JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds Review: $30 Buds With Surprisingly Powerful ANC

JLab’s popularity stems from producing ultra-affordable audio peripherals, like $20 wireless earbuds and $40 keychain earbuds. Most conversations around this brand have mostly been about how they manage to make decent audio gear for the price of takeout. You might’ve seen JLab Go Pop ANC True Wireless Earbuds at your local Best Buy or Target, advertised as “the cheapest ANC buds on the market” for just $30. When I mentioned this to my coworker, his first reaction was, “I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine anything sounding that good for $30.” So, I decided to call them in and test that for myself.

After spending a few days with these, I wouldn’t say my coworker was entirely right, but I won’t be fully siding with JLab either. Technically, they’re great at what they’re touting the most: great ANC. But they underperform in a bunch of other areas. Given the unbelievably low price, I’m fairly forgiving about the build quality, but I do wish the sound had more depth, detail, and soul.

JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds Review: Design and Fit

I know you know better than to expect expensive material or extra bells and whistles from a $30 pair of buds. I kept my expectations as low as possible, too. And on that front, at least, I wasn’t very disappointed. Maybe the bar was too low, to begin with, but I was happy that the case is sufficiently durable, if not very robust, has no moving or loose parts, and the material is not the lowest quality I have come across.

See JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds at Target

The lid magnets are tight and snappy, giving the case a satisfying click when closed. While the plastic doesn’t look as premium as aluminum or glass, and its light weight hints at its budget quality, it doesn’t feel flimsy. One extra feature is an in-built Type-C cord tucked into the underside—a small but thoughtful addition that saves you from needing a cable on hand.

The earbuds mirror the case’s minimalist aesthetic, with an all-plastic body, no hint of flashiness, and just enough sturdiness to avoid feeling flimsy. Aside from the company logo on the exterior, there’s little else in terms of design. The Go Pop ANC earbuds make it very clear that they’re $30 buds.

My biggest point of concern with in-ear buds is the fit. The Go Pop ANC were ideal in this regard. After unboxing, I immediately switched from the default medium to the small ear tips, which fit me well. I didn’t have to adjust the buds; they stayed securely in place throughout use. While they weigh 8.2g and aren’t the lightest buds on the market, their compact form factor kept them from feeling bulky—unlike the new Bose QuietComfort buds that felt like which felt like oversized buttons in my ears. I used these as my go-to earbuds for calls, music, and podcasts over several days and never felt discomfort.

JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds Review: Controls

It was an irritating experience to navigate on the buds’ poorly designed companion app to assign gestures to controls. Functionality-wise, the app is fine, but the flimsy UI makes it bothersome. You only get single, double, triple, and long tap gestures. I assigned volume to a single tap, with the right bud controlling the volume up and the left bud turning it down. While it worked decently well, it was inconvenient not to have the volume on a sliding scale, which would have been better for a swiping action. Tapping for volume control meant I couldn’t tap twice in a row (to turn the volume two levels up) because that would’ve been incorrectly read as a double tap, which was assigned to pausing/playing the music. And long-tapping for volume control meant I had little control over the increments.

I like that the earbud controls also include cycling between three EQ presets. Though I don’t see myself using that often enough to bother with it, I’m pretty sure that’ll be useful to a lot of users.

JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds Review: Sound and ANC

Hearing the painfully average sound on the JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds made me realize they might only be good for the one feature they seem most focused on: ANC. I can only imagine the sound suiting a child whose ears aren’t tuned well enough to make out the intricacies in a song. I played around on the presets and tried custom-tuning one, but the earbuds still sounded too flat. They lack detail and layers, so it sounds as if all the elements of the orchestra are badly clustered together. A spacious and airy-sounding orchestra is the number one sign of a good pair of buds, which I didn’t get to enjoy on these.

The JLab Go Pop ANC buds are definitely more treble-focused than bass. But they’re far from subtle at that. Instead of a slight inclination towards the high-end, which you’d expect on a treble-focused audio peripheral, these sound overly tinny, sharp, and harsh, especially at louder volumes. The 10mm driver size is one obvious factor that points towards the buds being less focused on bass. Wireless earbuds this size usually sport around 12mm drivers. A bigger driver size helps with increased bass, though that’s not the only factor determining it.

The noise canceling, on the other hand, is very impressive. It’s extremely powerful and successfully canceled my noisy work commute from NYC’s Midtown to Downtown. It dealt with traffic very well, completely muting the loud, constant rumble of car engines. That’s as bass-heavy a sound can get, and for these $30 buds to cancel that well was commendable. Owing to a longer sound wave, low-end sounds are the most difficult to cancel, so I was very happy with the noise canceling.

During my testing period, as I commuted to my office with the Go Pop ANC buds, I tested the ANC mode against many passerbys’ conversations—a sound that many ANC modes struggle with—but these passed that test with flying colors. With ANC off and my music playing, I could hear their voices but couldn’t make out the conversation. But with ANC on, it was as if I was the only person on the sidewalk.

I like that the JLab Go Pop ANC didn’t overdo the canceling or the ambient mode. When the former is overdone, it results in an uncomfortable eardrum suck that you can only tolerate for so long. After a while, your ear canals start demanding you for a break. When the ambient mode is overdone, there’s usually a fake hiss in the background, and all the sounds in your surroundings are weirdly exaggerated. The ambient mode on the Go Pop ANC buds, which JLab calls Be Aware, sounds so natural that I could barely tell the difference between the mode and ANC and ambient mode off.

JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds Review: Battery Life and Resistance

You’re looking at about seven hours of battery with ANC off and around just an hour less with noise canceling turned on. With the case included, the scores increase to 24 and 21 hours, respectively. Both of these figures are pretty standard for wireless earbuds. The seven hours are slightly higher, with most in-ear peripherals lasting around six hours without ANC and the underwhelming flagship Apple AirPods only lasting five or four hours. Despite the somewhat standard battery life scores, I’ll give the Go Pop ANC buds an extra point in the department simply because they manage to offer the industry standard at a fraction of the price. Quick charging is supported (10 minutes giving you an hour of playback), but wireless charging isn’t.

JLab’s latest buds sport an IP55 dust and water resistance, which makes me pretty confident about using them around a pool or at the gym during a sweaty workout.

JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds Review: Verdict

I can’t complain about the JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds because they successfully deliver the feature they market the most: noise cancelation. You also get a compact and easy fit, a battery life that’s pretty good at this asking price, and dust and water resistance that trumps what much more expensive buds offer. If they sounded less tinny, I could’ve easily ignored the flimsy build and poorly designed app owing to their low price.

I would still recommend these as entry-level buds for kids or someone simply looking for advanced earplugs to cancel out obnoxious street noise and don’t care much about sound quality. At $30, it’s unfair to expect these to perform as well as your regular midrange buds, so I’m surprised at how much they get right.

See JLab Go Pop ANC Earbuds at Target