Do these have a different chip and/or different audio quality than the previous generation?
Different chip, longer battery life, no mention of sound quality improvements, so I guess not.
AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
91–100 of 428 posts
Re: AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not expected to keep them that long, it's targeted to people who buy the new generations pretty much as soon as they are released. Who's going to pay 30%-50% of a new version to replace his airpods or apple watch battery ? [0] It's the same with all these hi tech gadgets relying on tiny glued/soldered batteries. You can't replace them yourself because it's either proprietary hardware or you need to literally b…
I absolutely agree with everything in this post, but the newest model of QC35s has like 15 hours of battery life. Even if it degrades 50% over 3 years they will be perfectly usable. Airpods don't have enough physical size to overprovision battery that much. Unserviceable laptop and cellphone batteries are terrible and apple is by far the biggest offender. disclaimer: typed from a macbook :(
The QC35s also only need the battery for wireless use/active noise cancelling, so even if your battery dies on you you can still use them with a wire and a standard 3.5 mm jack. That is, assuming you still have a 3.5mm port to plug that jack into :)
Re: AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
#93I was among the first to receive my AirPods back in end of 2016. They are now down to I’m probably going to use them till the batteries are too degraded and change to BT ANC headphones afterwards.
Re: AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try Bose soundsports. They’re $200 as well but battery life is great and they tend to really stay in your ear canal.
It's not the battery life per charge, it's the battery life span . Similar to iPhones (which are rated for only 500 charge cycles because gotta pad those profit margins... so good luck using one battery for even 2 years), AirPods experience battery degradation to a point where they last < 1 hour and just shut down randomly because they can't provide enough charge to the buds. In just 2-3 years.
> which are rated for only 500 charge cycles
Citation needed?
Re: AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is a lifestyle brand now, the technology aspect of their products is irrelevant to many of their customers.
AirPods are so convenient compared to wired earbuds for me, I’d say they’re in my top 3 electronics purchases of last year. They’re not simply a “lifestyle brand” as you’re dismissing them as.
Apple products are lifestyle-brand, that's why you compared AirPods to wired earbuds despite the fact there were many AirPods-like products from other brands and Chinese no-brands before AirPods - you just didn't care until Apple announce their own version.
Re: AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
#96$200 US for what is effectively last years fad is insanity.
Re: AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
#97The issue is that you have tiny chemical batteries inside and they deteriorate with use and time, so it will hardly hold any charge after 3 years (some report much faster deterioration). Does Apple replace those batteries? How much does it cost? And can it be done outside of US? (e.g. in EU countries with no official Apple Store presence). Otherwise it's pretty expensive to pay $200 for a pair headphones and throw th…
I’ve had mine since they were released and have experienced very little deterioration. I even left them outside and out of their case for A MONTH! During summer I was house sitting, left them outside at my house for a month by complete accident, came back home and found them. Once I charged them up they worked like a charm. During this month it rained a few times too.
Re: AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
#98Ended up buying a wireless charging AirPods case off AliExpress for $15 last year. I feel like I’ve been living the AirPods 2 life for a while now. It is a small but nice luxury to be able to set the headphones on your charger instead of having to plug plugin them in, especially if you use them a lot throughout the day.
I don’t think the, “Hey Siri” is worth the upgrade.
Re: AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
#99The issue is that you have tiny chemical batteries inside and they deteriorate with use and time, so it will hardly hold any charge after 3 years (some report much faster deterioration). Does Apple replace those batteries? How much does it cost? And can it be done outside of US? (e.g. in EU countries with no official Apple Store presence). Otherwise it's pretty expensive to pay $200 for a pair headphones and throw th…
Yeah the price doens’t really scale but if you consider your time worthwhile, then add up the total amount of time it has saved you from having to untwist a jumbled mess of earphones / roll up earphones into some easily tangled roll.
Keeping cables nicely coiled is a solved problem. Humanity has used string and rope for millennia. There's been plenty of time to figure this out.
To this old fart, this sounds like the thousand other cases of "why learn a simple and generally useful skill, when we can use modern technology to avoid this one specific case?"
Learning a basic transferable skill is the scalable solution to this problem. You're not using wireless power cables, wireless rope to tie things to your car, wireless thread in your sewing machine, etc.
Re: AirPods with Wireless Charging Case
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you look at it through the status symbol / fashion statement lens it kind of make sense though. Afaik other companies make similarly priced wireless buds with better sound quality and similar battery life.
I haven't heard of others with connectivity that is even close. The fact that the airpods simply work, even long distances from my charging phone in the office, make them very valuable to me.
I don't think that's the use case of all the You create the use case of needing extra range while charging the phone because audio over bluetooth significantly reduce the battery life in the first place. You shouldn't need to charge at the office even if you called non stop from 9 to 5.
Phone in pocket + wired headphones = unlimited range and > 20 hrs talk time.