Something to consider regarding battery life. The AirPods seem to be last 2-3 years before the battery is dropping off. However that begins life with a 5 hour listening time, whilst the PBP start with 9 hours. So I imagine you'd get another year or two out of the PBPs given they start with better batteries.
Some of my experiences differ from those here. I'm not saying that people here are wrong obviously, but it's worth mentioning my experiences. Longer review from me:
Pros:
- The most Apple-like 'it just works' experience I've had for a long time. It just connects and works. If I start music on my Watch (stored on the Watch, rather than the phone), these switch over seamlessly.
- NO WIRES. My god it's amazing.
- It's nice to not worry about turning things on and off. You just pull them out the case and are connected before you've even got them on. The proximity sensors for taking them off the ear and the music stopping are perfect too.
- Bass is good, but not overpowering like previous Beats.
- Battery life does appear to be what is advertised. I did an hour run just this morning and lost 9%. At this rate I'd get over 10 hours.
- Battery in the case does appear to be what is advertised. I will get in excess of the 24 hours at current rates.
- Depending on what headphones you're coming from, you may not find the case too large. I don't own Airpods (they don't fit me well, and are useless for running). The case for this is really not that big for a normal case, and if you're doing sports then it goes in a gym bag and it's fine. I also don't have problems with the slippy-ness of the case that others reported. Feels less slippy than an uncased iPhone X.
- Case charges with lightning. I like this - it's what my phone charges with.
- Build quality is excellent. No odd noises or ticks or cracks.
- Ability to wear just 1 earphone and it 'just works', rather than complains the second earphone isn't there.
- No issues with fit. They stay very secure and don't move, even when wet from sweat.
- No connection issues at all after a few weeks.
- Earbud sizes work for me. I'm on the second smallest set and it's the most stable.
Cons:
- I had an 'incident' where I didn't put an earphone back in the case properly and contact wasn't made with the charging points, so that earphone didn't charge. So I do have to put them back in the case properly.
- I had one instance where they would not switch to the Watch. My phone was in airplane mode - so to get them to swap from phone to watch, I needed to take it out of airplane mode and then restart because it was stuck in a loop.
- The physical main button on the side took a while to get used to. It doesn't take much force to press. This makes it totally not painful (unlike one set I had before...), but it does take a while to get used to how to do it properly.
- In a funny way I was disappointed at how good they were. I like getting tech and playing about with it. With these I just opened the case and they worked and that was that. Nothing to satisfy my tech side with, lol.
I concur with you totally.
Actually, I just need to take out my BeoPlay and use it for a while then I will know how good the Powerbeats are.
The BeoPlay H8 2.0 has the following problems:
- Disconnects occasionally and random static sound - this is crazy and a dealbreaker.
- Terrible, terrible (I can't emphasise more) voice quality in calls. A torture for both sides.
- It does not auto connect - a long press on the right for 2+ secs is needed for it to connect to the phone, each and every time.
- Battery life is only about 4-5 hours. In contrast, I listened to music for 2 hours on my PBP and the battery was just down to 86%. The charging case is basically a tool for me to turn the PBP off.
- Take out one of them from the ear does not auto pause the music, it will continue to play.
- 40 - 50% more expensive than PBP.
- No physical button, instead, different touch controls are scattered to the left and right earbuds, like tap once on the right for play, tap twice for whatever, tap once on left to activate pass through mode, etc etc - the problem is you never know whether the first touch is registered as a touch. When I tried again since I don't find the first touch having any response, it registers as a double tap.
The only good thing of it is the great sound quality, and wireless charging case if you find it useful.
However, all YouTube reviewers conveniently ignored all of these issues. They tested the earbuds in a controlled silent room.
