Obviously, price is the biggest deciding factor if you're looking for earbuds on a budget. Pay attention to these features as well and you can't go wrong.

ANC: Active noise cancellation (or active noise control) is the acronym you should be looking if you want the best sound quality in complete isolation. Just remember, not all ANC is made equal. Some earbud models are better at blocking low-frequency sounds, while others miss those and instead focus on high frequencies. Some pairs allow you to adjust the ANC, while others simply have an on/off switch.

IP Rating: IP Rating is a measure of how sweat and water resistant a pair of headphones, or waterproof speakers, is. IP ratings indicate how much contact with water the hardware can handle. These are formatted as “IPXX,” and the second X is the important one: It indicates exactly how waterproof a pair of headphones is on a scale of zero to eight. The closer to eight, the better for swimmers and sweaters. IPX4 and IPX5 are two common examples.

Battery Life: Earbuds typically have a battery life between five and ten hours. With charging cases, those can often be extended anywhere between 20 and 40 additional hours. Make sure you check the advertised battery life before making a decision.

Microphones: Calling is just as important as listening. You want to check the number of microphones in a pair of earbuds before buying them. The more the merrier. Of course, the quality of the microphones matters a lot more and that is a lot more difficult to determine. That's where trusting Esquire comes into play.

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