Creative Zen Air Pro Review – Affordable ANC Earbuds with LC3+ Audio

The Creative Zen Air Pro are the latest true wireless earbuds from Creative, featuring active noise cancellation (ANC), long battery life, Bluetooth 5.3 and customisable touch controls via the Creative app.

The main difference between the Zen Air Pro and the Zen Air Plus is the LC3+ codec, which claims to have higher robustness against transmission errors, even lower encoding delay, and the ability to play back high-resolution audio quality.

Specification

Design

The Zen Air Pro feature an in-ear design with silicone ear tips to help get a secure fit. In the box, you get small, medium, and large tips.

The overall design is simple and attractive, with them looking like most generic earbuds.

These have an IPX5 rating making them a good choice for fitness and I found the overall fit to be excellent. The larger ear tips provide a good seal, which helps with the sound quality and keeps the earbuds securely in place. So far, I have used these for an outdoor run and several gym sessions, and I have had no issues with them falling out or requiring significant adjustments.

Creative App – No SXFI

The Creative App has some useful customisation for the Zen Air Pro, including an EQ and options for the ANC.

The EQ is a little odd, as you have two variables for bass and treble, but you can use the frequency wave to manually adjust the full range of frequencies.  

Oddly, the Zen Air Pro and Plus are not compatible with SXFI, whereas the Creative Zen Air are. I suspect this is due to the inclusion of LE audio, which I assume is not compatible with SXFI.

Connectivity

The Zen Air Pro use the latest Bluetooth 5.3 standard for wireless connectivity. I found the connection to be solid in testing with no dropouts.

Pairing is also quick and easy, with easy switching between multiple paired devices.

One neat feature of Bluetooth 5.3 is support for LE Audio. This brings benefits like lower power consumption and higher bandwidth for future audio codecs.

Depending on your phone, the LC3+ support enables additional options within the Bluetooth settings. On my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, I can toggle from Bluetooth Audio to LE Audio. However, in my case, when I switch to LE audio, the sound quality is reduced, and only one earbud works.

When testing this with the Xiaomi 14, Pixel 6, and iQOO 12, there were no additional options to toggle.

The issues with LC3+/LE Audio appear to be phone-related. I have seen Reddit users expressing frustration about how the Samsung UI 6.0/Android 14 update was supposed to include LC3, but when enabling LC3 mode under BT settings, there is no sound output.

Creative includes the BT-L4 Bluetooth LE Audio SXFI Transmitter with the Zen Hybrid Pro SXFi (or the BT‑L3 with the Classic), but they don’t sell it separately, so there is no easy way to make the most of LC3+ unless you have a phone/device that specifically supports it.

Sound Quality

The Zen Air Pro features 10mm dynamic drivers, which Creative State are custom-tuned to offer powerful bass and crisp treble.

I tested them with a variety of music genres, including blues, electronica, hip hop, metal, jazz, and classical, as well as podcasts and movies.

Considering the affordable price point, I found that the earbuds sound good. The sound is a bit more refined and balanced than you find with many of the affordable Chinese brands you find on Amazon.

With the EQ off, they have a slightly warm sound. There is an uplift in the bass, which provides a pleasant listening experience for most genres. The bass doesn’t bleed too much into the other frequencies, and this allows the mids to be clear with a good level of detail.

I am quite sensitive to highs and was happy that these don’t sound too sharp.

As I predominantly use earbuds for exercise, I tend to prefer something more bassy. With the EQ, you should be able to dial in the sound to your tastes. Cranking the bass up can give you a decent level of thumping bass without getting excessive.

It may take some tweaking to find the sound you want, and I would have preferred some presets to simplify the process.

The sound stage and instrument separation are decent for true wireless earbuds, helped by the drivers being angled to fire sound more directly into your ear canal.

Active Noise Cancelling

For ANC, I performed a synthetic test of playing airplane cabin noise on my Edifier S3000 Pro speakers with the volume set to 80%. The ANC on the headphones performs well.

Unfortunately, I found the ANC to be poor, with a negligible difference to the sound. Subjectively, I would say there was perhaps a 10% reduction of the cabin noise, with it being predominantly the low end.

It is rare to have good ANC on earbuds at this price, and it is not uncommon for expensive earbuds to have poor ANC.

Battery

The Zen Air Pro offer up to 9 hours per charge, with the case providing an additional 2 charges, taking total battery life up to 33 hours.

In testing, I found battery life to align with Creative’s claims, hitting around 8.5-9 hours at 50% volume with ANC off and about 5 hours with it on. This is superb, as most earbuds only last around 6 hours.

I also find that earbuds with impressive ANC tend to have a shorter battery, so the poor ANC but impressive battery on these correlates with my past experiences.

I found that the ANC didn’t impact the sound, whereas some headphones can have a significant difference with ANC on or off. Due to the poor ANC and no pierceable difference in sound, I’d probably leave ANC off for the improved battery life.

The case also charges quickly via USB-C, and they charge via QI wireless charging. With wireless charging, you need to place the case down on its back rather than upright where the USB-C port is.

Microphone

For calls, the Zen Air Pro use a triple microphone setup with environmental noise reduction to help isolate your voice.

In practice, people reported my voice sounded clear in a range of conditions. The earbuds do a decent job of reducing background noise like wind or traffic.

Price and Alternative Options

The Creative Zen Air Pro has an RRP of £60 and is available directly from Creative for £55. Amazon has them listed at £70.

My opinion is that at £55 this is worth it, but at £70, you can probably find better options.

The Creative Zen Air Plus is listed at £55 but is available for £45.

The SoundPeats Air4 Pro is a good alternative with an RRP of £80, but it is priced at £60 on Amazon.

The Edifier TWS1 Pro 2 are also good, priced at around £50.

Overall

I think the Creative Zen Air Pro are a good pair of budget earbuds.

At £55, you need realistic expectations, and I think these sounds great for the price. I like that they have an app and EQ allowing you to dial in the sound to your liking, and I thought the battery life was excellent.

LC3 support on phones is not great, and LC3+ support seems to be even rarer. Hopefully, this will improve with time, but LC3 has been out for a couple of years now.

The ANC was poor, but this tends to be the norm for earbuds at this price point. It does help a little, so it is still good to have it there.

Overall, I think these are well worth it for £55, and I’d certainly buy them over some unknown brand on Amazon at a similar price point.

James Smythe( Editor-in-chief )

I am James, a UK-based tech enthusiast and the Editor and Owner of Mighty Gadget, which I’ve proudly run since 2007. Passionate about all things technology, my expertise spans from computers and networking to mobile, wearables, and smart home devices.

As a fitness fanatic who loves running and cycling, I also have a keen interest in fitness-related technology, and I take every opportunity to cover this niche on my blog. My diverse interests allow me to bring a unique perspective to tech blogging, merging lifestyle, fitness, and the latest tech trends.

In my academic pursuits, I earned a BSc in Information Systems Design from UCLAN, before advancing my learning with a Master’s Degree in Computing. This advanced study also included Cisco CCNA accreditation, further demonstrating my commitment to understanding and staying ahead of the technology curve.

I’m proud to share that Vuelio has consistently ranked Mighty Gadget as one of the top technology blogs in the UK. With my dedication to technology and drive to share my insights, I aim to continue providing my readers with engaging and informative content.