For me, phones lacking a headphone jack is an absolute deal-breaker; the result is that I feel that there is a limited selection for new phones. This feature alone makes the 3a a huge upgrade regardless of the other features.
Wow! That's excellent (no mention of aptX HD, though). I wonder how much of the purchase price is going in licensing fees though. AAC requires one, aptX requires one, plus DRM.
The smaller one doesn’t support some codecs but it is really cheap, like 30USD.
I know, I know—of course you have to charge it, no crap, but this is why Bluetooth will never be a replacement for me. It's too much extra complication in my life. I just want a pair of headphones that I can throw into my pocket and will never need to be charged and will work with all my devices without any additional adapters.
This is the best solution so far for those of us with a collection of wired headphones. Can be used while charging, cheap, works really well.
Being able to be used while charging is nice, since then you can at least charge at the same time you charge your phone.
https://en-us.sennheiser.com/wireless-headphones-bluetooth-h...
There's absolutely no reason why wired headphones can't do that, you can buy ones with three-button inline controls. Ye olde Walkman could do it.
So you can have lots of music with you ... and have a smaller device and be able to jump around with it
Apple just launched the more fitness-targeted Powerbeats Pro with a bigger battery, but the charging case to accommodate the "around ear" design is enormous compared to AirPods.
And now reviewers are excusing that saying "Yeah it's a huge case, but the battery life is probably good enough that maybe you could leave the case at home!" As if the battery life three years from now will be anywhere near 9 hours.
EDIT: Two articles posted on 9to5mac by literally the same person a couple of months apart:
https://9to5mac.com/2019/01/28/airpods-battery-life/
> But batteries are consumable, we all know so well now, and that’s proven true for the tiny batteries inside AirPods after two years of daily use. Battery life that once exceeded five hours now struggles to power AirPods through three hours of continuous usage at the same volume. Battery life results can be cut in half if you need to play audio at a louder volume.
> In practice, I used to never hear the low battery alert during usage. I rarely listened to audio with AirPods for five straight hours before charging in the carrying case without thought. More recently, I’ve heard the bloop sound much more regularly, frequently followed by AirPods dying before I’m ready to recharge.
https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/06/beats-powerbeats-pro-hands-on...
> AirPods give you up to 5 hours of power in between charges; Powerbeats Pro almost double that with up to 9 hours of power in between charges. The additional four hours might mean you only need to take the earphones out of the house for the day with the charging case left at home.
Talk about a lack of foresight.
On 9to5mac in 2021: "The batteries in my Powerbeats Pro only last four hours and I have to carry this gigantic charging case everywhere. HOW COULD I HAVE KNOWN???"
How long is that with a brand new battery?
I just charge my headphone where I charge my phone, and never worry about batter life. Even if battery is reduced to 50% capacity it wouldn't affect my usage.
And how long will it be very good? Bluetooth headphones seem to represent a huge change in standards of support.
To use an example from the same company, I have an HD 280 pro, which I bought well over a decade ago. I can go on Sennheiser's website, and buy replacement ear cushions or replacement head band pads. It looks like the replacement cable is no longer easily available, but it was sold for a number of years, and replacing the proprietary cable (criticized in many reviews at the time) with a standard one (or a jack) is not that hard.
For a new example, all parts that might break outside the core of my Etymotic ER4SRs have replacement parts, and all can be very easily replaced.
A search for replacement batteries for the HD 4.40BT, on the other hand, comes up with nothing except the user manual's admonition that battery replacement by anyone other than Sennheiser will void the entire warranty (something that seems likely to be illegal in many places), and noting that instructions are available (outside of warranty) only for "qualified service centers." There are instructions in the manual about replacing the ear pads, but ear pads don't seem to show up on Sennheiser's website, which is rather surprising, considering that a search for the 2000s-era 280s easily comes up with replacements; wider searches come up only with poorly-reviewed cheap third party replacements. There is a replacement cable, but then again, it's just a standard cable. Replacement batteries don't appear to be available anywhere.
So when the battery starts dying, are you expected to throw them away? Use them until you become frustrated enough to buy new ones, and throw the otherwise decent ones away? Hope that Sennheiser will replace the battery for less than the price of new headphones?
Sucks to have to pay $40 just to restore the functionality of the headphone jack, but kept it from being a dealbreaker.
USB is fundamentally broken and insecure. It simply isn't possible to keep a bad actor who plugs in from hijacking your system ports.