Engadget Tells Buyers to Skip the Base AirPods 5 and Pay $20 More
Engadget urges shoppers to skip the base AirPods 5 and pay $20 more for the $149 wireless-charging model, saying the cheaper set lacks enough features to justify its price.
Apple introduced the AirPods 5 at its iPhone event the previous day, a launch Engadget said it had not anticipated. The outlet noted that Bloomberg committed to an AirPods 5 prediction only on the morning of the show, and that the resulting updates to the base-level lineup were minor.
The model Apple calls the AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case sells for $149, down from $179 for the comparable AirPods 4. It adds swipe gestures on the stems for volume control, Live Translation and the same IP57 water resistance as the rest of the new line, and Apple claims 50 percent better active noise cancellation. The "regular" AirPods 5 costs $20 less, at $129, and also carries ANC, Live Translation and IP57 protection.
That gap, Engadget argues, is the problem. The base model's price is close enough to the $149 set that the decision should not be a difficult one, and the extra features are ones buyers will want the first time they try to raise or lower volume by swiping on a stem that does not respond. The $149 version also offers an additional hour of battery life, can be placed on a MagSafe or Apple Watch charger instead of a USB-C cable, and includes a speaker in the case to help locate it through Find My. Engadget described the name of that model as unwieldy.
The outlet added that buyers who do not want active noise cancellation at all no longer have an option in Apple's current storefront, because the AirPods 4 have been removed from the website.
Engadget said the entry point should instead be a $99 AirPods 5, a $50 spread that matched the gap between the two AirPods 4 variants. It argued that Apple would field a more coherent trio with a non-ANC AirPods 4 at $99, an ANC model it could simply call the AirPods 5 at $149, and the AirPods Pro 3 at $249 — three sufficiently different products at three sufficiently different prices. That structure, the outlet wrote, would also set up the camera-equipped AirPods Pro that have been rumored for early next year.