Final Audio ZE300 Review

Design

• AirPods-style charging case
• Intriguing powder-coated finish
• Comfortable and super lightweight

The ZE300 doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to its looks. The oblong shape of its charging case, plus the rounded indentation on the front and the flash of metal on the rear give major AirPod vibes. There is a little bit of flair with a Final logo on the top of the case’s lid. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, I suppose.

These buds are available in either a black or a light grey colour, with my sample shipping in the former. It’s a pretty generic look, but given the buds are so lightweight and small, they wouldn’t necessarily stand out in a crowd.

The case and buds themselves come with this textured plastic finish that makes them surprisingly grippy in hand. Final says this is a powder-coated finish designed for grip and for preventing fingerprints and grubbiness. This is a nice touch, and shows that Final has paid attention to the little details folks will appreciate.

Final says the ZE300 is its smallest pair of earbuds yet, with them weighing in at just four grams each, as mentioned above. As expected, it means that you don’t really notice them being in your ear, plus with a decently thin charging case, they don’t take up much space when stowed away in a coat or jeans pocket.

This goes hand in hand with the comfortable fit, with a twist and push fit method with the default tips. If you’ve got smaller or larger ears, though, then Final bundles a range of other sizes in the box with the buds so you can find a comfortable and secure fit to get the most out of them.

The ZE300 carry an IPX4 rating for water resistance, protecting them from splashes of water and sweat, meaning you can use them for workouts if you wish. The case has an LED on the front to indicate pairing (as do the buds themselves), while the USB-C port for charging is on the underside, and there’s a button on the reverse side for activating Bluetooth pairing.

Features

• Surprisingly decent noise cancellation
• LDAC support is pleasant
• Easy Bluetooth connectivity

Unlike some of its rivals, the ZE300 comes with active noise cancellation designed to neutralise any external noise sources so you can focus on what you’re listening to as intently as possible. Granted, for the price, I wasn’t expecting the earth, but was still pleasantly surprised at just how good it was.

These Final buds do a solid job of getting rid of most of the mid-range noise, such as voices and the general kerchunk of a Thameslink train when I took them on a train into London for work meetings. Some higher pitched noise, such as wind and train squeaks, did still get through. It’s best to think of these buds’ ANC ability as more of a dampening than complete silence.

There is a transparency mode for the ZE300’s ANC to let noise in when you want to, so you can hear what you’re doing, which is useful for hearing announcements about the next stop on the Underground or when crossing a road, for instance. I found the buds’ ambient mode to feel on the synthetic side, rather than it being a natural presentation of what was going on around me.

The ANC and ambient modes are controlled with taps on the earbuds, as is playback and calls. It works well enough once you learn the number of taps required to pull off certain tasks, although it can be a bit trigger-happy if you need to adjust the earbuds in your ear.

The touch controls are your only method of controlling the ZE300, as there isn’t a companion app for customising ANC, EQ settings, spatial audio support. Nor does the charging case support any wireless charging.

Connectivity is handled with Bluetooth 5.2, and to my surprise, the codec support goes beyond the basic AAC and SBC with the more advanced LDAC codec. That’s a surprise for such a cheap set of earbuds, unlocking the potential for high-res listening with streaming services such as Tidal or Qobuz if you want access to higher quality audio.

In addition, these buds can connect to up to two devices at once, and swap between them as and when thanks to having multipoint connectivity. Plus, with supported Android devices, the ZE300 supports Google Fast Pair, which makes pairing over Bluetooth that little bit easier with the buds recognised as soon as you take them out of their case.

Final rates the buds to last for up to 21.5 hours on a charge, taking into account both the buds and the boost from the charging case. That’s with ANC enabled, too, so turning it off will yield strong gains.

In my testing, the buds lasted for five hours on a charge before needing to go back into the case, which is in line with Final’s own quoted figures. The endurance here is decent, if not class-leading.

Sound Quality

• Neutral, well-balanced sound
• Tight, controlled bass
• Pleasant depth and detail to mids and highs

The thing with the ZE300 having no controllable EQ or different settings in a companion app is that you’ll have to like how they sound out of the box. Some options can go off in multiple different directions on how they sound, turning up the bass for a more ‘fun’ sound, for instance, at the expense of overall fidelity.

Final hasn’t tuned the drivers inside these buds for outright thump, instead opting to go for more of a neutral, even-handed approach that works well for a variety of music. The low-end has good extension and control to it on heavier rock tracks such as Rush’s YYZ or Marillion’s The Invisible Man. There’s enough low end for some added thump and atmosphere, but it isn’t booming or overpowering anything else in the mix.

I found vocals to be pushed front and centre in the mix of James Taylor’s September Grass where the ZE300 was able to extract a surprising amount of depth and detail from his vocal, the song’s acoustic guitar and the background percussion. There’s a good amount of clarity here, as well as in the busier Bloom Baby Bloom from Wolf Alice where Ellie Rowsell’s lead vocal overlaps with her backing at points. Each was given its own space, with great definition. 

George Benson’s Affirmation demonstrated a decently wide soundstage with pleasant breathing room for the inflexions of percussion, electric guitar and the song’s distant handclaps in the intro. In addition, the treble feels smooth and clear on competing percussion intro to Steely Dan’s Do It Again, which is also a demonstration of precision and the solid soundstage.

Moving over to another classic Dan track in Peg, it displays the balanced and even-handed approach the ZE300 produces, giving room for everything from vocals to cymbal hits and the intricate bassline to shine that makes them an engaging listen. It isn’t surgical with detail, but there’s a lot to like here for such a cheap set of buds.

Should you buy it?