In this day and age, true wireless earphones are the popular segments in the audio market. As a result, it has become a challenge for lots of brands to stand out from the crowd. But with our Creative Outlier Gold review, we’ll make choosing easier for you.
Today, a lot of headphone makers need to include designs or features that make their products stand out. And when it comes to Creative, that one unique feature is the battery life.
This time, we’ll be focusing on the Creative Outlier Gold earbuds. It has a specific design that allows you to enjoy 14 hours of playback on a single charge. With its charging case, these earphones have a total of 39 hours of playback per charging cycle.
To note, a lot of wireless earbuds have about 3 to 5 hours of playback. That’s on one charge, plus an additional playtime of about 8 to 20 hours in total. What makes it better is that these earbuds provide great sounds, is water-resistant and uses Bluetooth 5.0.
Of course, it also has a top-notch battery life, which makes it easy to recommend to people. It’s best for those who want a pair of quality and reliable true wireless earbuds.
Creative Outlier Gold Packaging
When we got our hands on these earbuds, they came in a clean and neat-looking box. Creative went for the simple and minimalist look, and we’re not complaining at all.
The packaging sports an all-white theme with hints of orange and gold. An image of the earbuds can be seen at the centre while its name is written below in gold.
Next to the image, you’ll read 14 hours per charge to highlight the feature. Creative’s name is on the upper left corner of the box, plus an orange background to make it more visible.
There aren’t many details on the box, so you can go and focus on what’s inside it instead.
Inside, you will find the Outlier Gold kept securely in its spot. For the case, it has its area as well. We loved how Creative neatly set things inside to avoid them from getting damaged while in transit.
Aside from the earbuds and its USB Type-C charging case, there are other items included in the package. These are the USB Type-C to A charging cable, and two pairs of small and medium ear tips. You’ll also find a quick start guide in there, plus a couple of leaflets as well.
Next part of the Creative Outlier Gold review focuses on the earbuds’ design and functions.
Creative Outlier Gold Review – Design and Functionality
This section of our Creative Outlier Gold review is about the design and functionality of these earbuds.
Other than sporting a fresh and eye-catching gold paint job, the Outlier Gold appears similar to the original earbuds. Its housing sports a teardrop shape with angled nozzles that curl into the ear canal. Creative utilized this design to guarantee a secure fit on your ears.
The small and medium ear tips included are distinctly stout compared to other default ones. It’s good because it saves a lot of room in the case.
Each earbud sports a circular inlaid button that requires a bit of pressure to operate like the Outlier Air. If you want to decrease the volume, simply hold the left button down for a couple of seconds. To increase the volume, do the same to the right button. What’s good is that you can also access Siri, Google Assistant, or Cortana via triple-tapping any of the two buttons.
The earbuds and case are both made of matte plastic. They give off a simple vibe, yet the earbuds are finely-built. With that, you don’t have to worry about it breaking despite continuous use.
For the charging case, it sports a slider mechanism to display the earbuds. We didn’t hear rattles or creaks from the earbuds or the case while using them. The case sports a couple of LED lights on the side, which work as indicators for your charging status. Plus, it notes the battery life for your convenience.
To our delight, the Creative Outlier Gold comes with a USB-C for charging.
Key Features of the Creative Outlier Gold
On this part of our Creative Outlier Gold review, we will talk about the outstanding features of these earbuds.
39 Hours of Playtime
A single charge of the Creative Outlier Gold provides 14 hours of playtime. Among all wireless earbuds, this holds the most extended single playback without recharging after every 3 to 6 hours. The Outlier Gold comes with a charging case that gives you a total of 39 hours. It’s enough for the longest flight route.
All-Day Security and Comfort
Despite having a perfect wireless design, the Creative Outlier Gold stays secure in your ears. The company performed extensive tests to achieve the best fit for these earbuds. Aside from security, they provide high levels of comfort with the soft silicone ear tips and enhanced audio quality.
