Introduction
Acefast isn’t a name you hear often in the wireless earphone market, but its latest TWS earphones have a flashy transparent design, an LED display on the case and six bold color options that caught our attention. The Acefast Crystal (2) Earbuds T8 are up for review and we’re going to take a detailed look at what they offer.
The Acefast T8 certainly stands out in terms of design, and they offer some nice bundled accessories. They have Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, 10mm drivers and support SBS and AAC audio codecs. Battery life is rated for up to 30 hours of use with the charging case, and the whole package is IPX4 splash-proof. Let’s see how these earphones stack up against the competition and whether they deserve a place in your pockets and ears.
Design
Purple, pink, blue, green, black and white – these are the six colors on offer for the Acefast T8, and all come with transparent bits that expose the inside of the buds and their charging case. The charging case also gets a seven-segment LED display that shows you the remaining battery percentage on the case and each earbud.
There’s a clear inspiration from Nothing Ear (1), which brought the transparent earphone design last year, although you can actually see more of the motherboard on the Acefast T8’s charging case. The buds attach via magnets to the sides of the case, which is also seen on previous Acefast earphones and is definitely a way to stand out from the crowd.
There are no buttons on the case itself, and all controls are on the knobs instead. The earbuds stay put when docked in the case and I haven’t experienced any issues with them falling out. The in-ear fit is good, provided you choose the appropriate silicone tip size.
The unboxing experience and the included accessories here are a step up from your regular wireless earphones. The box has a clear plastic bit that lifts up to reveal three compartments that contain a silicone gel case in the color of the charging case to match your earbuds, a strap, USB-C cable for charging, and three extra pairs of silicone ear tips in a plastic container.
Each bud weighs 5.5 grams, while the case comes out to 47 grams. The earbuds aren’t the lightest we’ve tested, though they feel great in your ears even after hours of use. The case isn’t that compact and barely fits into your jeans’ coin pockets, but it slips easily into other larger pockets even with the included silicone sleeve.
Functions
Moving past their transparent design, the Acefast T8 brings a rather limited feature set. There is no Hi-Res Audio support here and you are left with the old SBC and AAC audio codecs. The buds support the very latest Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity standard with Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) transmission via the BES 2600 IHC Bluetooth chip. Unfortunately, there’s no active noise cancellation (ANC) with the two microphones on each earpiece only offering ENC call noise cancellation.
Multi-point pairing is another major absence on the Acefast T8, and there’s no smartphone app to tweak the sound profiles or receive firmware updates. The buttons also omit wear detection for pausing and resuming media playback, which is a standard feature even on budget earphones today.
The Acefast T8 has 10mm drivers with an aluminum moving coil and 6mm dome tweeters. The earphones use a Laser Direct Structuring (LDS) antenna design, which molds the antenna transmitter onto a plastic strip near the bottom of the earphones’ shaft. LDS is advertised to bring stable signal transmission and improved anti-interference.
The LED display on the case is a nice touch, and it’s definitely one of the most appealing features the T8s have going for them. The display turns on for a few seconds when you remove the buds from the case and again when you dock them. This is really useful as you have instant access to your buttons and battery status without having to dig up Bluetooth settings on your paired device. The LED display has a white color for battery status, while the underside has a yellow tint that illuminates the bits around the exposed part of the motherboard.
We love the design approach, although we feel Acefast could have added a physical button that allows you to turn on the screen and check your battery levels without inserting the earbuds from the case each time.
The knobs offer touch buttons for play/pause, volume control, call management and summoning your device’s digital assistant. The touch controls are all done on the upper part of the knobs and they work reasonably well, although the volume controls didn’t always work on the first try. There’s no way to remap the touch controls, which is a bummer.
Performance and sound quality
When you first play some audio content, you’ll notice that the bass output is pronounced, while the lows and mids are slightly off. High midrange sounds like vocals sound good. Acefast T8 can get very loud, which is an added bonus. The sound profile is flat and an equalizer setting option could potentially improve their sound output, although there is no such feature at the time of this review.
I did notice some subtle static on the Acefast T8 after pairing them with my devices, though this is mainly while listening to podcasts and audiobooks in a quiet environment. Granted, this issue wasn’t repeated with some of my colleagues who tried the buds in the office and probably won’t bother you on your daily commute or at the gym.
Connection performance was on point with no dropouts when tested on an iPhone, Android tablet and laptop. Switching to calls, voice pickup is below average and people on the other line report that my voice sounds muffled during calls. Latency is on par with other wireless earbuds we’ve reviewed with no noticeable lag between video and audio.
Battery life
The Acefast T8 is advertised to last up to 7 hours of continuous music playback at 70% volume and 4 hours on calls, while the charging case extends the total listening time to 30 hours – that’s plenty of endurance for a pair of wireless earbuds and more than most competitors. Each earbud has a 45mAh battery, while the case has a 480mAh charge.
I found the headphones to last me between 6-7 hours on a single charge during my testing period, which is in line with Acefast’s claimed values. A full 0-100% charge takes about 90 minutes, while a 10-minute quick charge gives you 2 hours of use. There’s no wireless charging, so you’ll need to find an outlet and plug in a USB-C cable to charge.
Judgment
Acefast T8 earphones have a unique transparent design with smart features like magnetic storage inside the case and a large LED battery indicator screen. The battery life is fantastic and delivers up to 30 hours with the charging case. The sound quality is average and there is no ANC or support for any of the high bitrate codecs. That wouldn’t be a problem for a pair of headphones, but the Acefast T8 currently sells for $100which puts them in a tough spot considering the fierce competition in the TWS market.
The T8s are exclusive to the Acefast online store for now, but if the T6 series is any indication, they should appear on Amazon soon enough. Still, we’d wait for a big discount before pulling the purchase trigger.
We have to give credit to the design team at Acefast for creating one of the best looking earphones on the market. The six color options offered on the Acefast T8 all look great, and we’re excited to see what future iterations of the series will bring to the table. We can only hope for a richer feature set with Hi-Res Audio support and more control over the audio equalizer.
