Apple AirPods first impression hands-on

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(image credit to Techcrunch)

By now, you probably have seen a lot of jokes about the Apple AirPods on the internet. The AirPods is Apple's latest wireless earphones that can play 5 hours of music playback, also comes with a charging case that holds 24 hours of charge. Many media members at the Apple event have tried them on first hand, so let's see what do they have to say about the product.

First up, according to TechCrunch, if you thought you have to manually play and pause the songs on your phone, you don't need to. It was reported that the AirPods will automatically pause the song if the user takes them out of their ears, and will resume when they put them back in.

"It’s an interesting aesthetic choice, one that bucks the recent trend of fully wireless Bluetooth headphones, which are largely circular. These maintain the EarPods’ long tail, which actually goes a ways toward helping them fit better in the ear. As far as how well they’ll actually stay in there if you, say, go for a jog, it’s hard to say, though the buds could certainly benefit for some sort of anchoring system akin to what you get on sportsbuds from companies like JayBird."

Speaking of whether if the AirPods will stay in your ear or not, USA Today digital editor, Natalie Diblasio proved otherwise on her Twitter video testing how well do they stay in place after jumping and shaking around. After 9 seconds, the AirPods were still in place. But one wonders if they can stay put after a long jog with sweats touching the ears.

CNET dubbed the new earphones as "game-changers", but whether or not Apple really delivered a "rich, high quality AAC audio" in the earphones is another story, as the showroom filled with loud music which made it difficult for many journalists to judge the headphones' sound quality. They also thought of what if the AirPods do not fit everyone as not all have the same average ear size.

"If they're as easy to pair with your phone and have as rock-solid a connection as Apple is saying they have, they're going to be game-changers. The fact is, once you go totally wireless, it's hard to go back to wires, and with Apple's backing behind this new type of headphone -- and a $159 price tag that's not too outrageous -- you may soon be looking at a lot people wearing the same white earbuds but with no wires between them."

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The iPhone 7 and AirPods in the charging case

In addition, Wired were quite impressed of the wireless earphones, particularly in the hassle-free set-up process, they also AirPods were "much lighter" than other Bluetooth headphones, and they "nestled comfortably" in the ear.

"I hope that AirPods don’t scare everyone else off from trying to make Bluetooth headphones. I don’t think they will, because they don’t sound good enough. And these aren’t the ones that will ship in the box with your iPhone 7; you get the standard EarPods when you buy an iPhone, which connect over Lightning now. (There’s also an adapter.) But hopefully Apple has set the bar for how easy it should be to connect Bluetooth headphones, and how responsive they should be. If someone can copy that, and make something that looks and sounds better, we might not miss the headphone jack at all."

Aside from the media mentioned above, other media outlets have said similar things about the AirPods. If you're interested to read more opinions, check out The Verge, Telegraph, Engadget & Macworld's thoughts about it. Stay tuned for more news at Technave.com!

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