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Comment by baz00 | Hacker News Reader

I'd be interested in some fake airpods if they lasted twice as long and sounded 80% as good. Literally I get perhaps a year out of a set of genuine bought at Apple Store airpods before the case gives up or one airpod goes muffled or craps out. After a year Apple don't want to know or care unless you have AppleCare.

Decided I wasn't going to fish out for a fourth set, so I bought some Sony ones for £20 with a wire between them. Seem to work ok and for that money, meh!

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It sounds like what you have found out is that not all Apple hardware is worth the hype.

Personally, I have the beats fit pro. While still owned by apple and benefiting from the same chip integrations, these have held up just fine for me for a few years now of daily use.

Yes I could write several pages of diatribe about my shitty Apple experiences recently.

Wired earbuds are back (Acording to some… and I’ve seen a few more lately out and about). I’m still using full over the ear headphones I bought 15 years ago. I had to get new pads but other than that they still sound great.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-airpods-out-why-cool-kids-a...

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/wired-earbuds-are-so...

I do use wired ones when I'm at the PC. I have some Sennheiser HD25's my ex wife bought me over 20 years ago.

Great longevity as they tend to be for club / dj environments but I find they have way too much pressure on the ear to be comfortable as regular headphones for use at a computer.

They do a "lite" version known as the "SP" ones which doesn't clamp your head. I've got those

Those articles from 2 years ago.

And in that time I can't think of a single manufacturer who has brought back 3.5mm headphone jacks.

Meanwhile Qualcomm recently announced WiFi-Audio which brings lossless audio.

A quick search shows that the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G and the Sony Xperia 1 V both have headphone jacks. They've got expandable storage too! If I had to get a cell phone today, the Sony one is probably what I'd be looking at.

The Galaxy "A" series is their budget line, and so the A14 didn't bring back headphones; the A line never lost them to begin with. Because wireless headphones are a signal of wealth, headphone jacks are often still present on budget phones.

Sony's models are too inconsistent for me to figure out what it's the successor to, so I can't say whether it's a good example of bringing back headphone jacks.

The Sony phone at least is certainly not a "budget" model, it's their latest flagship and they want $1,400 for it (too much really).

Wireless headphones might be a feature that "signals" wealth, but we should be careful not to confuse that with quality or value. Features like headphone jacks and expandable storage get removed because they save/make money for the manufacturer, not because they offer better value to consumers.

Many people like not having to deal with wires, but bluetooth (in addition to being used extensively to track you and reducing your security) is inferior in several ways when it comes to headphones (audio quality, latency, pairing issues, stuttering, disconnects, battery life, expense) but thanks in large part to the power of marketing, people can be made to feel good about being forced to pay more while getting less.

I had to replace phone last January and I went with the Xperia 1 III. It is without a doubt a smartphone. Does everything all the other smartphone do plus has the headphone jack (that I more or less use daily) and has expandable storage (or additional SIM card, my choice). I'm comfortable in recommending the Xperia 1 V based on my experience with the III.

The Sharp Aquos phones also have headphone jacks and are a little cheaper than the Sonys. I haven't owned either, however, so I can't vouch for them.

Not to worry, they're still churning out such articles.

https://sports.yahoo.com/wired-headphones-are-making-a-comeb...

People buying stuff based on their partial temperature (“Earbuds are so hot..”) disgust me sincerely from the bottom of my heart. Usually the same crowd preaching all day about saving the planet from things like e-waste…

And acojean, was not directed at you but at the editor and readers of the site.

Sorry as I re-read it and realized it could be mistaken….

You can get high quality fake AirPods that sound just as good. They pair with Apple products like the real thing and the batteries are solid. The problem they usually have is with the microphone. That's usually the case with a lot of this stuff. I've had super cheap (i.e $10) wireless off-brand headphones that sound even better than AirPods but the microphone is almost always poop.

AirPods or AirPods pro? My current set of AirPods Pro have long outlasted my original set of AirPods in terms of battery longevity. Both very heavily used.

It seems the switch from pouch cell (in regular AirPods) to button (in Pro) made a huge difference.

I killed two sets of plain Airpods. The Pros I bought crapped out after 14 months of ownership.

They do get used heavily but no excuse at that price.

FWIW I have a pair of pros that crapped out around the same time, 14ish months and the mics weren't working - apple replaced them free (but not the charger) and they've gone another year or so now without issue. Obviously YMMV.

My Pros are over 2 years old with an hour minimum per day use, usually a few hours. Still working flawlessly.

I'm on my second pair of Sony LinkBuds, and these are starting to go also.

The warranty covered the second pair because they lasted less than a year. I'm not sure if it'll cover the third pair, but I'll probably buy another if not, because I really like the hear-through design, and no one else makes anything like it.

Wow that's crazy, what are you doing with them? I have my second pair (upgraded to pro) and I had them under water so many times. I even jumped into a pool once and did a few laps before noticing I have them in my pocket (without the case). They fall down every 2 days. Both going strong for 2 years or more.

They seem to be offering replacement batteries for £49. That's either the Airpods or the charging case of all models.

That's obviously more that wired earbuds but I'm OK with that to have noise cancelling headphones I can always keep in little pocket of my jeans wherever I go.

Maybe I don't use mine as hard, but I've had 3 pair and never a single failure.

What you can always do is upgrade when the new versions come out and sell your old ones before they die. They have a good resale value.

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