[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

P.S. You are missing out on all the quality of life improvement that comes with using them with an iPhone

Call me old fashioned, but I have an aversion to homelessness and starvation.

Thanks for the info on the warranty replacement. Will check.

[Rocketscience]

Most of the portable electronics i own are from Apple (Phone, tablet, laptop, airpods) but i think what i have will be amongst the last, sure they are brilliant but no longer leaps and bounds ahead of competition as they once were, they are matched and outclassed in many areas when it comes to their most popular product the iPhone, sure they are still ahead in some areas but is an iPhone 12 pro Max which costs around 300% higher than an equivalent OnePlus actually 300% better? Hell no.

Coming to these new Airpods, apart from being grossly overpriced what gets my nerves is the shelf life of only 2 years with no user replaceable battery!

All the airpods have been like that and from the looks of it, this seems to be built the same way too, lets say one gets the courage and actually overpays for these, they will have an expensive paperweight in 2 years which is just ridiculous.

It is like getting a Mercedes with pre filled fuel and once the fuel tank gets empty you have to throw away the entire car which by the way is all perfectly fine and can last for maybe a decade more.

Sure, this is a problem with many bluetooth headphones/earphones, but an insane one nonetheless.

[fhdowntheline]

Originally Posted by GTO

Grossly overpriced!

Having recently joined the Apple club, I realise I'm also now a part of the rip-off club. The pricing of everything is insane - including the extended warranty, accessories etc. The full size keyboard costs a whopping 15 grand in the space grey colour!! But then, I guess in some ways Apple is the 'Mercedes' of the electronics world? Regardless, they are pushing it a bit too much. Case in point = shipping iPhones without chargers.

Tell me that. I also joined the Apple club with the MacBook and then iPhone 8+ and then 11 Pro. My wife has continued the Windows/Android-verse. Effectively the priced difference between her laptop+phone and my laptop+phone is 1,60000 Rs (at the time of purchase). And I get disapproving looks from my parents on mentioning Apple.
But on the other hand, the stability and smoothness as a user experience is really great, especially on the Mac.In fact, now I feel encumbered sometimes while using my office laptop (Windows).

[car-dent]

I am in fact gladly surprised to know that they include the cover for free. I was expecting the cover to be a separate accessory. Just like the stand with the monitor. Apple has been really generous this time.

[Cessna182]

Originally Posted by Rocketscience

Sure, this is a problem with many bluetooth headphones/earphones, but an insane one nonetheless.

See if you can get a QC 25 somewhere. I have two of them for this reason only. The batteries of the bluetooth headphones die after a few years and this planned obsolescence leads to a huge amount of e waste and not to mention the waste of money. The QC25 sounds way better than any Beats or the older airpods.

[Rocketscience]

Originally Posted by Cessna182

See if you can get a QC 25 somewhere. I have two of them for this reason only. The batteries of the bluetooth headphones die after a few years and this planned obsolescence leads to a huge amount of e waste and not to mention the waste of money. The QC25 sounds way better than any Beats or the older airpods.

Almost anything sounds better than my airpods, i used to use them for around 2 hours a day and after 2.5 years they only last 20 minutes and randomly turn off too, so it is clear they are on their last legs and i will have to throw them away soon.

These regular (non pro) airpods sound not more than 10% better than wired earphones apple used to provide centuries ago, so they are outclassed by even basic wired earphones which cost no more than 1000 bucks.

I personally purchased One Plus bullets wireless for ₹2.5k when my airpods's battery started acting up and even if they too stop functioning after 2 years and are non repairable, i can throw them away and that pill will be a lot easier to swallow than airpods which costed me ₹12.5k.
They sound much better than airpods too, today there are even more affordable and better options in the market, i never encountered any pairing issues or connection drops in reasonable range with these either, things will only get better for those from this.

In these difficult times, i even bought my sister realme's airpods clones, which is a stark contrast from the kind of money i used to blow off on such things, today when earning is super difficult, these things pinch a hell lot more.
Also for what its worth, these clones work almost just as well, no real connection issues too and don't sound much worse to my trained ears, build quality is totally at par and costed me ₹2k and my sister is happy with them.

[Sebring]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the battery on QC35 and the Sony XM3/4 can be replaced, right? It's a replaceable part. Love the QC25 BTW

Originally Posted by Cessna182

See if you can get a QC 25 somewhere. I have two of them for this reason only. The batteries of the bluetooth headphones die after a few years and this planned obsolescence leads to a huge amount of e waste and not to mention the waste of money. The QC25 sounds way better than any Beats or the older airpods.

[viXit]

Every other place I've seen an argument about apple products, nobody knew half of what they were talking about and were going PURELY by what their friends told them or their favourite YouTube reviewer told them. or maybe going by the 30 seconds of hands on they had with them uninterestingly.

