CMF Clip Pro Review: Great Open Buds At A Reasonable Price

The consumer electronics company Nothing has a history of offering excellent value for the money, but its CMF brand usually takes that value proposition a step further. For instance, the most recent product from CMF comes in the form of the new CMF Clip Pro open earbuds, which are built for individuals who like the idea of open earbuds but don't want to pay much to get them.

These are actually CMF's first clip-style, open-ear earbuds — the kind that grips the outer edge of your ear rather than plugging into your ear canal, letting you hear the world around you while you listen. It's a category that's been getting more popular, with the likes of Bose, Shokz, and Huawei all offering their own takes. The Clip Pro costs $99, which is far less than most of the competition. I've been using the Clip Pro to find out whether that price makes the inevitable compromises worth living with or if you should save up a little more cash for a more robust option.

The Clip Pro's design is built around a C-shaped bridge that wraps over the edge of your ear, with a flexible, elastic titanium wire core inside that allows the clip to adapt to different ear shapes. Each earbud weighs just 5.9 grams, which is important for a device that is meant to hang off your ear all day. You can get them in Dark Grey, Light Grey, or Coral, and I'm reviewing the Coral model, which I quite like the look of.

The charging case is unique-looking, too. It comes in the same color as the earbuds and has a tactile spinner on top that you can press. CMF calls this the Smart Dial, and it can actually be used to control volume, playback, calls, and more. It's kind of cool, and I love the tactile feel of it. On the back, there's a USB-C port for charging. Unfortunately, that is the only way to charge these earbuds since they don't support wireless charging of any kind.

Apart from the controls in the case, each bud has its own control in the form of a little button on the main unit of the bud. Normally, I don't like physical buttons on earbuds, but these are positioned in such a way that pressing a button doesn't have the same comfort issues as on other wireless earbuds. While the design of the case looks neat, it does make it somewhat tricky to put the buds in easily at first. You'll get used to how they slot in after a few tries.

Durability is decent, but not exceptional. The earbuds carry an IP54 rating for dust and splash resistance, which covers sweat and light rain — fine for workouts and commutes, though not on the level of sportier options that reach IP57 or higher. The charging case gets an IPX2 rating for drip resistance, which is more than most cases get, but it's certainly not going to prevent damage if you forget your earbuds are in your pocket and jump in the pool.

Open earbuds, in general, have a lot going for them when it comes to comfort, thanks to the fact that they don't actually get inserted into your ear canals. These are no exception. They're easy to wear for hours at a time without getting uncomfortable, though you will have to get used to the feel when you first start wearing them if you haven't worn clip-style earbuds before.

The grip is gentle but secure enough for moving around, working, and light exercise, and I never felt like the earbuds were about to fall off. If you're looking for something to wear while running, for example, these will do the trick.

Let's get the obvious out of the way — there is no active noise cancellation here, and there isn't supposed to be. Unlike the CMF Buds Pro, the Clip Pro is designed to let sound in, which also means there's no dedicated transparency mode — the entire product is a transparency mode. If you want isolation, open earbuds aren't the way to go.

What CMF has focused on instead is managing the downsides of open-ear listening, chiefly sound leakage. That's largely through the so-called Sound Seal system, which seemed to work fine at directing audio towards my ear canals — though, of course, there will always be some leakage. There are downsides to enabling it, though — it changes audio response pretty dramatically, making things sound muffled. It might be fine for some when listening to a podcast or audiobook, but music doesn't sound great when the feature is on.

The rest of the feature set is solid for the price. A four-microphone array that's aimed at handling voice isolation and noise suppression on calls, and the Nothing X app provides custom EQ, control mapping, a locate-earbuds function, and a Low Latency mode for gaming. Connectivity is through Bluetooth 5.4 with Google Fast Pair, Microsoft Swift Pair, and dual-device multipoint.

Without the need to power ANC, battery life is quite good on these earbuds. Each bud has a 60mAh battery that's able to deliver up to 10 hours of continuous listening or 6.5 hours of talk time. With the charging case, you'll get a total listening time of 32.5 hours.

I found that, for the most part, the battery seemed to live up to what CMF claims. And even when it does eventually run out, a 10-minute charge through USB-C will get you four hours of listening time.

Under the hood, the CMF Clip Pro earbuds have a lot going for them. In each bud, there's a 10.8mm dual-magnet dynamic driver with a TPU and liquid crystal polymer diaphragm. The earbuds have Hi-Res Audio certification and support for LDAC at up to 990 kbps alongside AAC and SBC. CMF also touts its "Ultra Bass" technology, designed to compensate for the natural low-end roll-off that comes with any unsealed design.

That's a lot of marketing, and while they sound perfectly fine, they can't get around the physics of open earbuds. It's just difficult or perhaps impossible to deliver the same bass and clarity that you can get when you have a seal in your ears, or at least something close to it. Much more expensive open earbuds can't get around that limitation, and neither can these.

That doesn't mean they sound bad. The audio profile is a little mid-heavy, which is to be expected. You'll get decently clear vocals, and if you're listening to a podcast or audiobook, you should be able to hear spoken word pretty easily. Music is perfectly listenable for casual sessions, but if you're looking for ultra-detailed highs and deep bass, you won't really get that here.

The audio also isn't quite as good as some other open-ear competitors, though few are as inexpensive as these. The much more expensive Bose Ultra Open ($299) earbuds deliver richer audio and a wider soundstage, but that's at three times the price of the CMF Clip Pro.

Call performance is pretty good, though. The four-microphone array handles everyday voice calls and Discord chats without issue. Combined with the open design letting you hear your surroundings, the Clip Pro actually makes a lot of sense as an office and communication tool.

The CMF Clip Pro earbuds have a lot going for them for the price — and if you're looking for a pair of open earbuds, you may not be able to do much better at this price point. They offer a comfortable fit, great battery life, tactile controls, and more. While they may not sound as great as sealed earbuds, that's more a limitation of the form factor than anything CMF could have solved for.

There are a number of competitors to the CMF Clip Pro earbuds, but they're usually more expensive — and the ones that are similar in price aren't as unique or as well-rounded. The Bose Ultra Open retails for $299 with drastically superior sound, but that's a completely different price bracket. And Nothing's own Ear (open) offers a richer sound profile, but have a different form factor. So, if you want highly affordable, ultra-comfortable open-ear earbuds, you can't do much better than the CMF Clip Pro.