Are the Creative Outlier Golds the best budget wireless earbuds of 2019?

The Creative Outlier Golds are the next evolution in Creative's rock-solid wireless earbud line. Priced at just under £100, they're a fairly inexpensive alternative to Samsung's Galaxy Buds and some of Sony's more budget-conscious options.

The obvious selling points are their whopping 14-hour battery life on a single charge (though it's really more like 10-12) and their fairly budget price tag for such an all-around quality piece of kit. Unlike most wireless earbuds, I actually think these look pretty decent, or at least not flat-out stupid. They protrude a fair bit from your ears, which isn't going to be to everyone's liking, but I don't feel daft wearing them in public. Your mileage may vary.

The build quality is, once you get over the plastic feel of the earbuds, pretty impressive. With water and sweat resistance, as well as a variety of different sized ear tips to choose from, they're about on the level of other, similarly-priced earbuds.

The audio quality is generally ok (more on that later), and you can squeeze a bit more out of them by tinkering with settings in the free Super X-Fi app.

If you've already got the Outlier Air, I'm not sure an upgrade to the Gold makes complete sense. But for those looking for an entry-level pair of wireless earbuds, the Creative Outlier Golds offer almost the full package.

The Gold's Bluetooth connectivity can be a tad unreliable from time to time, cutting out seemingly at random. They're supposed to offer up to 10 meters wireless range, which honestly sounds about right, but the random skipping is always a more immediate concern.

Audiophiles will no doubt find some elements of their sound quality to gripe about. They tend to excel with bass-heavy tunes but struggle when faced with sounds that ought to feel more natural. Acoustic instruments don't come across particularly well, for example. For the price, though, you're going to struggle to find much better, more consistent sound quality.

The build quality, while generally solid, is let down by the stiff buttons on the left and right earbuds. These regularly make pausing or performing other basic functions a bit of a pain. Sure, you'll grow used to them eventually, but it's no fun jabbing yourself in the ear to quickly alter volume: touch functionality is the way to go.

The Creative Outlier Golds are a solid, smartly-priced option for the budget-conscious among us. To my mind, they look significantly better than the majority of wireless earbuds on the market today, the build quality is decent, the sound quality is basically as good as you're going to get for the sub-£100 price, and the 14-hour battery life is more than you'll likely ever need. Serious audiophiles should really spring for something a bit more expensive, but your average person isn't going to find too much to complain about here.

You'll find them available for purchase now over on Creative.com.