I speak only with experience and not the opinions of YouTube and other reviewers

Are they outrageously priced? Maybe not.
Are they the best sounding headphones ever? maybe not.
Will Apple users.... ((I refer to those that are invested in the ecosystem fully. Like Bhpian Extreme_torque)) find the pricing not outrageous enough to think about it a second time?? Definitely yes. Going by the reputation that apple has built with respect to the ease of use and Quality of life upgrades for the iPhone and Mac users. A big YES.

I will not exaggerate. But when you use a MacBook pro 16 to take a zoom call, you will feel like you're in the same room as the person. They're that good. They get tremendously loud, and lose ZERO quality on the road to max volume. They sound very life like and surround you. The speakers apple puts in all their phones and devices is amazing. Have you heard the iPad pro speakers guys? If I bet a hundred bucks that they are better than the laptop you're using, I'll make more money than I'll lose, by a huge margin. The 13 inch pro is no less. Just not as loud and bass heavy.

Here's something to consider. These are still CONSUMER GRADE products. audiophile products demand more moolah than your kidneys can bring in for you. The true audiophile spends lakhs and lakhs on just amps and pre amps and dacs and sound cards and what not.
I'm pretty sure most of you have heard of the Law of diminishing returns.
The difference between headphones costing 2,000 rupees and 5,000 rupees may be stark. hell, it WILL be stark, but as you go higher up the ladder and cross the 25k mark with over ear headphones, the difference starts to diminish. Some might not find the difference between 20k Over ears and 40K over ears worth the premium. It's all subjective.

Arguing over sound quality is as pointless as it gets. We can all agree that it's definitely very good if not excellent or worth the 60k. Bose vs Sony vs Apple is pointless without actually listening to the Airpods max.
NOBODY HAS.
It's like arguing over engine oils and saying that my car goes faster and feels smoother. It's all placebo.

But the quality of life part, Apple is unbeatable. Period.
A lot of my software engineer friends are disappointed in me because they would assume that a tech geek like me would hate apple and would only use non-apple products. Because things change when you actually experience it and spend good money and time on these things. Most people claim it's not worth their time or money. But when you take a minute, get everything paired up and singing. It's simply amazing!

The seamlessness is grossly underrated. Everyone only notices the flaws in someone. Not the things they do right. And Apple does a lot of things right. The quality of life features, the little things that extreme_torque is talking about, all of us can live without. But most of us will have no going back after experiencing them.

Guys, it all comes down to how much you value the little value additions that the product brings to you. For most of you, sound in a 30k headphone is good enough and not worth any more. but for the other part of the population, it's worth every penny.

O.T " BHPian viper: 60% of what you paid for the airpods is for iPhone specific features, what are you doing without them?

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

.... You are missing out on all the quality of life improvement that comes with using them with an iPhone

[thecarguy]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Airpods Pro --> ttps://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/apple/airpods-pro-truly-wireless

Sony TWS --> https://www.rtings.com/headphones/re...truly-wireless

Bose TWS --> https://www.rtings.com/headphones/re...truly-wireless

And these are just technical tests and do not include quality of life improvements like how easy it is to pair Airpods or that they work on every device which are on same Apple ID automatically or that their transparency mode is the best by far or that they are the smallest in their class with the smallest charging case or that they have the best microphone performance.


Please define better. Do they have better noise cancellation? Do they have better sound? Refer to the link above - objectively measured. They are also much larger in size, case and the earbuds both and have none of the quality of life improvements that I outlined above including rock solid bluetooth connectivity.

.

In the links, you posted above ANC performance and sound quality on the Bose and Airpods is pretty evenly matched. (8.4,7.4 for Bose vs 8.6,7.3 for Airpods). In terms of call quality Airpods are rated 6.5/10 and the Bose 7.5/10.
Airpods sound average even for wireless earbuds especially when you can EQ the bose or sony to a neutral sound.
Saying this as an owner of Airpods Pros and Sony XM4's.

As for the Airpods Max let's wait and see what they have to offer other than build quality alone. On the features and battery life front, it's nothing to write home about, except spatial audio.

[Rocketscience]

Originally Posted by viXit

Every other place I've seen an argument about apple products, nobody knew half of what they were talking about and were going PURELY by what their friends told them or their favourite Youtube reviewer told them. or maybe going by the 30 seconds of hands on they had with them uninterestingly.

I speak only with experience and not the opinions of YouTube and other reviewers
...

Well, what you are saying has some merit sure, but the ground has been shrinking beneath their feet for quite some time now, i'am fully invested in their eco system but their arrogance has reached next level now and the competition is slowly but surely catching up.

See, in 2014 i bought my macbook, it was not only ahead of competition in each and every way, be it the build quality, screen, speakers but even with the same intel processors as competition it was much faster thanks to the super stable OSX, on top of that it was amongst the cheapest ultrabooks out there, so it made a tremendous sense to buy.

In 2011 or something iPhone 4 was generations ahead of competition when it comes to the screen resolution, build quality, design and overall user experience so even if it was 1.5x more expensive than Samsungs it was totally worth it as it was in its own league.

