Acefast Crystal (2) T8 Headphones Review

Introduction

Acefast isn’t a name you often hear in the wireless earphone market, but its latest TWS headphones bring a flashy transparent design, an LED display on the case and six bold color options that caught our eye. The Acefast Crystal (2) T8 headphones are under review and we will take a detailed look at what they offer.

Acefast T8 certainly stands out in terms of design and offers neat bundled accessories. They feature Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, 10mm drivers, and support for SBS and AAC audio codecs. Battery life is rated at 30 hours of use with the charging case and the entire package is IPX4 splash resistant. Let’s see how these headphones compare to the competition and if they deserve a place in your pockets and ears.

Design

Purple, pink, blue, green, black and white – these are the six colors offered for the Acefast T8 and all come with clear end caps that expose the insides of the buds and their charging case. The charging case also features a seven-segment LED display that shows you the remaining battery percentage on the case and each earbud.

There’s a definite inspiration from the Nothing Ear(1) that brought the seamless 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 older Acefast headphones and is definitely a way to stand out from the crowd.

There are no buttons on the case itself and all the controls are on the buds instead. The headphones stay in place when docked in the case and I had no issues with them falling out. The in-ear fit is good provided you select the appropriate size silicone tip.

The unboxing experience and accessories provided here are a step up from your regular wireless headphones. The box includes a piece of clear plastic that lifts up to reveal three compartments containing a silicone gel case for the charging case color to match your headphones, a lanyard, a USB-C cable for charging, and three pairs additional silicone tips housed in a plastic container.

Each bud weighs 5.5 grams while the case comes out at 47 grams. The headphones aren’t the lightest we’ve tested although they feel great in your ears even after hours of use. The case is not so compact and barely fits in the coin pockets of your jeans, but it slips easily into other larger pockets, even with the included silicone sleeve.

Features

Beyond their translucent design, Acefast T8 brings a fairly limited feature set. There’s no Hi-Res Audio support here and you’re left with the older SBC and AAC audio codecs. The headphones support the latest Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity standard with EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) transmission via the BES 2600 IHC Bluetooth chip. Unfortunately, there’s no active noise cancellation (ANC) with the dual microphones on each earbud only providing ENC call noise reduction.

Multipoint pairing is another big absence on the Acefast T8 and there’s no smartphone app for fine-tuning audio profiles or receiving firmware updates. The headphones also omit wear detection to pause and resume media playback, which is a standard feature even on budget headphones today.

Acefast T8 is equipped with 10mm drivers with an aluminum voice coil and 6mm dome tweeters. The headphones use a Laser Direct Structuring (LDS) antenna design that molds the antenna transmitter onto a plastic strip near the bottom of the headphones stem. LDS is advertised to bring stable signal transmission and better anti-interference.

The LED display on the case is a nice touch and it’s definitely one of the most attractive features the T8s have going for them. The screen lights up for a few seconds when you remove the headphones from the case and again when you dock them. This is very useful because you have immediate access to the battery status of your headphones and case without having to search the 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 like the design approach although we think Acefast could have added a physical button that lets you turn on the screen and check your battery levels without having to extract the earphones from the case every time.

The earbuds offer touch controls for play/pause, volume controls, call handling and calling your device’s digital assistant. The touch controls are all done on the top part of the buds 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 shame.

Performance and sound quality

Once you play audio content, you notice the bass output is pronounced while the lows and mids are slightly off. The high mids sound like vocals sound great. Acefast T8 can get very noisy which is an added bonus. The audio profile is flat and an equalizer adjustment option could potentially improve their sound output although there is no such feature at the time of this review.

I noticed a subtle static noise on the Acefast T8 after pairing them to my devices, although that was mostly when listening to podcasts and audiobooks in a quiet environment. Admittedly, this problem has not been replicated with some of my colleagues who have tried the buds in the office and probably won’t bother you on your daily commute or at the gym.

Connectivity performance was spot on with no interruptions when testing on an iPhone, Android tablet, and laptop. Switching to calls, voice pickup is below average, with people on the other line reporting that my voice sounds muffled during calls. Latency is on par with other wireless headphones we’ve reviewed, with no noticeable lag between video and audio.

Battery life

Acefast T8 is advertised to last up to 7 hours with 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 a Enough endurance for a pair of wireless headphones and more than most competitors. . Each earbud houses a 45mAh battery, while the case houses a 480mAh charge.

I found the headphones lasted me 6-7 hours on a single charge during my testing period, which is in line with Acefast’s claimed values. A full charge from 0-100% takes around 90 minutes, while a 10-minute quick charge gives you 2 hours of use. There’s no wireless charging, so you’ll have to find a power outlet and plug in a USB-C cable for top-ups.

Verdict

The Acefast T8 headphones offer a unique transparent design with smart features such as magnetic storage inside the case and a large LED battery indicator screen. The battery life is exceptional and offers up to 30 hours with the charging case. Audio quality is average, and there’s no ANC or support for high-bitrate codecs. That wouldn’t be a problem for an entry-level pair of headphones, but the Acefast T8 currently sells for $100, which puts them in a tough space given 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 deep discount before pulling the trigger to buy.

We have to give credit to the design team at Acefast for creating one of the best looking headphones 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 line 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.