I'll level with you: I never took ear buds seriously. I always felt like they were a useful stopgap between the stretches where I could use my 'proper' headphones - big, lovely over-ear ones with lush sound. The only times I'd use in-ears would be if I was on my way to a night out and didn't want to have to lug big headphones around, or if I was in the gym and wanted to just listen to a podcast - who needs that good a sound boost when it's just people talking, right?
Then I discovered Sony's WF range and felt like an absolute wally for ever thinking such nonsense, and with Amazon's Black Friday deal now making the Sony WF-C500s available at 51% off their original asking price (£43.69, down from £90), or 31% off if you're in the States (now $68.99, down from $99.99), you can grab an extremely solid pair of ear buds for an absolute steal of a price.
Full transparency: I'm currently using the Sony WF-1000XM5 phones, which are a snazzily upgraded version of the ones available in this particular deal. If you're in the market for some real high end in-ear headphones and can splash the cash, I can't recommend that model enough, but there aren't many decent Black Friday deals for them right now and you will have to fork out a lot more. If, however, you're looking for something in the £50-100 range, you really can't do much better than the WF-C500s.
They look stylish, fit snugly, have great sound for their size and a very decent bluetooth connection. Crucially, they also have a good battery life, going for up to 20 hours, which means they should go the distance for you whether it's for a week's worth of commuting, a long exercise session or even a gruellingly long haul flight. Since I've been using Sony WF's I can't imagine having anything else, and while I still adore my over-ear models for more involved listening sessions, my WFs come with me to the gym, to work and beyond.
If you're not convinced and would like to see more options for good headphone deals this weekend, make sure you check out our Cyber Monday headphone deals, and for a wider range of deals, keep tabs on our Cyber Monday music deals.
