The Breakdown
The market of earphones went through a revolution in the past year. After the phenomenon of AirPods, a lot of companies decided to enter this category. As a result, a new trend has emerged – the trend of truly wireless earbuds. Nowadays, these earbuds are more popular than the old conventional wired phones. Therefore, more and more companies are starting to drop the 3.5 mm headphone jack. After all, true wireless solutions are trending. With so many “hearables” in the market, the different brands are trying to innovate in features to make their product better than the competition. One of the solutions to make good earbuds stand against the “regular” ones is Active Noise Canceling. This has been a feature present only on Premium earbuds, but the situation is changing. Donner, a reliable bearable maker comes with Donner Dobuds One – stylish earbuds that are affordable and also come with ANC.
About Donner
Donner is a reputed German company, known for its long tradition in the range of musical instruments. Since 2012 its commitment goes on creating new experiences in music and performance. The focus is on young people, full of vitality and with a clear call for innovation. The company has been dedicated to the research, manufacture, and selling of musical instruments. More recently, it has been playing in the range of truly wireless earbuds. The Donner Dobuds ONE comes as Donner’s latest innovation in the segment. The device combines the company’s expertise with compelling specifications. The earbuds are quite stylish and the price is also affordable. Without further ado, let’s dive into this product’s qualities and cons.
Package Content
- Earbuds
- Charging case
- USB-C charging cable
- Instruction manual
- 4 additional earbud tips
Dooner Dobuds One – Features Overview
The Donner Dobuds ONE is not a budget earbud, but the price is attractive when you look at other devices in this category. The truly wireless earbuds come to outperform other earbuds in the market. It comes with a dual-driver system. There is one dynamic driver for richer bass response and another custom balanced armature driver that will improve delicate sounds. As result, we have immersive, high-quality audio for most of your activities. You’ll play games, hear music, and perform calls with high quality.
ANC, Build Quality, and “Daylife Waterproof”
Donner also provides a companion application for Donner Dobuds ONE. It’s certainly a plus that makes the earbuds stand against the competition. You don’t need it to use the earbuds, but it’s a good plus. The app comesan with equalizer, and you can adjust your sound based on the environment and also on the content. You can also enable or disable ANC. Yes, ANC is one of the things that make this earbud stand against the competition. You can enable it to reduce outside noises by up to 30 dB, or disable it to still pick up outside sounds. There is also an ENC feature for call noise reduction. The callers will hear you and not your surroundings. Each earbud includes four microphones. Two are for picking up your voice and two for processing and filtering the sound in the environments, including wind.
Interestingly, the earbuds also focus on the comfort of the user. There are five tip sizes to choose from according to your ear. Don’t worry since the earbuds won’t fall from your ears easily. There is an inner hard layer making it difficult to remove. The outer layer is softer to not bring pain during usage. The earbuds tips are also dust-resistant while the earbuds are daylife waterproof. “Daylife Waterproof” means they’re safe from sweat, drizzle, and light rain. Don’t go swim or try to take a bath with them.
The earbuds come in four colorways – Snow White, Matte Black, Mint Green, and Navy Blue. I’ve got the Snow White version with Pinkish ear tips. I looks nice and the design is far from boring like the AirPods.
Battery, Fast-Charging, and other specifications
According to Donner, a full charge on the earbuds and the case will last you up to 32 hours with ANC off. Obviously, with the ANC feature that will drain faster. During my usage, I was able to hear for more than 6 hours without any issue. Around 10 to 15 minutes of charge time will give you two hours of power. The earbuds also come with Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity. So you’ll experience stable connections, low latency, and lower power consumption. The transmission distance supported between the audio device is up to 10 meters. According to DONNER, you can use the earbuds without ANC for 8 hours of music listening. With ANC this will drop to around 6 hours.
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The earbuds also come with a sensitive portion that supports touch. You can customize the actions through the companion app. You can give one touch to adjust the volume, two touches to play/ pause the music, and there is even support for three touches. The earbuds also support long-press actions.
