Thank you 1MORE for sending us this set of wireless earbuds to review!

Low cost true-wireless (TWS) IEMs (in-ear monitors) have gotten dramatically better and less expensive over the last few years. It's quite surprising and frankly amazing how good they have gotten, especially at low prices. 1MORE's latest Q21 continues this trend, offering one of the best values in portable audio I've seen.

The 1MORE True Wireless Earphones Q21, like many other similar models out there, are small completely wireless earbuds that sit in place by pushing them into your ear canal. They have a carrying case with a built-in battery for charging the earbuds, and the earbuds have very small batteries inside of them. The batteries on the earbuds last between 4-5.5 hours, depending on if noise-canceling is enabled or not. Thankfully, you charge them by just putting them inside of the case, so you can easily go a day or two without worrying about them dying on you, or perhaps a bit longer depending on use.

They are available in a simple black or white, and I'm grateful for the black model, as I believe they are more inconspicuous than white. That said, they might be a bit easier to lose. The charging case is quite tiny, at just under 2" tall, about 2 3/8" wide, and about 7/8" thick. This is just a bit smaller than last year's Q20, which inevitably I'm going to compare these to. That older model was $24.99, and this new one is just a few dollars more, at $27.99. To me, this new model is overall better and worth the few extra dollars.

The earbuds themselves are about 1 1/4" long and about an inch deep, and use a fairly common shape and form factor. The shape is an interesting zig-zag of sorts that is meant to fit into your ear canals in a more comfortable way, and they do a pretty good job of that. They have a stem that sticks out of the part that goes into your ear canal, which makes them easy to grab. Three sizes of silicone ear tips are included, which is what touches the inside of your ear. There is a touch sensor on the stem to activate the touch features. By default, a double tap will toggle play/pause, and a triple tap will activate the phone's voice control feature. Since I don't like voice control, I have one side trigger next track, and the other previous. Touch and hold changes the noise-canceling setting, rotating between on, off, and audio passthrough, so you can hear your surroundings. I like having these settings available at the touch of a button. You can also answer a call with a double tap, and decline it by holding for two seconds.

Unlike the Q20, this Q21 model has full support from 1MORE's Android app. This means that less functions are available from just tapping, but in exchange, you get a whole lot of features - actually far more than I anticipated, given their price point. Some of them are what you might expect from earbuds at multiple times the price.

For starters, the 1MORE app offers the Q21 one of six equalizer (EQ) profiles. These are Studio (default and probably best), Bass reducer, Bass booster, Voice Enhancement, Classical, and Pop. Helpfully, it shows a little graphic showing what changes are made to tune the sound in those ways, which can help if you know what sound you are looking for. There is no custom EQ on this model, but that is more than forgivable considering the price.

You can also adjust the noise-canceling listening modes from the app, just like you can by touching and holding. Some might find controlling it from the app simpler, since you can see without guessing what mode it's in. In my testing, the ANC (active noise canceling) is really quite effective, as I was able to mow my lawn with just these earbuds in, passing one of the more difficult tests we put earbuds through. I was also able to vacuum with ANC and without trouble.

Other settings are available in the app, but the main ones that matter to me are three: Gaming Mode, High-definition Codec(LDAC), and Dual-device connection, hidden in the Experimental Features menu. Each is quite useful and welcome.

In my testing, the latency of this pair of earbuds has probably around 400ms in my estimation. (It's difficult to measure without specialized equipment, so I estimated based on YouTube videos that help you do so.) Gaming Mode lowers that to around 100ms, which is quite good for most Bluetooth earbuds. In order to test it, I put them through the most difficult test I know, which is to play the excellent Android port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, using the Gamevice Flex while using these earbuds. Without Gaming Mode enabled, the sound effects of your weapon slashes are noticeably late; if you jump and slash, you hear the sound effect after you hit the ground. With Gaming Mode on, it's still a bit late, but you hear it while Alucard is still in the air, floating down. It's quite a significant improvement, even if it's nowhere near as good as wired earbuds. (Wired is the preferred option when available. Incidentally, that's also one of my favorite things about the Gamevice Flex, it has a headphone jack!)

The High-definition Codec(LDAC) is a great feature for those who desire the highest audio quality possible over Bluetooth. LDAC is a Sony-made Codec that supports up to 96kHz sample rate and up to 32-bit depth. It's as close as we have to lossless audio quality over Bluetooth, and with some music/earbud combinations, you can hear the difference. Apple devices don't support LDAC, and neither does Windows; only Android and Linux does. (Windows support is possible with a paid app.) Because of this, these earbuds also support AAC and SBC. AAC is the best you can do on Apple devices, and it's a pretty good step up over SBC. Fortunately, it's been integrated into Android since 8.0, so the majority of modern devices should support LDAC out of the box. On desktop Linux, pipewire makes selecting Bluetooth Codecs easy.