Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “AirPods for Android?!”.
Hey what is up guys mkbhd here – and i just want to give a shout out to uh my former self, so i was at that apple event a bunch of months ago, when they were announcing the new iphone and all that stuff and they also dropped air Pods that they would be making these wireless earbuds for iphones and then they announced the price, and i tweeted this clearly i was not a believer, but today, in january 2017, airpods may be the most popular wireless headphones on planet earth and, if they’re not yet they’re. Certainly well on their way. To being those, i see these everywhere. I see these out in new york city.
I see them at airports. I see them at ces, i’m just so used to seeing these in people’s ears. There’S thousands of reviews and they’re great reviews.
People are going out and getting these on purpose as gifts for themselves, they’re out of stock for the holidays, they’re, definitely doing really well. So, in a way, this falls right in line with the whole, getting rid of the headphone jack thing as much as it sucks at first. You have to do it eventually, if you want to get wireless technology to improve really quickly, so right around the time that apple’s getting rid of the headphone jack, they also come out with what they feel is the best possible wireless headphones, and that puts pressure on Everyone else who wants to be competitive now, marquez, wait are you? Are you changing your tone on this, like you were hating on these, but now suddenly these are the best possible wireless headphones.
Yes, i reviewed them. I used them. You can watch that video.
These are the best possible wireless earbuds. Obviously, if you like, over-ear headphones, those are a different category, but nothing comes close to airpods. As a recap: here’s what makes them so good. Three things number one the case. It’S super simple! You just open it! Take the headphones out, put them back in it charges them while they’re in here, and you can charge the case. It’S small.
It’S really good number. Two. The w1 chip inside pairing this with an iphone, takes literally two seconds thanks to that chip. As soon as you open the case, it’s working, and as soon as you pair it, you can start listening, but not only that, once you pair it to your iphone, for example, it automatically is available to pair with any other apple device you have signed in thanks To icloud and that chip, so that is legit and three is just ease of use the whole experience you want to listen to music.
You open the case put the airpods in and you’re listening to music. It’S already started playing. If you’re done, you take them out of your ears, it stopped playing you put them back in the case, you close it, it’s disconnected it’s off.
It’S charging again, it’s ready to go the next time. You need it simple. The battery life is solid. The sound is good enough for most people, i mean, if you’re doing, phone calls and just casually listening to music. That’S all people really want and for most people they stay in your ears, pretty well when walking around or during a commute or normal activity. I know some people that even work out in these – it’s definitely not for everyone, but it’s still true for most. So the question is what, if you’re on android like, what’s the best wireless earbuds for android, what’s what’s going to match the entire airpods for iphone experience? If you use an android phone well after testing a bunch, as you saw in the intro – and i got to be honest – my findings were not predictable or easy, but i came to the conclusion that none of them do everything as well as air pods.
They all do different things better than others, but uh it’s sort of a mixed bag here is what you would think most likely would be that equivalent pixel buds made by google for android, so they’re the same price as their pods and they’re bluetooth, and they have Instant pairing, if you have a pixel, but otherwise it’s normal bluetooth, pairing with any android phone as soon as you take it out the case, the sound is pretty good as far as audio quality. Nothing exactly mind-blowing here for the price. The battery life is about the same and you can see they’re not truly wireless earbuds, so they do have this wire between them and they actually stain your ears through that pretty clever wire method. I know they aren’t technically wireless headphones because of that, but you can push the wire right up through the earbud to create this little modular custom, sized wing tip to fit your ear and it works pretty. Well also, the wire carries power between the earbuds. So, like don’t ever cut this wire and then your ability to control everything is right around on par with airpods, so you can move forward or backwards between songs.
But if you want to change the volume you have to ask google assistant, which you do by holding down on the side earbud on the right, it responds to you pretty quickly and it’s natural enough that i don’t find it that weird. It also reads your notifications, as they come in so like a calendar event, as it happens, it’ll just read it to you or a text message and a double tap on the touchpad will just read off everything you have waiting for you there’s also. The live. Translation feature which i haven’t gotten to work yet, but has gotten some pretty interesting demos, i’ll link, linus’s video below it’s a beta.
