Introduction
Acefast isn’t a name you hear often in the wireless earbuds market but its latest TWS earbuds bring a flashy transparent design, an LED display on the case and six bold color options which piqued our attention. The Acefast Crystal (2) Earbuds T8 are in for review and we’ll be taking a detailed look into what they offer.
Acefast T8 certainly stand out in terms of design and they offer some neat bundled accessories. They feature Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, 10mm drivers and support the SBS and AAC audio codecs. The battery life is rated at up to 30 hours of use with the charging case and the whole package is IPX4 splash resistant. Let’s see how these earbuds stack up against the competition and if they deserve a place in your pockets and ears.
Design
Purple, pink, blue, green, black and white – these are the six colors offered for the Acefast T8 and all of them come with transparent bits that expose the insides of the buds and their charging case. The charging case also gets a seven-segment LED display which shows you the remaining battery percentage on the case and each earbud.
There’s a definite inspiration from the Nothing Ear (1) which brought the transparent earbud design last year though you actually get to see more of the mainboard on Acefast T8’s charging case. The buds attach via magnets to the sides of the case, which is also seen on past Acefast earbuds and is certainly one way to stand out from the crowd.
There are no buttons on the case itself and all the controls are on the buds instead. The earbuds stay put when docked in the case and I have not experienced any problems with them falling out. The in-ear fit is good provided you select the appropriate silicone tip size.
The unboxing experience and provided accessories here are a step up from your ordinary wireless earbuds. The box features a transparent bit of plastic that lifts up to reveal three compartments containing a silicone gel case for the charging case color matched to your earbuds, a lanyard strap, USB-C cable for charging and three pairs of extra silicone ear tips housed in a plastic container.
Each bud weighs 5.5 grams while the case comes out to 47 grams. The earbuds are not the lightest we’ve tested though they feel good in your ears even after hours of use. The case is not that compact and barely fits into your jeans’ coin pockets but it easily slides in other larger pockets even with the bundled silicone sleeve.
Features
Going past their translucent design, Acefast T8 bring a fairly limited feature set. There’s no Hi-Res Audio support on here and you’re left with the legacy SBC and AAC audio codecs. The buds do support the very latest Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity standard with Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) transmission via way of the BES 2600 IHC Bluetooth chip. Sadly, there’s no active noise cancelation (ANC) with the dual microphones on each earbud only offering ENC call noise reduction.
Multi-point pairing is another big absence on the Acefast T8 and there’s no smartphone app for fine-tuning the audio profiles or receiving firmware updates. The buds also omit wear detection for pausing and resuming media playback which is a standard feature even on budget earbuds today.
Acefast T8 feature 10mm drivers with an aluminum moving coil and 6mm dome tweeters. The earbuds use a Laser Direct Structuring (LDS) antenna design which molds the antenna transmitter onto a plastic strip near the bottom of the earbuds stem. LDS is advertised to bring stable signal transmission and improved anti-interference.
The LED display on the case is a nice touch and it is certainly one of the most appealing features that the T8s have going for them. The display turns on for a few seconds when you remove the buds from the case and again when you dock them. This is really useful since you have immediate access to your buds and case battery status without having to dig up Bluetooth settings on your paired device. The LED display has a white color for the battery status while the underside has a yellow hue that lights up the bits around the exposed part of the mainboard.
We love the design approach though we feel Acefast could have added a physical button that allows you to turn on the display and check your battery levels without inserting on extracting the earbuds from the case each time.
The buds offer touch controls for play/pause, volume controls, call management and summoning your device’s digital assistant. The touch controls are all done on the top part of the buds and they work reasonably well though the volume controls did not always work on the first try. There’s no way to remap the touch controls, which is a bummer.
Performance and Sound quality
Once you play some audio content you notice bass output is pronounced while the lows and mids are slightly off. High midrange sounds like vocals sound good. Acefast T8 can get plenty loud which is an added bonus. The audio profile is flat and an equalizer tuning option could potentially improve their sound output though there’s no such feature at the time of this review.
I noticed a subtle static noise on the Acefast T8 after pairing them to my devices though this is mainly while listening to podcasts and audiobooks in a quiet environment. Granted this issue was not replicated with some of my colleagues who tried the buds on at the office and will probably not bother you on your daily commute or at the gym.
Connectivity performance was on point with no dropouts when testing on an iPhone, Android tablet and laptop. Switching to calls, voice pickup is below average with people on the other line reporting my voice sounding muffled during calls. Latency is on par with other wireless earbuds we’ve reviewed with no noticeable lag between video and audio.
Battery life
Acefast T8 are advertised to last up to 7 hours with continuous music playback at 70% volume and 4 hours on calls while the charging case extends the total listening time to 30 hours – that’s ample endurance for a pair of wireless earbuds and more than most competitors. Each earbud packs a 45mAh battery, while the case holds a 480 mAh charge.
I found the earphones to last me between 6-7 hours on a single charge during my test period, which is in line with the claimed values from Acefast. A full 0-100% charge takes about 90 minutes while a 10-minute fast top-up gets you 2 hours of usage. There’s no wireless charging so you’ll have to find a power outlet and plug in a USB-C cable for top-ups.
Verdict
Acefast T8 earbuds bring a unique transparent design with clever features like magnetic storage inside the case and a large LED battery indicator screen. Battery endurance is stellar and delivers up to 30 hours with the charging case. Audio quality is average and there’s no ANC or support for any of the high-bitrate codecs. That wouldn’t be a problem for a pair of entry-level earbuds but the Acefast T8 currently retail for $100, which positions them in a tough space considering the fierce competition in the TWS market.
The T8s are exclusive to the Acefast online store for now though if the T6 series is any indication they should appear on Amazon soon enough. Still, we’d wait for a hefty discount before pulling the buy trigger.
We have to give credit to the design team at Acefast for creating one of the best-looking earbuds on the market. The six color options offered on the Acefast T8 all look great and we’re excited to see what future iterations in the range will bring to the table. We can only hope for a richer feature set with Hi-Res Audio support and more control over the audio equalizer.
