Zagg Z-buds

Short-Term Use (5.00)

The Z-buds come with three different sleeves that offer three different wear experiences. There’s a soft plastic dome, a triple flange, and a thin foam set of sleeves. With the exception of the soft dome, the Z-buds fit pretty deep into your ear canal. If you dislike sticking objects deep into your ears, these sleeves are not for you. We typically wear soft domes, but didn’t take issue with the in-canal sleeves. They’re intrusive, yes, which took a while to get used to, but they don’t exert a lot of pressure on the inner ear either. Once you get over the initial unease, the Z-buds are about as comfortable as the average in-ear.

The only other issue was the Z-buds aren’t ideal for jogging or other physical activities. They tend to come loose after some jarring. If you’re looking for a set of gym headphones, you should either go with an asymmetrical cord. Ideally the cable will be one to two feet in length so you can use one of those super cool arm bands to hold your media player. The Z-buds don’t meet this criteria.

Extended Use (6.00)

After we were acclimated to the Z-buds, we found they were pretty comfortable. Typically in-ears exert pressure on the inside of your ears, which gets uncomfortable over time. We didn’t run into this issue with the Z-buds. They aren’t as comfortable as a nice pair of over-ears with luxurious padding and ergonomically perfect design, but they’re pretty good for a set of in-ears.

Customizability (5.00)

The Z-buds have three different sleeve options: soft plastic dome, triple flanged (they look like a Christmas tree), and foam. The soft plastic domes come in three different sizes, and there’s an additional size of foams.

There’s an adjustable neck split of sorts: Zagg slid three plastic beads onto the cable. It does the trick without creating a lot of resistance on the line, but looks out of place.

The Z-buds end up with an average amount of customization options, but we really would’ve liked to see some size differentiation.