Fast forward to 2019 and my iphone 11, i know its cons and still purchased it because of ios being the more stable and polished OS out there in more ways than one, this phone costed more than OnePlus and Samsungs flagships, had a much inferior display with lower tech (LCD vs OLED), lower QUALITY OF LIFE refresh rate of 60hz, huge bezels and the ugly notch, don't get me wrong, i'am more than happy with my phone, but the Oneplus with its edge to edge screen, no notch, hardly any bezels and higher refresh screen feels meaningfully better, obviously the pro will close the gap with its OLED display but then it costs more than a lakh, keeping this in mind i have recently made a personal rule that i will not spend more than 45k on a new phone considering how great the cheaper phones have become.
Also the speakers are not that great in iphones compared to other flagships and they are all phone speakers at the end of day, i have used and am surrounded by a wide variety of phones and atleast in them the speakers are not superior at all.

New Macbook speakers which i heard in my boss's macbook pro are indeed great, but they are great for a laptop, yes Apple does many things that are somewhat better than the competition and their attention to detail is indeed exemplary but the main problem people like me have with the company is their sheer arrogance which is increasing by the day, their rip off attitude, the magic of Steve Jobs days surely diminishing.

Take for example, my macbook which functions perfect to this date, had its battery swollen, i took it to Apple and they have declared it a vintage product and they don't even sell its battery, they were asking me 15k deposit so that they can arrange a new battery.

Even iphone 6's battery costs 7k, for the price you can get a fully functioning phone with better display than the iphone 11 and also obviously a battery in it.

Well, if one has decent resources and money and can afford to buy these products without even thinking twice then good for them, even with all its caveats they are still great products without a doubt, but value seekers like me, who would otherwise pay some premium for superior products will look elsewhere in the future because today we have options which we did not before, i would buy something at 1/3 cost and then maybe get JBL bluetooth speakers which will still sound better then those built in speakers and call it a day, because for what its worth they will never sound leaps and bounds better than what their size and form factors allow and speakers worth pennies in comparison will always sound better, i anyway have my home theater for more serious listening and no that is not a Bose system or a sound bar with surround speakers.

[lazy]

No offence meant to anyone - the Apple vs non-Apple discussions sound very much like Bose vs non-Bose discussions from 2 decades back.

You got the money AND like to ride the latest apple wave, buy their products.
Else, plenty options out there - all over the Price vs Quality matrix.

Makes for fun reading though

cheers
lazy

[noopster]

I used the white Apple earphones that came stock with my iPhone for a long time and was quite satisfied with them. When the time came to replace them, I bought a Sennheiser pair from Croma that cost just under 1000/- They were superb as well.

My next iPhone had no 3.5 mm jack so used the stock earphones again for a long time. Find these ones the best for calls. For music, I have something called boat Rockerz 255 that I picked up off Amazon for 1699/- I also use an Android back-up phone and my laptop for calls, so picked up something called JBL Tune 205 Pure Bass earphones off Amazon for just 888/- some months ago. I find these wonderful.

My latest iPhone doesn't even come with stock earphones! It's a disgrace really. I have long worn out the stock earphones from my previous phone (and a couple of Amazon Basics replacements, which are not bad at all) So for now I am earphone-free.

Each of my iPhones cost me less than 60K (including the latest for which I exchanged an older one). For the life of me, I cannot imagine why anyone would pay that much for ear phones that ought to by right be given free by the manufacturer. It's quite obvious Apple treats their customers as cash cows.

For those who think I am comparing Apples and oranges, my daughter made me get her a set of Mi pods recently and they cost me less than 2K. Even assuming she loses or breaks them 29 times, that still puts me ahead of the costly fruit.

[vikramvicky1984]

Angoor khatte hain
Actually
Apple khatte hain

VFM will depend on how you measure it- people have 10k shoes,30k suits, 200k watches that they wear only on special occasions. 15 lakh cars used for 30 mins a day or just weekends.
You use the same phone for 5 hours everyday, similarly for earphones/laptop/tablets.
No of years one will live remains constant. Which one is more expensive?

P.S. Valid only if you can afford it

I moved back to android/windows stuff recently after 5+ iPhones, a MacBook Air, an IPod and an iPad. Reason was frugality not value- Apple is irresistible/ FOMO but ignorance is bliss/rich.
This post is typed on a 2015 iPhone 6s inspite of having a 3 month old android.

[nishsingh]

I don't think this is the right product for India (read hot climates). I realize I don't really like having headphones around my ears, unless it is an AC room (and one that has the AC really blasting at full power).

I have the Sony MX3 now, and have tried quite a few others, but all of them cause significant warming of the ears within 10 mins or so.

So while I don't mind paying for these, for climate like ours, I would say in-ear monitors/earphones are the way to go. These can be used for a long period without discomfort.

[JediKnight]

A little off-topic but relevant to the discussion. I used to work for a company supplying some chips that go into the iPhone. In-spite of Apple's premium pricing, Apple pays pittance to its vendors. Apple abuses its power to arm twist vendors into getting them into one sided deals while they rake in the moolah. My ex-company exited that business altogether and laid of some 3800 people worldwide.