It’S a work in progress at best, but at the end of the day, pixel buds, they’re, decent, but they’re, just not quite airpods. The fact that it’s not truly wireless isn’t a big deal for me, but that is a difference, but just to hold taking them out and putting them back in the case is a bit more of a chore. Thanks to that wire as great as this case is you know it’s pretty it’s soft. It’S the only one. I’Ve tried with usbc, but i wish it was a little more robust and a little more elegant to use than just to look at, and the pixel buzz themselves are a little less comfortable in my ears, just because of the main inside of your ear part being Hard plastic, usually with earbuds. You know you get that flexible plastic or foam air pods are sort of a hit or miss, and so are pixel buds, they’re not flexible. They don’t try to be super in-ear, but they just kind of hang on there. I might sound like i’m being picky, but i really am just trying to find something that does everything for android as well as airpods do for iphone. So we tested a bunch of the other top options here that work for android. We tested the bose soundsport freeze. We got the new jaybird run. We also did the jaybird x3. We got the braggadash headphones, the jabra elite, sport, the errado apollo 7, the evo one and the airpods, which actually also do work on android technically turns out. The best comparison to what i got from airpods on iphone was what i got from jaybird run on android. So i’ve talked about jaybird stuff in the past and this is obviously their newest completely wireless earbud set, and it comes really close in a lot of areas and does some things better than airpods. So, as far as the big three, the case, the instant pairing and the ease of use, the case itself is a little bigger. It’S more thick like bulbous, still pocketable, if you want, but you could also just toss it in a bag, not a huge deal and the headphones come in and out of it pretty quickly. Just got ta line up the pins and drop it on the magnets and it starts charging not quite the same level as airpods, but you get the idea.
Pairing is your normal android pairing the first time and then every time you take them out the case after that. You just open it up and it connects so again, almost as good and then ease of use is great. You just listen to it like normal or you can hop in the jaybird my sound app and mess with audio profiles and change the way they sound. That’S something they’ve done recently.
The seal in your ear with the flexible custom tip is great, so they sound better than air pods for sure and they fit in your ear better than air, pods or pixel buds, especially for workouts. If you move around a lot, these are going to sound great. It is still micro usb on the back. I wish it was usb-c. I’Ve said that about other things, but pretty much everything else about these. As far as user experience goes, this is the air pods for android.
As far as what i’ve tried, but, of course, for those curious about all the other stuff, we tried here’s a quick breakdown of the rest, so bose soundsport free 250 bucks. They are a complete package with good battery life, sweat resistance, microphones, nice build, but they’re big. The case is big, the earbuds are big and they have this. This whole left right pairing priority, so the right bud is the master and the left one follows in a way that gives a solid delay between your audio and the stuff on your screen, so not so great for watching movies. The erato apollo 7 250 bucks.
Again, these are a weird design and they sometimes fall out of your ears, even with different sized tips they’re just kind of strange and when they do stay in they look the most like earplugs, not a whole lot of crazy or extra features here, just straight up Ear plugs in a case no media controls not that great the braggy dash 160 bucks. Another big case and the earbuds themselves are a lot more exposed to pins lots of combinations of taps and holds on the side, touch pads for media controls and just about everything you could possibly want to do with these. So there’s a learning curve to them.
But there’s also four gigs of internal storage, so that’s cool the evo one or yevo one 250 bucks sleek case, even if it is micro usb the buds are not sweat resistant. So that’s to note – and it’s really easy to accidentally press the media controls on the side when you’re trying to push them in your ears, because it’s just a touch pad, so that was a bit frustrating. They also sound like hot garbage. Like truly impressive, are you sure it’s not broken terrible audio uh, jobber elite sport, 220 bucks, best battery life of the bunch i’d say, and you can see why they’re pretty chunky, uh stealthy, all matte black, sweat resistant? They connect pretty easy, and the raised indicators on the buds are nice, but there’s two on each bud, so you kind of feel like you’re shoving them in your ears when you try to adjust them tons of options for fit with the wing tips, though plus it Has a heart rate monitor and then jaybird x3 115 bucks. These again are also not wireless, obviously, but just to note they still are really convenient. They sound great customizable, fit with the wingtips and earbuds again they stay on your ears super well and there’s a clip to keep the flat wire behind your head with minimal slack, so it doesn’t get caught in long hair.
Also, this is the only one with media controls on the cable, not on the bud and then air pods 160 bucks. So, yes, you can use air pods for android, you might not want to, but it’s decent. They pair, like normal bluetooth, earbuds and their sound, is middle of the road. Obviously, and you lose a couple of the extra features like tapping for siri and the play pause when you go in and out of your ears, but otherwise pretty standard.
So all that being said, here’s how i would rank these as far as experience for android from best to worst number one is jaybird run number two is jaybird x3 number, three pixel buds, then braggy dash. Then i’d throw air pods in there then jobber elite sport, bose, soundsport, erado, apollo 7, hoping your favorite song plays on the radio evo one. So alright, what have we learned from all of this number one that airpods are actually really good? I’M almost curious. What a second gen air pods would look like, maybe a shorter stem, but that could be pretty interesting number two, that pixel buds are pretty good wireless earbuds for android, but not quite as good as air pods are for iphone, although that almost doesn’t matter to anyone, Because most people don’t have both iphones and android phones and number three that jaybird run turns out to be pretty much the best possible experience for wireless earbuds for android. Hopefully that covers everything i think the ranking tells all.
So that’s pretty much it. Thank you for watching, and let me know what you think of this general format, i’m playing around with the idea of having trying to get together everything from one category to surface. What really is the best.
Maybe there will be a name for it, but let me know what you think and also i’ll try to link everything. I talked about in the description below again, thanks for watching talk to you next one peace, .