Thank you Creative for sending us this pair of earbuds to review!

I've reviewed many earbuds over the years, but this year has been unusual in that I hadn't reviewed earhook-style earbuds until now, and I have to say I like them. Creative's Outlier Go is really good in many ways, but a couple of key shortcomings means they fall just short of perfection. Even still, I'll still reach for them when I need to be able to hear what's around me while working or during exercise.

For those not familiar, earhook-style earbuds are literally what they sound like: the earbuds float over your ear concha, and are held in place with hooks that go behind your ear antihelix. The idea of them seemed like they would fall off easily to me, but they stay in place remarkably well. Depending on how large your ears are, you may find them extremely comfortable, or less so. I find, with my large ears, that they are reasonably comfortable, but do need occasional adjustment.

Unlike some other earhook-style earbuds I've tried (1MORE S31s, more on that comparison later), these use an adjustment system to make them fit in place.

One thing I discovered about earbuds that float over your ears, and these in particular, is the amazing soundstage and delightfully open sound they offer. They sound a bit like open-back headphones, but with a bit less focus. The deepest bass is hard to capture, but the overall tonal balance is quite pleasant, and voices in particular have a nice airiness to them. Sound is easy to locate between left, right, and center, and instrumental and vocal music sounds particularly good on these Outlier Go earbuds.

By pure chance, my playlist chanced upon an excellent recording between the legendary Chick Corea and Gary Burton, Rhumbata from the album 'Native Sense - The New Duets'. This song really epitomizes what sounds great on these earbuds. The space as Gary rings out the vibraphone, the left and right channel workings in the mix, and the steady grounding of Chick's piano is a feast of the ears no matter who is playing, but with the great soundstage on offer here, it sounds particularly impressive. Other music still sounds good; I heard everything from electronic to metal while listening, but I was particularly impressed with that acoustical gem.

And being open as they are, I can still hear what's going on around me pretty well. With nothing blocking access to your eardrums, people can talk to you or you can hear sudden sounds almost as well as if they aren't on. While there is some audio leakage around you, it's less than I expected as a user of open-back headphones on a regular basis. While I probably wouldn't use them on a bus or other crowded area, you can really only hear stuff like cymbals when sitting next to someone, which is better than I expected. If you like to listen at full volume, of course your mileage may vary.

And thankfully, these get really loud. Some earbuds are meant to protect hearing it seems, and I get that, but sometimes the source is too quiet, and we need that extra headroom. These Outlier Go's get impressively loud, at least to me. I find that I can keep them at around two-thirds volume on my phone and have plenty of headroom left over. I was very happy with this aspect when comparing it directly against one of its competitors.

These Creative Outlier Go's arrived on my doorstep to review within days of when we got the 1MORE S31 Fit SE Open Earbuds in to review, so I got to directly compare them before deciding to keep these and letting my friend Alan review the S31s. Now I have to say that which to keep for me was not an easy decision, because the S31s do have some major advantages. The sound quality is a toss-up; the 1MOREs have slightly better bass, but these Creatives sound better in other ways.

The biggest win for the 1MORE is in two areas, comfort and battery life. These Outlier Go's have around six hours of battery life, while the S31s have around eight hours. Those two hours make a big difference since I work from home and listen basically all day to podcasts, work meetings, or music if I need to focus and can't afford distractions. As for comfort, both are pretty good when fit properly, but the 1MOREs put the battery into the ear clip rather than the earbud body, balancing the weight so that the clip puts less pressure on the ear lobes. This is a lot better, but thankfully the Outlier Go's are still plenty comfortable.

One area that the Creative Outlier Go's really shine is a feature I've come to love and rely on since it became popular: Bluetooth multi-device input. This allows me to connect to both my phone (for podcasts or music), and to my work laptop for meetings, at the same time. When no devices are outputting anything, the earbuds wait for a signal from both. When one starts playing, you hear from that until it stops playing, and same with the other side. You can only hear from one side at a time, so the last one to play wins, but when I see a meeting notification it's trivial to hit pause on my podcast and jump into a call right away. This feature alone made me choose this Outlier Go when deciding what to keep for myself and what to let Alan review. It's that important to me, and means I can bring just one thing with me when going about my business or if I decide to work on my patio where carrying less is definitely more.

It also helps that the Outlier Go has a button in the case that makes re-pairing very easy. Many earbuds don't offer this, making paring more difficult, as they often require you to disconnect them from all devices before you can pair with another. That method also works here, but why do that when there is a much easier way? What you can do is place both earbuds in the charging case, leaving the case open. Then, you press and hold the button until the lights on both earbuds blink. You can then pair it with anything you like. I was able to switch between three different devices this way, though I don't know how many devices it takes before the earbuds need to pair with the first device again, as often Bluetooth devices can only store a limited number of pairings onboard. No matter what the case is, at least it's really easy to re-pair them.

While my experience with the Creative Outlier Go has been mostly positive, there is one area where I have noticed a flaw in operation, and that's with its low-latency mode. Out of the box, it gets a pretty bad 600ms latency or so. This is actually common for Bluetooth, but it's still bad. When you are listening to music or podcasts, latency doesn't matter that much. But for movies and especially games, it does matter, sometimes quite a lot. So that is why these and many other modern earbuds offer a low-latency mode, in this case triggered via the Creative mobile app, or if you're me, I replaced the 'Voice Assistant' with 'Low Latency Mode' for my left-earbud double tap action. Voice assistance can be handy, but that only works with phones, while low-latency is useful for lots of devices.

Anyhow, when activated, the latency dropped from 600ms to... maybe 400ms? It's improved, but hardly usable. I reported the bug, as I believe it is one Creative can fix. In the meantime, what I discovered is if your device supports selecting the CODEC, like Android (via Developer options) and Linux does, then you can manually select the SBC CODEC rather than AAC, and the latency will be much lower. AAC generally sounds better and works best with Apple devices, so it's a better default for many, but if you need the lower latency, SBC will get you there. It's just too bad you have to jump through hoops right now. Hopefully this will get fixed in a firmware update.

Despite the latency bug, the Creative Outlier Go is overall a really nice set of earhook-style earbuds. The case is on the larger side (4" x 2 ¼" x 1") with nice rounded edges and a slight texture, making it easy to hold and not too hard to open. I find if you're going to wear it morning until night, you might need to charge it 2-3 times, but that is likely the exception for most people. Multi-device input is a killer feature, as is simple pairing via a dedicated button. It's also nice that it includes a cable for charging, which lots of devices skip out on these days. It's a pretty good package for the price, and the sound quality is really good. The app has button remapping, firmware updating, and ten equalizer modes to choose from, but without knowing what they do, I prefer sticking with flat. Overall, the Creative Outlier Go is a solid choice for those who want to listen while staying active, or just want to be aware of their surroundings. Recommended!