Baseus Inspire XC1 wireless earbuds review: Budget price for Bose sound

With the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds priced at $300, the Baseus Inspire XC1 offer a great sound profile tuned by Bose, for less than half the price. They are comfortable to wear all day and the perfect companion for those who like to listen to music or podcasts while working. Even though there is sound bleed simply because of the form factor, it’s not significant enough to bother people around you, granted you’re listening at a normal average volume. Even without some of the creature comforts like in-ear detection and ANC, the Inspire XC1 deliver solid performance.

The mic setup allows for clear calls with minimal outside noise and dual-device connectivity makes things quite convenient. There was a bug with LDAC in the Baseus app but hopefully Baseus will fix it soon with a firmware update.

The Baseus Inspire XC1 are priced at $130, and come in Starlight Off-White and Cosmic Black colors. At the time of publishing, they are on sale for $110 via Amazon and the Baseus website (with a code). 

The Baseus Inspire XC1 has a simple unboxing experience with minimal packaging. Since these are clip-on style earbuds, there are no silicon ear tips. The retail packaging contains a quick start guide and a USB Type-C charging cable.

We got the Starlight Off-White color variant of the Inspire XC1 that has champaign gold accents. The case is also dual-tone with the off-white bottom and champaign gold lid. The pairing button is located at the bottom of the case, next to the USB Type-C charging port. There is a loud snap when closing the lid, and it can be opened with one hand despite the compact form factor. The open-ear earbud design of the Inspire XC1 make them very comfortable, to the point where you don’t even feel them clipped on to your ear after some time. That’s thanks to the five-gram weight and soft clamping pressure. Another advantage of this form factor is that they are easier to keep clean and free from ear wax.

The physical button is easy to find behind the ear and works great. An advantage that comes with a physical button over touch controls is that those with long hair don’t need to brush it out of the way and it can be operated even when wearing something like a beanie.

Second drawback, specifically for the bass lovers, the lows are quite mellow. There is minimal thump at a normal listening volume but a more pronounced bass at max volume. However, thanks to the combination of the 10.6 mm dynamic driver + 10 mm balanced armature driver with the Bose tuning, audio doesn’t crack at max volume. There is also no in-ear detection.

The Inspire XC1 are rated for around eight hours of playtime. They deliver on that claim as I went full work days with music playing on and off, and they were not even close to being dead by the end of the day. The case charges them quickly as well, up to six times depending on how much battery was left after every use.

Dual simultaneous connectivity with modern headphones and earphones is a god sent, and these earbuds come with it. Notably, enabling LDAC on the XC1 disables dual-device connection and the Bose EQ. Furthermore, at the time of publishing, there is a bug with the LDAC setting in the Baseus app that makes it so that if the setting is turned on, it doesn’t turn off. The only thing that fixes this is resetting the earbuds which then unpairs them from all devices. We reached out to Baseus for the same but haven’t received a satisfactory response. That being said, all other functionality of the Baseus app works as intended.