Graphene Driver Diaphragm
Creative incorporated a premium-grade 5.6mm graphene driver diaphragm to achieve excellent sound quality. It is the world’ s toughest and thinnest nano-material, which is lighter than paper and stronger than steel. It consumes less energy while providing high-quality audio with detailed highs, immersive bass, and well-balanced mids.
Premium Aluminium Charging Case
The aluminium charging case of the Creative Outlier Gold weighs only 54g, which is compact and portable. Once you finished using the earbuds, pop them in the case. It’s for storage and to charge them back to 100%. The case is rechargeable with a USB Type-C to Type-A cable.
Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy with AAC and aptX
Outlier Gold comes with the newest Bluetooth 5.0, which can perform two times faster than Bluetooth 4.2. It also consumes less energy than the previous version. With AAC and aptX audio codecs, the earbuds can deliver rich and enhanced audio that’s smooth and uninterrupted.
Dual Voice Calls with Smart Assistant
Standard earbuds only allow for calls in mono, which makes audio audible from one side. Creative Outlier Gold makes a change by letting you hear sound on both sides when you call. Aside from that, these earbuds also grant access to Google Assistant, Siri and other voice assistant apps.
Specifications
This part of our Creative Outlier Gold review talks about the specifications of the earbuds. Let’s begin with the case: it measures 3.9 x 1.5 x 4.7″, and weighs 6.7 ounces. When it comes to its shipping weight, it reaches a total of 7 ounces.
The batteries used for the Outlier Gold is a single Lithium-ion battery which comes in the package. Total charging time is 14 hours until full charge, while the playing time on a full charge is 39 hours.
It’s also IPX5-rated and works with smart assistants like Google Assistant and Siri.
Hands-on with the Creative Outlier Gold
On our Creative Outlier Gold review, it’s time for us to get more hands-on with these earbuds. Let’s see how it performed.
To make the best out of the Outlier Gold, it has free Super X-FI app that you can use. It offers a player for you to enjoy local audio files with a built-in equalizer. Plus, there’s a sound adjustment potential using tailor-made settings, and ready-to-use presets.
In addition to these, you’ll find options of the holographic sounds that you can enable and experience. It’s a feature that claims to deliver spatial aspects to your audio when listening using several loudspeaker systems. It uses mages of the users’ ears and face to create individual listening profiles during configuration.
After, the Super X-Fi effects can be switched off and on using the player for listening to music.
When it comes to its audio quality, the Outlier Gold sports universal tuning, and this gave us crisp, balanced, and vibrant sounds. The treble sounded great, and we didn’t experience any drop-offs, which made it better.
These earbuds come with subdued bass responses compared to before. So, we were able to use it for a more extensive selection of music compared to the original Air. For the isolation properties, they’re fine; however, you should remember to get the right seal for your ear canal.
For the connection strength, it was excellent. However, there were certain instances when we noticed audio breaks during our tests. That said, since there’s support for Bluetooth 5.0, it means that each earbud links independently to the phone. So, you can use it without the other – definitely a notable change from the typical wireless earbuds you know of.
Charging takes two hours to charge the Outlier Gold’s battery. It effectively conserves energy by shutting off automatically after 10 minutes of inactivity. The Creative Outlier Gold’s battery life was impressive for affordable wireless earbuds.
Overall, we were satisfied with the Creative Outlier Gold. Because of that, we’re giving five stars for these earbuds’ excellent performance.
Creative Outlier Gold Review Summary
The Creative Outlier Gold offers excellent battery life and audio quality, which you can get at an affordable price. Wireless audiophile earbuds cost higher but don’t reach the battery life of the Outlier Gold. These earbuds offer a lot of value for money, making it easy to recommend. If you’re someone who loves listening to music, these earbuds are the best choice for brand-new music experience.
To conclude our Creative Outlier Gold review, these are one of the best earbuds that we’d highly recommend. If you want to get your hands on these earbuds, they’re available via the company’s official website.