Hardcore Droid Holiday Gift Guide 2021

The holiday season is just around the corner. Soon family and friends will gather together to celebrate and exchange gifts. But what to buy your tech-savvy relatives? To make things easier for you, Hardcore Droid has come up with a well-thought-out gift guide. We have carefully picked three brilliant earbuds that would make excellent gifts for your loved ones. The best thing about these buds is that they’re all reasonably priced, so these gifts won’t be too heavy on your wallet.

• Urbanista Lisbon True Wireless Buds

These wireless buds by Urbanista are the cutest in-ear buds you’ll find right now. Available in five different colors, these earphones are not only attractive but compact and light as well. They give you nine hours of uninterrupted listening time. While nine hours isn’t the longest battery life we’ve seen on a pair of earbuds, it’s sufficiently impressive considering the Lisbon’s $49.90 price.

All thanks to the Lisbon’s portable size and perfect form factor with each earbud weighing only 4 grams, these buds are the perfect companion for those on the go. Its carry case allows two extra cycles of charge giving the buds a total playtime of 27 hours.

Offering an ergonomic fit, the Lisbon buds fit in your ears nicely, allowing you to enjoy endless hours of listening time. Because of their snug fit, the earphones are also ideal for workout sessions. They feature fairly sharp treble and deep bass. The best feature of the Lisbon buds is that its treble doesn’t distort regardless of its volume being maxed out.

• Campfire Audio Satsuma Buds

I have never come across a pair of earphones as aesthetically pleasing as the Campfire Audio Satsuma. Everything from the packaging to the design to the accessories is fantastic. I fell in love with these earphones as soon as I glimpsed them. You get a zippered cloth pouch with the buds, along with a number of eartips of varying sizes, three additional pouches to store the eartips, a Campfire pin and some necessary paperwork. The pouch is padded offering sufficient protection and the eartip sizes are more than enough to make sure they fit your ear.

Satsuma’s sound profile is quite insane. It provides an immensely high volume, cancelling ambient noise to a great degree. Hence, even though the buds don’t come with active noise cancellation, the passive noise isolation they provide is more than enough. They completely muted the sound of the fan and reduced the hum of the dishwasher to a great degree. There is a high amount of sound leakage on these IEMs though, so turning the volume all the way up might be bothersome for the people around you.

I listened to Lost Horizon by Somelee to test the Satsuma’s treble and Pretty Little Fears to test its bass. While the buds offer fairly good treble, the bass is average. It’s not bad but it won’t push you out of your seat. If you’re a fan of that low-end thump and are looking for an upgrade solely to enhance bass, then I suggest you look elsewhere.

• Campfire Audio Honeydew Buds

Campfire came through with equally brilliant packaging, design and accessories in the Honeydew earbuds. Hosting 10mm drivers, the Honeydew buds are equally great at making your ears explode with its volume maxed out. They feature an excellent fit that hugs your ears nice and tight. I did a quick Zumba session wearing these, and they gave me no issues at all. The Honeydew’s braided cable really helps to take its aesthetics to the next level. It gives it a sophisticated look and ensures increased protection.

I listened to the same two songs on the Honeydew as well to compare the two buds. Pretty Little Fears sounded much better than it did on the Satsuma. These buds carried insane bass with them. The sound was powerful and punchy with an oomph to it. The treble was great as well. The music sounded very well-defined on the Honeydew. You could clearly make out the different layers. The orchestra didn’t sound clustered.

Conclusion

The aforementioned buds are easily three of the best buds of 2021. The Honeydew may seem expensive to some considering they have a $249 price tag, which may make the Satsuma priced at $199 seem like a slightly better option. However, the Honeydew is well worth its price. I couldn’t find a single flaw in it. If you’re on a budget though, the Urbanista Lisbon buds are ideal for you. They offer fantastic sound, are aesthetically pleasing and very reasonably-priced.