, despite a genuine effort.
The ANC feature is indeed noticeable in some situations; activating it in a quiet or moderately noisy environment will filter out some background noise, but in a loud environment or outdoors, it’s a challenge to perceive any meaningful difference. I can’t be too harsh in my judgment since I’ve yet to use a pair of earbuds from any other brand that does a better job.
As the LolliClip buds are of the open-ear type, I can’t see how it can realistically be expected to deliver performant ANC without a proper air-tight seal to the ear canal in the first place. The result is pretty much what I expected the moment that I saw the ANC sticker on the box, which is unfortunate, but in my opinion, ANC really shouldn’t be the primary reason to consider the LolliClip anyway.
Where the LolliClip gets high marks is on its bread-and-butter audio when listening to music. It’s 13mm dynamic drivers provide a very rich, detailed, and clean listening experience, and they even deliver an adequate level of bass in the default “Classic” mode and “Bass Boost” mode, despite their open-ear design.
In addition to AAC and SBC, the Edifier LolliClips also support an advanced Sony-developed Bluetooth codec referred to as LDAC that can deliver superior high-resolution audio at a 96 kHz bitrate for compatible devices. As for making phone calls, I had a conversation with my younger brother for about an hour as I did chores around the apartment and took the dogs out for a walk, and he had no complaints about my voice quality or distortion.
That being said, I regularly found myself craving more loudness when using the LolliClip outdoors, as I would often crank the volume on my smartphone to the max and still not feel as though I had reached the point that my ears were at any risk of damage. Perhaps that’s a sign of my own hearing gradually deteriorating with age, but I haven’t noticed any such degradation when using my daily driver go-to earbuds, which, of course, are the closed-ear type variety.
Nowadays, you can’t responsibly sell a pair of earbuds without offering a decent mobile app alongside it, and the LolliClip provides a simple yet decently robust one in the previously mentioned Edifier ConneX App. A basic “Sound Effects” EQ offers four different sound filters, Classic, Bass Boost, Vocal, and Treble Boost, while a separate “Sound Mode” option presents toggles for bespoke “Music,” “Game,” and “Spatial Audio” filters.
Predictably, Classic and Bass Boost were the two modes where I preferred to spend my time, with the other options acting mostly as optional window dressing. All the above modes are preset and non-adjustable. Strangely, Spatial Audio actually requires calibration each time it is enabled, which I found a bit too inconvenient to be practical.
Dig deeper into the settings and you’ll uncover several other nice-to-have features, including two optional health trackers that can monitor Heart rate and Blood Oxygen (for reference only and not medical use, of course). Neither tracker runs in the background, like Spatial Audio, they must be manually activated. Other functions, including control settings (i.e,. command tap customization), tap sensitivity, enabling LDAC, and wearing detection (which enables the earbuds to sense whether they are no longer in the user’s ears and pause or unpause playback accordingly), can be found and adjusted here.
Okay, now it’s time to get a little…touchy.
An annoying reality of working with tech these days is that much of it is touchpad, touch-screen, and/or touch-panel activated, thus it’s much easier to make mistakes when trying to enter commands on such surfaces just by grazing them alone. This, of course, extends to our wireless earbuds, so I was pleased when first reading the instruction manual for the Edifier LolliClip and realized that all touch commands for either earbud are either a double tap or triple tap; there are no single tap functions.
This makes it far less likely to pause or skip a song by accident, or enter in another similar command, since the input for a double or triple tap is more deliberate. I personally would have liked a “long-press” to directly access Google Assistant, but oh well.
Gumming up the works, however, is the somewhat spotty response of each earbud’s touch area, which, according to Edifier, is the narrow connecting bridge (or “hoop”) that connects the sound outlet to the rest of the earbud. The tap timing is finicky, and when listening to music, I’d find myself tapping over and over again trying to pause or unpause the song, which over time became irritating. Tapping just feels unreliable, and it’s often faster just to take out one’s smartphone, enter the command, or open the desired app or function from there.
If you’re insistent on using tap commands and can be bothered to master the cadence, then you’ll be pleased to know that the Edifier LolliClip earbuds are completely interchangeable, so users can physically swap their buds (and thus their corresponding commands) between their left and right ears.
“I have to give the Edifier LolliClip flowers for its excellent battery life and incredible operational range.”
Users can view and customize said features via the ConneX App, and if you’re like me and have no use for the LolliClip’s feeble noise cancellation feature, you can replace that command entirely with one that can bring up the Google Assistant instead. It should be noted that while the LolliClip’s earbuds are swappable and users can even utilize a just single feature of the LolliClip, it won’t work without both buds being actively worn.
It’s rare for me to complain about something as seemingly inconsequential as a charging case, but the one that comes included with the LolliClip I can barely stand. Literally. The case is ovular and has no flat area on its body whatsoever, so it can’t stand upright on a flat surface, like a desk. As a consequence it’s likely to roll around and get scuffed and scratched.
The shell is made up of a glossy, slippery material that feels like it will shatter easily if dropped, and it’s also a fingerprint magnet that users will probably want to wipe down often. Putting these gripes aside, though, I enjoy how the Edifier LolliClip’s buds magnetically snap into either molded slot like magic, which is strangely ASMR-inducing.
Finally, I have to give the Edifier LolliClip flowers for its excellent battery life and incredible operational range. The Edifier LolliClip offers up to 9 hours on a single charge and up to 39 hours total when used with the charging case, which during my testing translated to a heck of a long time of trying to drain the battery. It took about two or more days of on-and-off usage before I was able to deplete the case battery of charges, and then another day’s worth of usage before I had to recharge the whole kit.
The LolliClip’s spec sheet boasts of a 10 metres operating distance, which was also quite accurate, spanning the entire hallway of my condominium from end to end with no interruption in signal as long as there was a line of sight between my phone and earbuds.
Putting it altogether, the Edifier LolliClip is an acceptably fine product. Its noise cancellation feature is entirely skippable, and its max volume when outdoors could stand to be higher, but its overall audio quality is sublime. Its tap controls can be a bit dodgy, but one can get accustomed to them, they’re completely swappable, and they can be worn for hours without discomfort. And as mentioned earlier, there’s a handful of nifty features buried in the companion app’s menu. The $129.99 USD price is a bit of a high ask for the Edifier LolliClip, but it’s been known to go on sale for as low as $110 recently, making it more reasonably attractive.
- [Advanced Adaptive ANC]: Advance adaptive active noise cancelling technologintelligently adjust noise reduction based on your fit and surrounding sounds, delivering a clear, immersive listening experience even in noisy environments-all with the freedom of an open-ear design
- [Spatial Sound & Hi-Res Wireless]: Enjoy an immersive audio experience with 360° spatial sound that adapts in real-time with head-tracking technology, and indulge in lossless sound quality with Hi-Res Wireless audio and LDAC support for a 96kHz sampling rate
