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Today, we’re checking out the Creative Zen Air SXFI earbuds which are a budget-friendly set of buds and are packed with features, but do they deliver? Well, first impressions? They’re a sleek matte grey finish, but a bit slippery. IPX5 sweatproof rating is great for workouts, but no swimming! Stubby stems are a unique touch, though the case is surprisingly large. Inside, we’ve got 10mm drivers and Bluetooth 5.3, but sadly, no lossless codecs. Sound quality is surprisingly good for the price, especially with the customizable EQ in the Creative app. You can tweak things to your liking, plus control ANC and Ambient mode. ANC is decent for steady noises, but struggles with sharper sounds. Ambient mode is okay, but volume-dependent. Now, about SXFI: it’s designed for spatial audio, but honestly, it didn’t impress me much with these earbuds. I preferred it off. Overall, the sound is a nice mix, great for genres like country and hip-hop, but can get a bit muddy with busier-sounding tracks. The bass is smooth, but I couldn’t really describe it as punchy. Battery life is solid, with 12 hours in the buds and 39 hours total. You’ve got USB-C and Qi charging, plus six mics for clear calls. At £54.99, these are a great option for casual listeners and fitness enthusiasts. Audiophiles might want more clarity, but for the price, the Creative Zen Air SXFI earbuds are definitely worth considering.
Full Review
So we’ve got another set of Creative earbuds for you to check out! We’ve managed to get our hands on a set of the Creative Zen Air SXFI earbuds thanks to Creative who very kindly sent these out to us for the purpose of this video. They’re feature-rich for a budget price tag, but is this always a good thing? Let’s dive in.
The first thing I noticed as soon as I cracked the box open, well, except the nice carry case, but one thing that was quite strange was the soft plastic coating on the earbuds and case. They looked the part, with their matte grey finish, but the coating did make them quite slippery and getting the earbuds out of the case could be challenging at times. I tended to favour grabbing them by the rubber eat tip to get them out of the case. Being the off-white grey makes them look quite stylish I think compared to say the more traditional glossy arctic white of Airpods. They are IPX5 rated though which means a bit of sweat or running in the rain isn’t going to cause any problems, but don’t go swimming with them. They’ve got really stubby stems compared to Airpods which give them a lot less length. Funnily though, the charging case doesn’t reflect this as it’s pretty much on par with other wireless earbuds on the market. You’d think the case would lose some real estate but nope. You’ve got some 10mm neodymium drivers, which are not too bad when it comes to music, but they do begin to suffer when Creative’s SXFI comes into play which I’ll talk about in a moment. You’ve got Bluetooth 5.3 to connect to the earbuds, but unfortunately a limited codec range, with AAC and SBC. There’s no lossless audio codecs here like some of the other Creative earbuds we’ve seen recently.
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In terms of sound quality though I don’t think you can go wrong at all with this budget set of earbuds. They sound good, and can only be heightened with the use of the custom EQ that can be adjusted inside of the Creative App that’s available for Android and iOS devices. It’s a simple app that has the EQ as mentioned, plus your SXFI settings, the ambient control settings where you can toggle between Adaptive ANC, which you’ve got a pair of microphones on the side of the earbuds for, and Ambient mode, and finally options to change your Custom Buttons which include your double tap, triple tap and long taps on each earbud. I didn’t change these from the default as they’re pretty intuitive anyway, though there’s no skip track backwards as default. ANC was alright, and it did a decent job of blocking out ambient noises like fans and traffic, but anything too sharp came through relatively easily. The Ambient mode worked alright, but that was VERY music volume dependent. If the music was too loud, then no one was able to get my attention.
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Let’s get it out of the way right now that I wasn’t keen on SXFI here. SXFI has been designed to give a user a sense of space in their audio, like when you watch an orchestra, the strings are to the right, and the brass is to the left. It works nicely, though unfortunately in a pair of earbuds, it doesn’t feel like it pays off the same as it does in a set of over-ear headphones. So here, I kept it switched off.
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Overall though the Creative Zen Air SXFI earbuds gave quite a nice mix of highs and lows and listening to a bit of country, specifically some Zac Brown Band, it sounds nice and full, though there is I will say a lack of accuracy in the bass, opting for more of a smooth elongated bass feeling than a punchy attack of the bass drums. Sure you get the hits, but it’s not so pronounced here. The harmonies really stood out over the top of the music though and the overall higher-toned instruments stood out with some decent separation.
One Step At A Time by Four Year Strong started well, with the lower bass, drums and rhythm guitar doing their job, with the lead guitar’s opening riff standing out well. However, once it hits the chorus, it did get a little messy with overpowering bass. Of course, there is the EQ that you can change if this happens, but going from one music genre to the other. I did do the majority of my listening with my own custom EQ, to really bring out the detail in the music, and with a frequency response range of 20-20,000Hz, music sounded pretty decent.
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Creative is claiming a total 39-hour battery life and a 12-hour earbud battery life with ANC switched off which I don’t think is too bad, and you’ve got an indicator light on the front of the case too to tell you how much battery is left. You’ve got USB Type-C charging on the bottom and the case is capable of Qi charging. There’s also six microphones in total to pick up your voice while taking calls, and for the most part, I didn’t get any kind of negative feedback while talking to people. Just check this out.
So overall not a bad set of earbuds. They’re priced at £54.99 right now on the Creative website, and will definitely treat most casual music listeners to some nice quality audio, especially those into their sports or fitness. However, audiophiles might need to look elsewhere due to the lack of clarity in busier tracks. While the EQ helps somewhat with bringing out detail, it’s not quite as intricate as something with Lossless audio capabilities. But all in all, not too bad for a budget set of earbuds.