As we’ve said before, the earbuds come with fast charging. According to the specs listing, the earbuds have a 55 mAh capacity, while the charging case packs a 520 mAh battery. Interestingly, their fast-charging prowess comes through a USB Type-C port. There is a small USB Type-C cable that will get the job done.
Specs Listing
- Bluetooth Chip: BT8922E2
- Bluetooth Version: 5.2
- Noise-Canceling Mode: Active
- Digital ANC up to: -32dB
- Average ANC: ≥15dB from 80Hz to 1000Hz
- Supported Codecs: A2DP, AVRCP, HSP, HFP
- Audio Decoding: SBC, AAC
- Transmission Distance: 10M
- Receive Sensitivity: 86 dBm
- Working Frequency: 2.402 to 2.480 GHz
- Battery Capacity – Earbuds: 55 mAh
- Battery Capacity – Case: 520 mAh
- Charging Time: 1.5 H
- Battery Life: 8H with ANC OFF and 6.5H with ANC ON / Charging Case: 32H with ANC and 26H with ANC OFF
- Touch Controls: Yes
The companion app – Donner Control
Interestingly, one of the box’s contents is an instructional manual. It covers the basics and the standard touch gestures. However, if you even lose this one, you’ll get the instructions in the companion app. As we’ve said before, you can just pair the earbuds with a smartphone and use them. However, a good experience will come when you combine it with the companion app. The app is available on Apple App Store and on Google Play Store as “Donner Control”.
Once you open it, you can click on add devices to pair the app with your Donner Dobuds ONE. Through the companion app, you can select your favorite “sound style” within the equalizer option. There are multiple presets, but you can also create your own settings.
The app also allows you to adjust between the “Use modes” and you can enable ANC and tweak the feature.
There are multiple use modes of ANC “Commute”, “Indoor”, “Outdoor”, and “Manual Noise Reduction”. All these features are self-explanatory and will have different scenarios of usage. The other modes are “Normal” and “Trans”. Normal will provide a good balance between the audio and the environment. Trans, on the other hand, will allow a little more of environmental noise to pass through the earbuds.
The next option is the “Gestures” menu. As you may expect, it will allow you to change or configure the gesture controls.
The Sound Quality
Honestly, it’s really promising to hear about earbuds that cost $50 and bring ANC. However, nowadays it’s common to see products that don’t live up to their promises. While ANC was a real thing, I was not expecting the sound quality to be really outstanding. However, I was completely wrong. During my usage, I got impressed by the quality offered by the Donner Dobuds ONE. The dual-driver system really makes the job providing a perfect balance with crispy trebles and deep basses. The sound experience while listening to music here was truly immersive. Even playing games can be enjoyable through these earbuds.
The ANC also does its job perfectly. While walking through the street, I couldn’t hear anything – just the super-loud sounds, but not at their maximum capacity, though. In normal mode, I could pick some audios depending on the volume. The Trans Mode, allows audio to pass through the earbuds, but you will still listen to the audio. The ENC also does its job during calls. Even in noisy environments, the earbuds will filter the noise and deliver clear audio to the outer side of the line.
Verdict – Donner Dobuds One
I need to say that the Donner Dobuds ONE has really impressed me during my usage. The company certainly did not make much buzz to launch these earbuds. However, they certainly deserve recognition. They produced a high-quality product, with trustable ANC and a rich quality sound and managed to sell it just for $49.99.
The earbuds are durable and stylish and come with rich audio and a lot of features. There are a lot of options through the companion app to customize your experience. They’re comfortable to use and won’t bring you pain during long hours of usage. Last but not least, the battery is truly capable and you can use ANC without much hassle if you don’t mind charging it after a few days.
I can’t help but recommend these earbuds if you have at least $50 to spend on new earbuds with ANC and high quality. Well, with the BTSCH815 code you can get a nice discount of 10%. Clicking on the link, you’ll have a nice 20% off, bringing the device’s price down to just $36. That’s a nice offer!