Creative OUTLIER GO Review – Genius TWS Wireless Earbuds 

I don’t often review earbuds like these, but Creative’s OUTLIER GO open-ear headphones stuck out as quite the departure from the standard design that I thought I’d take a look, and I’m glad I did, because I’m pretty impressed. These aren’t your regular TWS buds, and if I pop them out the case you’ll see exactly why that is. Instead of having a stem and a silicone ear tip to block your ear canal, these have the driver output to a flat surface, which you place over your ear canal, essentially giving you the best of both worlds when it comes to over-ears for comfort and spacial awareness, and in-ears for sound quality and a more subtle design. It’s pretty cool, right?

The biggest benefit, and why I’m pretty certain my wife is going to swipe these the second I’m done filming, is that these don’t need to actually go into your ears. They hook over your ear, and sit just outside. For people like my wife who really don’t get along with regular in-ears, this is a big bonus. It’s considerably more comfortable, especially since the already light buds are hanging from your ear rather than the friction fit in your ear canal, and because there just isn’t anything protruding inside you. As you might expect, these are adjustable. The ear hook pivots a decent amount side to side, and the bud itself has a clicky ratcheting mechanism to let it tilt up or down to best suit your ear size. For me this is a little small and so it actually has quite a lot of freedom for where you can place it, whereas with my wife it’s a much tighter (and therefore easier) fit. 

The other benefit of these being open-ear is that you get to retain more situational awareness of your surroundings. You can hear the knock at the door, or even have a bit of a conversation, at least depending on how loud your music is anyway. You definitely get more outside sound, which you could see as a drawback – I can imagine on a plane for example I’d be annoyed these don’t block out much of the sound, nor do they offer noise cancellation, but considering these are marketed as fitness headphones I think it’s fine to say you’d have a different set for that kind of travelling. The obvious drawback to just having a speaker near your ear rather than actively piping the sound in is that others near you are likely to hear your audio. Sitting side by side, at least in a quiet environment, you can definitely hear what’s being played. It isn’t super obvious or intrusive, but on a quiet bus for example your seat buddy will be hearing your tunes. 

Happily, as a fitness-focused design, these are IPX4 rated making them splashproof. Perfect for sweat or rain, just try not to drop them in the drink. Surprisingly, they are also pretty secure despite the single attachment point. They don’t feel like they’re going to fall off – I actually ended up doing some fairly physical DIY while listening to them and they didn’t even threaten to slip off despite my sweat, so good job there. They do also have a capacitive button on each bud, which by default is double tap to pause and triple tap to skip, although Creative’s app does let you change that if you want it to do something else. They of course connect via Bluetooth, specifically 5.4, and can do multipoint pairing, which is basically connecting to two devices at once, for calls and music. 

They do also have a built in microphone, which you should be hearing now. It’s not exactly amazing. It’s fine, it’s serviceable. You won’t be recording your debut album with it, but for a quick call they are fine enough.

As for audio quality, this is kind of interesting as basically it wholly depends on where they sit on your ears. If you put them too close I found they ended up sounding a bit bass heavy and muddy. If you place them well though, these actually sound pretty good. While they can’t live up to a good set of overears for example, especially for their price bracket which we’ll be coming back to in a sec, and for in ears, these really aren’t bad. They offer a decent and fairly balanced profile, at least to my untrained ears, although you can change the EQ mode in the Creative app too if you fancy it. I can’t say I found a significant difference with the modes, a lot of them felt like they were changing the same settings, or just pumping the volume up slightly. Stock, they weren’t exceptionally bass heavy – at least in the right position – although perhaps they aren’t the strongest in the treble range regardless of the positioning. Still, I enjoyed listening to music on them which is the important part. 

As for that price tag, as of writing these are on sale at £43 – down from £55 at MSRP – and for that price I can’t really argue these aren’t a good shout, especially if you intend to be more active with them, or you like the sound of in-ears that don’t actually need to go in your ears. Creative claims 26 hours of total listening, with 20 from the case and 6 from the buds themselves, which tracks with my usage. In short, I do quite like these. They aren’t exactly an audiophile’s dream, but they aren’t all that bad, and have a unique benefit that I know my wife will enjoy if nothing else.