The Nothing Headphone (1) is the weirdest good headphone under flagship money: standout cassette-tape design, a measured 42 hours and 53 minutes of battery with ANC on, and physical controls no rival matches. The dark stock tuning needs EQ work and calls are middling, but firmware updates helped, and on sale it's an easy recommendation for buyers who want character.
— THE VERDICT · JUDGEANY EDITORSWhy the Headphone (1) matters
Nothing's first over-ear landed in July 2025 looking like nothing else on the shelf — transparent earcups with a cassette-tape motif, real metal, and a launch price sitting well under the Sony and Bose flagships. Two decades of safe black ovals makes that interesting on its own, but the specs underneath are serious: 40 mm KEF-tuned drivers, 42 dB adaptive hybrid ANC, and a 1,040 mAh battery Nothing rates at 80 hours with ANC off. This review pulls together manufacturer specs, published expert measurements, and aggregated owner impressions. We don't run a test lab; the scores below are editorial judgments built on that evidence.
ANC: close to the flagships, wind aside
SoundGuys' lab testing measured an average noise reduction of 85% — peaks of 52 dB up high, 15–25 dB down low — putting Nothing's six-mic array level with the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, which scored the same 85% in identical testing. Tom's Guide found the ANC "very good" in daily use, silencing a maxed-out fan, laptop hum, bus rumble, and keyboard clack, and SoundGuys slightly preferred Nothing's transparency mode to Bose's for sounding more natural and less processed. The two knocks: wind noise defeats it more easily than some rivals, per Tom's Guide, and What Hi-Fi describes the effect as a reasonable reduction of chatter and traffic rather than a full wipeout.
Sound: dark out of the box, fixed with the EQ
The 40 mm drivers — nickel-plated PU diaphragm, tuned with British audio brand KEF — come out of the box dark. SoundGuys measured subdued treble and a weak midrange between 200 and 500 Hz, with vocals tending to get buried; Tom's Guide handed out three stars largely on that stock tuning. Firmware changed the sound story. Version 1.0.1.72 improved sound at high volumes and the transparency mode; 1.0.1.74 refined volume balance and transparency further. The 1.0.1.72 update changed the signature enough that some owners, and SoundGuys' own test unit, found it worse, and old EQ presets stopped translating. SoundGuys later confirmed the broken update was fixed as of 1.0.1.81. Check your firmware version before trusting anyone's sound impressions, including the ones in this review. The bigger lever is the excellent 8-band parametric EQ in the Nothing X app — SoundGuys found vocal presence, treble strength, and balance all snap into place once tuned. One hard limit: codecs are AAC, SBC, and LDAC. No aptX.
Controls, app, and features
The physical controls are the best on any headphone SoundGuys has listed: a roller for volume, a paddle for skipping and scrubbing, and a programmable button, all tactile and remappable. The Nothing X app earns the same praise — EQ, shareable presets, spatial audio with head tracking, low-lag mode, on-head detection, and dual-device pairing. Small irritations exist: Tom's Guide says the spatial mode adds little and can hurt movie watching, TechRadar notes wear detection and multipoint ship turned off by default, and the controls click loudly enough that Tom's Guide complained about a grating sound. What Hi-Fi found the earcups rotate sideways but don't fold flat, and Pickr notes the earpads aren't easily removable. Still, USB-C audio, a 3.5 mm jack, and an IP52 rating most flagships skip round out the package.
Battery: the clearest win
SoundGuys measured 42 hours and 53 minutes with ANC on — nearly eight hours past Nothing's 35-hour claim — and TechRadar logged just over 38 hours of real-world use with ANC engaged. Turn ANC off and the rated figure is 80 hours. A five-minute charge buys five hours of playback, which SoundGuys calls far better than the Bose QuietComfort Ultra's two and a half hours from a fifteen-minute top-up. Android Authority reports 37 hours of ANC talk time, or 53 hours without ANC. Battery is the category where this headphone puts real distance on everything else at the price.
Comfort and calls: the real compromises
At 329 grams the Headphone (1) settles comfortably at first, but heavier use finds the weak spots. SoundGuys warns larger heads may find the headband uncomfortable after an hour or two, and What Hi-Fi found the bottom-heavy balance makes the cans feel like they're slipping off while walking, with some testers reporting on-ear overheating. Call quality is middling across the board: Tom's Guide's call partner said the voice sounded like talking "down a metal tube," TechRadar and What Hi-Fi both describe it as tinny and robotic — though all agree background noise is suppressed well enough to hold a conversation. Owners hold the headphone at 4.4 out of 5 on Amazon, and the price has already drifted below launch in sales — check the live price on Amazon.
Who should buy it
Buy the Headphone (1) if you want the most distinctive headphone on the shelf, the best battery life in the class, and physical controls nobody else matches — and you're willing to spend ten minutes in the EQ. Skip it if you need a folding travel headphone, take constant calls in the wind, or refuse to touch an equalizer.