Sub-$100 earbuds used to mean muddy bass, weak Bluetooth connections and cancellation that barely worked. That has genuinely changed. Active noise cancelling, decent call quality and stable multipoint connections are now common well under the flagship price, largely because the core chipsets that power these features have become cheap to license and manufacture.
What is still cut at this price is refinement: app ecosystems are thinner, case build quality is more plastic, and ANC, while present, is less adaptive to wind and movement than on a $250 pair. None of that stops these being genuinely good daily earbuds for most people — it just means expectations should be set at 'very good for the price' rather than 'flagship'.
Below are the picks worth considering by use case, the features actually worth checking before buying, and answers to the questions people ask when shopping this bracket.