Best headphones under a thousand? The highly-rated Honor CHOICE EarBuds S8 are half price

Honor CHOICE Earbuds S8 at Alza dropped to 850 CZK after entering code ALZADNY50, which is half of the original price. At this price point, they are very attractive, offering ANC, LDAC, and Hi-Res certification.

Quick Summary:
✅ Makes sense if you’re looking for a second pair of headphones for your bag, vacation, or gym – or if you want to try out what ANC can do today for a few hundred crowns.
⚠️ Consider if you want purely offline use – the Honor AI Space app requires registration, and without it, you won’t get access to advanced settings.
💡 For 850 CZK, you get a combination of ANC, Hi-Res, LDAC, and 38 hours of battery life with the charging case.

What these headphones can do

Honor opted for a dual-driver design – each earbud houses an 11mm dynamic driver with a titanium layer for bass and a 0.25mm ultra-thin piezoelectric ceramic driver for treble. In practice, this combination delivers a frequency range of 20 Hz to 40 kHz and music with noticeable instrument separation – the headphones truly play with more detail than you’d expect from in-ear headphones at this price point. If you enable the LDAC codec on your device (you must turn it on manually), you get lossless 990 kbps transmission – full Hi-Res with 96kHz/24bit support.

Honor advertises active noise cancellation at up to 50 dB in Ultra mode, which corresponds to the upper mid-range. Users on Alza confirm that ANC works, but it’s not on the level of Sony WF-1000XM5 or AirPods Pro – for those, you should expect an investment five to six times higher. For everyday use (public transport, train, open-plan office), however, it’s significantly more than what you’re paying for the headphones. Additionally, there are Mild, Cozy, and Intelligent modes available, which adapt according to ambient noise.

Battery Life, Water Resistance, and Bluetooth 5.4

Battery life is always crucial for headphones. The Honor S8 offers 8 hours on the earbuds themselves with ANC off and a total of 38 hours with the case. With ANC on, expect shorter battery life, but even so, these numbers comfortably cover a week’s worth of daily commuting. Fast charging provides two hours of listening in 10 minutes on the cable – ideal when you remember just before leaving home.

The headphones have IP54 rating, meaning protection against sweat, rain, and dust – fine for the gym and running in light rain, but not for the pool. Bluetooth 5.4 is a newer version with lower power consumption and a more stable connection in noisy environments. The headphones also support dual connection to two devices simultaneously (note – this feature is deactivated when LDAC is enabled, you need to choose one).

Where Honor Saved – App and Forced Registration

Let’s be honest – at this price point, compromises logically exist. The Honor AI Space app, which controls all advanced features (LDAC, spatial audio, gestures, equalizer), requires account registration and cannot be used offline. For people who don’t want to burden their phone with additional accounts, this is a minor but regularly mentioned complaint. Without the app, however, the headphones only function in basic mode with ANC “Ultra”.

Verdict: At 850 CZK, they have no competition

The Honor CHOICE Earbuds S8 for 850 CZK are a clear buy if you’re looking for headphones for everyday use, for your backpack when traveling, or for vacation – or if you want to try out what modern wireless sound with ANC sounds like for a reasonable price. At the full price of 1,699 CZK, they are still a good choice, but the competition is more significant. At a 50% discount, however, there’s essentially no reason to think about them other than yes.

How much would you spend on wireless headphones today – a cheap pair for everyday use, or rather a higher-end model for longer years?