Why AirPods Pro is something that I’ll never buy!
Keeping all the AirPods Pro jokes aside, yes maybe it’s one of the best sounding wireless earphones on the market, maybe it’s a premium device intended for the “Pro” (Elite) consumers but I’m not getting one until Apple acknowledges and resolves the current biggest issue with wireless earphones. What’s that? Let me give you a context:
AirPods 1
I have been lucky enough to get my hands on the AirPods when it launched and trust me it’s addictive. The wireless freedom it gives is so spectacular that when Apple said it’s magical you just have to believe that. It’s a truly innovate product that still can’t be fully copied by competitors. That’s what Apple is known for: Making things for the future.
After 8–9 months of use, one of the Airpod (left) kept on running out of juice. That’s bound to happen since you don’t always use both of them together when on a call. So gradually one of them (depending on which one you use the most) started giving up in less than 2 hours of use. As someone who spent ₹12900 ($182.2) for the AirPods, I decided to get them replaced at an Apple Authorised service centre. To my surprise, they don’t take the AirPods as a whole. They just took in the left Airpod and got it replaced for me (took 7 days). So now I have a brand new left Airpod and a used right one which was now not retaining the same charge as the new one. After 20 mins of use, the left one would be at 96% and the right one at 72%. So gradually the right one just lasted about 2 hours and by the time I went to replace that my warranty was well over.
So my question is, did I spend that much money to use an earphone for just a year? I mean how ever wealthy you’re, does this work for you? You can be Bill Gates or someone from a middle class family but value for money is the same concept for everyone.
As far as I have read, the AirPods Pro doesn’t have a breakthrough in battery technology.
From iFixit:
Most intriguing is the discovery of a watch-style battery inside each earbud. iFixit notes that it’s a similar battery to what it found in Samsung’s Galaxy Buds which could be replaced. However, the same is not true of the AirPods Pro, whose battery is tethered by a soldered cable.
Why Apple. Why does it need to be soldered? If it was not, I would have considered an upgrade happily.
I know people who are tech enthusiasts will not care about such a minor issue that may or may not happen that too in the future but where I come from, value for money is much more important than functionality.
As always, thanks for reading. See you guys in the next article.
