I wouldn't normally trust budget Bluetooth earbuds for serious gaming: the audio delay is always distracting, especially in fast-paced shooters. Instead I rely on dedicated gaming earbuds that connect to low-latency 2.4Ghz wireless dongles.

But Bluetooth earbuds with "gaming modes" – which cut latency without the dongle – are improving. I recently reviewed the capable $100 EarFun Air Pro 4 Plus and now I've tested the even-cheaper 1More Q21 buds. They're the only $40 earbuds I've tested with a dedicated gaming mode, and the Chinese brand is known for outperforming its price on sound and comfort.

Properly Good Buds for Intense Gaming

A low-latency gaming mode in buds this cheap is a novelty. As with other Bluetooth buds you'll need to connect to your phone and PC or handheld console simultaneously using dual connection – another rarity on budget buds – then toggle gaming mode on your phone app before booting up a game. It worked for me every time.

It's a dramatic difference. It doesn't cut the latency of Bluetooth entirely but it's close enough that after a few minutes I stopped noticing, and the sound felt instant even in a twitchy shooter like Marathon.

They can't match gaming buds with a 2.4Ghz dongle, but they're a fraction of the price. I could play it without any latency hampering me – for $40, that's a win. The effect is similar to the more expensive Earfun Air Pro 4 Plus, which, as I said in my review, has one of the best gaming modes I've tried.

The audio impressed me too. In Marathon I could hear footsteps and the direction they were coming from, and easily tell guns apart by their sound effects. Marathon is a stern test – in more casual games like Dishonored 2, every sound felt loud, clear, and detailed, from the slash of a knife and muffled screams of an enemy to the blare of an alarm.

They also never dropped their connection, which can sometimes be a problem with gaming modes.

That said, they lack the precision of mid- or high-end buds. When Marathon's footsteps, gunshots, atmospheric wind and explosions roared all at once, everything blended together and it was hard to tell where individual sounds were coming from. But I can easily forgive that at this price, and 90% of the time it wasn't a problem.

Away from gaming their sound is bright and bouncy: I enjoyed listening to both music and podcasts. The bass lacks some punch, making Skepta's Shutdown feel limper than it should, and they can sound a little-washed and airy on complex tracks such as The Verve's Bitter Sweet Symphony.

You'll notice a big difference if you're used to expensive earbuds – but they still sound better than I'd expect for the price and they even support the LDAC Bluetooth codec for extra clarity, if your phone can handle it (at the moment, iPhones can't).

Light and Comfortable, but Below-Par Battery

Both the buds and case are simple, light, and compact.

The case slides into my pocket without bulging and while the coating feels pretty cheap, the hinge is sturdy. I bashed it and dropped it without any damage.

Each bud is slim and weighs just over 4g – lighter than most, and the oval-shaped rubber tips felt comfortable enough to wear for several hours at a time. They wobbled a bit when I ran at the gym but stayed in my ears and handled sweat (they're IPX5 certified, meaning they're water resistant).

Comfort won't cut your gaming sessions short, but the battery might.

1More advertises 5.5 hours of runtime without active noise cancelling (ANC), slightly below average for earbuds. That falls to 4 hours with ANC and drops further if you're using dual connection and playing games: I was hitting roughly four hours on gaming mode without ANC. Meanwhile, the case has a 600mAh capacity, which will recharge the buds roughly four times before needing to be plugged in.

It's not ideal, but you're always going to compromise with budget buds and they'll still last long enough to see you through a medium-length flight, a long commute, or an extended gaming session.

Decent ANC and Simple Software

The Q21's ANC and transparency modes are decent for the price.

The ANC cut out conversations in a cafe so I could concentrate on work but it couldn't shut out the rattle of the London Underground, which overwhelmed the podcast I was trying to listen to.

I find transparency modes to be almost universally rubbish because the sound they let in is usually drowned out by whatever I'm listening to. It's the same here: when I was playing a game I couldn't hear my wife talking from a few metres away, but I could hear the doorbell if it rang, and I could stay aware of traffic when I walked down my local high street listening to music.

Both settings live within 1More's app. The basics work but it's barebones beyond that. You can, for example, only choose between six preset EQs to tune your sound and you can't create your own.

Some of the settings are confusingly categorized. Gaming mode lives under "shortcuts", for some reason, and there's separate "settings" and "custom settings" tabs. Opening settings gives you three more categories to choose from. It's a bit messy.

But once I learned how to toggle gaming mode and dual connection, I never had any issue navigating the app and it instantly recognised the buds every time I opened it.

Samuel is a freelance reporter and editor specializing in longform journalism and hardware reviews. You can read his work at his website.