I have a $200-250 pair of AirPod Pros, and a $40 pair of Tozo NC7's that I bought for a backup. The Tozo's get way more use, to the point where I regret buying the AirPods.
Your ears may vary, but "dot" style earbuds are WAY more comfortable (and likely to stay put in my ears) than the "stem" style buds. The spatial audio thing turned out to be a pointless novelty that wore off quickly, and isn't even supported on half of my Apple devices.
I also get tired of the weird glitches, where my AirPods will spontaneously decide to drop my connection, and connect to a different device. With other earbuds, it's a mild annoyance having to manually tell one device to drop its connection so another device can connect. But the truth is that I don't have to do this THAT often, and the unwanted switchovers are far more frequent and annoying. Plus, there are a ton of bluetooth earbuds and headphones that accept two or more simultaneous connections, which eliminates the issue and is better than what AirPods try to do, honestly.
I have a pair of fancy Bose over-the-ear headphones. They have the "connect to 2 devices" feature you mentioned. And it inconvenient.
It will connect to my cell phone and computer at the same time. I'll be on a zoom call (computer) and something will make it decide to disconnect and reconnect from my phone - so I'll get a 10 second interruption notifying me of this glitch.
Also, if someone calls me, I haven't figured out how to force it to switch to my cell phone.
That doesn't sound like simultaneous-connection support is inconvenient. It sounds like Bose's buggy implementation of it is inconvenient.
Back when I used to lug around over-the-ear headphones, I mostly used a $50 pair of bluetooth headphones by Taotronics (a no-name, fly-by-night company that doesn't even seem to exist in Amazon's catalog now). And they work flawlessly with two simultaneously connected devices.
Huh. Looks like the company behind my "Taotronics" headphones are the same people who made the "Vava" USB hub that I use with my Mac (and which has been more reliable than Anker's that I've paid twice as much for).
Stupid. They would have done just fine relying on organic reviews, but now they have the death penalty. It's like watching Richard Nixon get Watergated out of office, because he thought he needed an edge to beat George freaking McGovern.
My counter point is that I have my AirPods paired with 4 different (Apple) devices, and I’m constantly amazed that they always seem to be connected to “the right one” every single time. The handoff is seamless and hasn’t made a mistake about guessing which device I want to be driving them in the two years I’ve owned them.
> a $40 pair of Tozo NC7's that I bought for a backup. The Tozo's get way more use, to the point where I regret buying the AirPods
Thanks for the recommendation... I almost lost one of my airpods in 18" of snow last week when snowblowing, and I decided it's not a good idea to wear my airpods when snowblowing anymore.
AirPods are held on ears similar to how a wine glass should be held in hand. There is a opposing pair of protrusions in human ears, between which the stem goes through, and the flexion of that protrusions works against the force exerted by the bulb and hold earphones in place.
I don't understand why Apple went with that as a default; that part of my ears seems to have evolved so as not to catch debris, and EarPods-style earphones just comes off as they should. And it is not that likely I have a million in one ear leaf genetic subtypes.
It does depend on ears, for sure. Most in-ear headphones are painful for me, including the "dot" ones. Stem ones tend to be far more comfortable, with the Apple ones the most comfortable. I've also never had AirPods fall out of my hears even when exercising. They seem to be made for my ears.
Your ears may vary, but "dot" style earbuds are WAY more comfortable (and likely to stay put in my ears) than the "stem" style buds. The spatial audio thing turned out to be a pointless novelty that wore off quickly, and isn't even supported on half of my Apple devices.
I also get tired of the weird glitches, where my AirPods will spontaneously decide to drop my connection, and connect to a different device. With other earbuds, it's a mild annoyance having to manually tell one device to drop its connection so another device can connect. But the truth is that I don't have to do this THAT often, and the unwanted switchovers are far more frequent and annoying. Plus, there are a ton of bluetooth earbuds and headphones that accept two or more simultaneous connections, which eliminates the issue and is better than what AirPods try to do, honestly.