AirPods beat headphones for the money?

[Brandonjr36]

i bought a pair of AirPods about 2 weeks ago, haven’t opened them yet. Wondering if I made a mistake buying them. Cause I keep thinking there could be better headphones out there for my iPhone for the same price. $165. Any suggestions? People that have them love them?

 

[aakshey]

For SQ they compete with USD 10 wired earbuds or USD 25-40 wired headphones.

If you only want wireless then they are probably okayish considering the features and experience.

 

[xraydoc]

i bought a pair of AirPods about 2 weeks ago, haven’t opened them yet. Wondering if I made a mistake buying them. Cause I keep thinking there could be better headphones out there for my iPhone for the same price. $165. Any suggestions? People that have them love them?

Personally I love mine.

Light.
Very compact charging case.
Great range.
Fit my ears well (basically identical to Apple’s wired ear buds).
No cord draped around my neck.
Integrated OS & multi-device support (thanks to W1 chip).
Battery life so far has been great.
Auto switching from one ear bud (like for calls) to two (for music) and back.

Main negative is that sound quality is only just decent - no static or drop outs, but basically same as the included wired ear buds. And the absence of remote music controls, other than play/pause and asking Siri to turn volume up/down, etc.

 

[44267547]

i bought a pair of AirPods about 2 weeks ago, haven’t opened them yet. Wondering if I made a mistake buying them. Cause I keep thinking there could be better headphones out there for my iPhone for the same price. $165. Any suggestions? People that have them love them?

The Airpods are amazing. They don't have the "Best" sound quality, but the simplicity of pairing and convenience of features is nice. They are very comfortable and I even forget I am wearing mine sometimes. The battery life is another strong point, which 15 minutes of charging is equivalent to three hours of usage. I will say they have impressive loudness as well for noisier environments. Siri works for what's it's worth, but can problematic if there is also ambient noise. Also, they charge fairly quickly as well.

In my opinion, try them.

 

[coolerkid]

i bought a pair of AirPods about 2 weeks ago, haven’t opened them yet. Wondering if I made a mistake buying them. Cause I keep thinking there could be better headphones out there for my iPhone for the same price. $165. Any suggestions? People that have them love them?

Go ahead and try them, Apple is very good about returns. I got some as a gift today. They are comfortable, lightweight, easy to put in, and have great pairing, but they sound awful. They're not loud enough and sound like super cheap earbuds. I have other complaints, but the sound quality alone is a deal breaker. I prefer my Jaybird X3, or my Beats-X, they blow these away in sound quality. Yeah they have a wire, but the wire is useful. It puts the play and volume buttons within reach, and lets you hang them on your neck when not in use. Wish Apple focused more on sound quality with these. I'll be returning them for sure.

 

[fischersd]

As stated above, you really can't beat the convenience of the AirPods...especially when you're using them with multiple Apple devices.
Sound quality, I think the Jaybird's are the best bluetooth I've tried. I have the Powerbeats that I use for the gym as the AirPods don't stand up to sweat well (had the powerbeats a few years now).
Love the ease of charging the AirPods and popping them in quickly for conference calls. They're ok for listening to music, but I also have a very good home stereo system....so tend to play my music through that at home.

You have your return period to play with them....give them a whirl....return them if you don't think they're worth the money.

 

[ericwn]

They care convenient and since every iPhone already comes with a wired version you get an idea of the sound you can expect. Open, unfocused and mediocre at best, but then again as is well documented that’s only half of the story.

 

[ducatiti]

I bought one two weeks and finally opened them two days ago. I was actually surprised with the sound quality. Mids and highs are very clear, and bass is acceptable for me. Very clear with no static. I have a wired noise cancelling bose and compared to these to the AirPods. For my taste, I like the clarity on the AirPods more as the Bose sounded washed out for me. Could be the age of the Bose but it sounded distorted compare to the AirPods. I also have the first gen Beats Studio. The beats headphones had static right out of the box. And this is coming from a guy who has never tried the wired pods.

Well worth the money paid IMO. Seamless when switching to the MBP as well. It connects to all your devices associated with the same iCloud account.

 

[RedlegsFan]

I ended up taking mine back. If money was no object, I would have kept them. But I am going to use that money on something else. The fit wasn't bad really, for my ears. I didn't have any problems with the sound. Calls sounded perfectly fine on them. I actually liked them, but just not at that price point. I am going to wait it out for the next version, with the hopes they change them so they fit and sound better, making it easier to justify the current price point.

 

[hubieonekanubie]

I really enjoy mine. Use them every day. Best headset yet for phone calls that I’ve had. Easily goes from device to device and sound quality is great IMHO. Battery life is very good as well. My only complaint is that my ears had to adapt and there were some sore ears at first.

 

[cyclingplatypus]

I use mine daily both for calls and music. It is a convenience. The sound is decent but it is never going to compare to a nice set of headphones.

 

[JackieInCo]

I enjoy using mine. I've had them about three weeks now and I can't imagine using anything to listen to music at home or while out walking. Sure there are better sounding headphones but these are find for me. I am constantly hearing things in the songs through my AirPods I've listened to hundreds of times in the car that I never really heard while in the car.

 

[AustinIllini]

I'm going to compare them to the Sony WF-1000x and see how I feel. They don't stay well in my ears, but we shall see.

Sony's WH-1000xM2 is already significantly better than anything from Apple or Beats, so I'm looking forward to trying the WF's

 

[Ralfi]

Personally I love mine.

Light.
Very compact charging case.
Great range.
Fit my ears well (basically identical to Apple’s wired ear buds).
No cord draped around my neck.
Integrated OS & multi-device support (thanks to W1 chip).
Battery life so far has been great.
Auto switching from one ear bud (like for calls) to two (for music) and back.

Main negative is that sound quality is only just decent - no static or drop outs, but basically same as the included wired ear buds. And the absence of remote music controls, other than play/pause and asking Siri to turn volume up/down, etc.

Agree with most of this, but whenever I see someone say the sound quality is the same as the Earpods, I have to chime in & disagree. It was immediately evident that the sound quality was more detailed including a deeper base when compared to the Earpods.

Just an fyi to the OP.