ROG has been venturing into the IEM niche under the Cetra label for a few years now, but this is their first foray into TWS type. The spec sheet promises quite a few goodies, including a low-latency wireless connection, Active Noise Cancelation (ANC), up to 27 hours of battery life, wireless charging case, IPX4 water resistance, and support for virtual 7.1 via their Armory Crate app. Enough to pique our interest.
This is the non-professional version of the ROG Cetra TWS series. The ROG Cetra TWS Pro was launched along with the ROG Phone 6 which also doubles as a wired pair.
Unpacking the ROG Cetra TWS
The ROG Cetra TWS package is similar to its other siblings, albeit more compact. In the package you will find:
- The ROG Cetra TWS itself
- 2 pairs of extra earplugs for different earlobes
- Charging cable
- Quick Start Guide
ROG Cetra TWS Specifications
| Driver Size | 10mm |
| Driver material | Neodymium Magnet |
| Impedance | 32Ω |
| Frequency Response Earbuds | 20Hz-20KHz |
| Microphone | Omnidirectional |
| Microphone sensitivity | -38dB |
| Microphone frequency response | 100Hz-10KHz |
| Active Noise Canceling | Yes |
| Channel | Stereo |
| AURA RGB | no |
| Battery | 4.8 + 17 hours (ANC On) 5.5 + 21.5 hours (ANC off) |
| Weight | Buttons 5g (each) Charging case (42g) |
| Wireless charging | Yes |
| SBC Codec Support | Yes |
| AAC Codec Support | Yes |
ROG Cetra TWS clutch
ROG Cetra TWS
ROG Cetra TWS
ROG Cetra TWS
Pairing can be tricky. In fact, I believe there is a bug that needs to be fixed here. There are two Bluetooth options when trying to pair:
- ROG Cetra True Wireless – appears from the earbud itself
- App-ROG Cetra True Wireless – seen from the case
I suppose the latter should be used to manage the case (firmware updates, etc), but try as I may, the only one that ends up connecting is the former. Yes, you can update the firmware when connected to the earbuds, but I believe nothing is updated on the case. When connected to App-ROG Cetra True Wireless, even Armory Crate detects nothing. So save the effort and just connect to the “ROG Cetra True Wireless” profile. Pairing is pretty easy and on the ROG Phone it also has a neat prompt for setup.
For comparison, I tested the ROG Cetra TWS on my ROG Phone 6 Pro and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3.
ROG Cetra TWS Gestures
What makes TWS (and wireless headsets in general) are their touch gestures. If you don’t have the device to hand, that can be quite handy. Here are the available gestures for your reference:
Left earbud
- Voice assistant – Tap and hold for 1 second to activate the voice assistant
- ANC Mode Switch – Double tap to toggle between light noise cancellation, heavy noise cancellation, ambient surround or turn it off completely.
Right Earplug
- Answer call – Double tap
- Reject call – press and hold for 1 sec
- End call – one tap
- Play music – one tap
- Pause music – one tap
- Play next content – Double tap
- Play previous content – tap 3 times
- Game Mode – Tap and hold for 1 second to turn it on/off
The long presses can be tricky on some TWS, but for the ROG Cetra TWS, keep pressing it until you hear the voice command.
ROG Cetra TWS user experience
I think the first appreciation moment you will have is when you turn on the ROG Cetra TWS by lifting the lid. You’re presented by a beautiful RGB-coated ROG logo right between the two earbuds. I’d give extra points if this was customizable, but even if it was, I’d leave it in Rainbow mode which already flashes through it by default, so we’re good to go. The ROG emblem does not serve as a battery level indicator. This is represented by a slightly curved horizontal bar on the edges of the housing. This is handy but unnecessary because you still have to lift the lid to turn it on.
The next thing to appreciate is the status indicator on the neck of the earbuds. They light up along the dotted matrix and I can safely say that these are probably the nicest status indicator lights I’ve seen on a TWS so far. While charging, they will flash red and once fully charged, they will glow blue.
The earplug itself is neat. The ROG decal etched onto the head, while the ROG lettering embossed on the underside of the neck provides plenty of branding for your bragging rights. There are multiple microphones around the earbuds that act as an omnidirectional microphone and double as ANC microphones. The two pins on the inside of the neck connect to the case for charging.
Speaking of charging, the case itself supports Qi wireless charging or you can plug in the included Type-C USB charging cable for fast charging.
The ROG Cetra TWS is only complete when used in conjunction with the Armory Crate, both on PC and mobile. So if you plan to use it with other devices, you may have limitations in terms of functionality.
The app itself is quite intuitive. For starters, you can set the playback volume. You can also optimize the audio, which is one of my favorite features here. Being a gaming-focused TWS, the options for optimizations revolve around flat audio, FPS gaming, movie mode, racing gaming, RPG gaming or you can tweak it to your liking.
If you are using the ROG Phone series, you can further adjust the EQ in Audio Wizard. If you are using another device, the equalizer sliders are present in the app. There is also an option to enable Virtual Surround Sound which gives you the virtual 7.1 experience. Finally, there is a Bass Boost option with its own dedicated slider to adjust it to your liking. As I mentioned, the ROG Cetra TWS gets steroids with the app.
But the Armory Crate app isn’t perfect either. While you can check most settings on it, at the time of writing it is missing a very crucial feature; the ANC settings. The fact that there are four switches as I specified above, switching them one by one is annoying and a quick switch would have made the app experience so much better.
Apart from this, the Armory Crate experience is not consistent across all devices. When you connect the ROG Cetra TWS to a desktop or laptop, the Armory Crate application on these machines has the Music Mode and Reverb settings that are not present in the mobile app. DISCLAIMER: I have detected the ROG Cetra TWS on the desktop Armory Crate, but sometime over time with updates it stopped working.
How does the ROG Cetra TWS perform as a TWS earphones? It’s a gaming-focused TWS earphones and it’s designed to focus on gaming. The latency is extremely low, so if you’re playing fast games you shouldn’t have a noticeable audio lag. Apart from that, depending on the games you play, you can switch modes. So when you switch to FPS mode, the footsteps get prominently louder.
Microphone sensitivity has been reduced from -40 ± 3dB to -38dB, which helps reduce background noise during gaming. In fact, the microphone is actually quite good for a gaming TWS. I tested a few games with my friends and they noticed that the vocal audio was quite clear. Here’s a microphone test for reference and note that while doing this test, I bumped my fan at its maximum speed. Most TWS earphones would produce a very high-pitched fan noise, but in this case it is greatly reduced.
If you ask me, the ROG Cetra TWS is a solid pair of earphones if you’re using it for gaming purposes. For listening to deep music I have to say it falls a bit short. The bass gets a little too wild for my taste. You’d notice this if you’ve been using a high-end audio-centric TWS pair all along. Maybe my taste has improved, but I especially enjoyed the ROG Cetra TWS for gaming sessions.
The buttons are also IPX4 rated, so if you’re going to have such an intense gaming session that your sweat starts to drip, you’ll be fine.
ROG Cetra TWS Verdict
If you are a hardcore mobile gamer and see yourself spending hours on mobile gaming, then you are looking at one of the best TWS earphones for that. The ROG Cetra TWS has a specific purpose and does it well. It’s not an all-rounder, but then again, in the world of TWS, it’s almost impossible to look for perfection. The price of RM515 would not be easy to justify either.
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