Buying Fake Airpods?

Are you considering getting yourself a pair of fake Airpods? In this article I will compare and contrast the new Apple Airpods Pro and the HD Airpods 3.0.

In your lifetime you have probably seen one or many of Apple’s commercials featuring Airpods and wondered whether they were worth the hype. Walking into any gym in the country you will see more than half of the crowd wearing these small white earpieces. The worst experience you can have during the week is showing up to the gym and noticing your forgot to bring your headphones or noticing your wireless in ear headphones are completely dead. You are victim to listening to top 40 pop music personally curated by the gyms staff or hearing the person beside you on a work call. Lets not forget the most annoying a jack-ass grunting excessively on every set. Noise drowning headphones have become a staple for many gym-goers and are considered mandatory for every workout without them you cant help to feel unmotivated. So buying a quality pair of in ear headphones is a necessity. Do you really want to spend over 249.99 for the new Airpods Pro only to have a new design come out the following year. If you can sacrifice authenticity the Spectral Body HD Airpods might be the way to go!

How Good Are The Fakes?

One of the reasons consumers love Airpods comes down to their simplicity. With a flip of a case and putting the Airpods in your ears they instantly pair. One of the functions most important to me is the automatic pause, for example when someone approaches you in the gym and asks if your using weight or something you usually have to interrupt your favorite song to politely answer the person. With Airpods you can just remove one of the earbuds and your song will pause, when you place the earbud back into you ear the song conveniently resumes. This is the most useful function that is absent from most of the copy cat Airpods and since I only wear my Airpods in the gym this small missing feature leads me to contemplate if paying 249.99 for the new Airpods Pro version is steep vs paying 19.99 for HD Airpods that are nearly identical and get the job done.


The Sound Factor

The most common question people ask me after selling headphones for over 2 years is “how is the sound”? Sound is a very important factor to many who want to listen to their favorite jams in the best sound quality. For 19.99 HD Airpods you are not really going to get the same exact sound as real deal Apple Airpods that use the H1 chipset. Most of the copycat brands in the fake Airpod market use inferior chipsets. From experience its really hard to describe what something exactly sounds like, you need to try a pair for yourself to experience them. From trying dozens of variations of fake Airpods over time I find the HD Airpods sound crystal clear but I have noticed a small lack of bass compared to the original Airpods.

Is the bass really necessary? Any frequency sound will damage your hearing. You may notice bass less, as our ears become more sensitive to it. This is also why permanent hearing damage from bass goes relatively unnoticed. When you get hearing damage, loss of bass perception is usually not noticed due to its subtlety, and our ear’s insensitivity to it. In most cases adults can’t hear low bass frequencies well anyway. Save your eardrums and your money, go with a generic pair of Airpods.


Looking at The Features

The HD Airpods 3.0 have almost all the same features as Apple Airpods. They have a built in high definition microphone with CVC noise reduction if you need a make a quick phone call while you are working out. They use the pop up screen technology with Iphone IOS system but do not have the feature when using Android and other devices. They actually work quite with all bluetooth devices so Android and Blackberry users can use Airpods too. The HD airpods have a decent 15 meter range but the Apple Airpod Pro have a longer range of 55 meters which beat the fakes by literally a mile . One bonus feature the HD Airpods have that Apple is missing is the glowing battery indicator on the charging case. It definitely looks cooler and you will always know when your Airpods need charging. There is nothing worse than pulling into to the parking lot in the gym and realizing that you need to sit in your car for the next 20 minutes until they are charged.

Glowing Battery Indicator

This differentiates real Airpods and HD Airpods.  Its much more eye catching than a blinking orange dot on standard on the Apple Airpod charging cases.


Comparing Airpod Battery Life

Apple Airpods have 4.5 hour continuous music playback.
How long are your workouts?
 HD Airpods have 4 hour continuous music playback.

Battery performance is one of the compromises you make when electing to go with the lower cost HD airpods. The battery continuous music time is 4 hours, Music time for Apple Airpods is long with 4.5 hours. Talk time is 3 hours vs 3.5 hours. The recommended time that you should spend in the gym is 45-60 minutes anyway so overlooking this flaw is considerable. Sometimes extra time is spent for pre-stretching or post-stretching but as long as you can remember to charge your HD Airpods at least 2 times per week battery life should not be an issue.

Losing Your Airpods.

Visiting Apple Store

Apple has great warranties but many hate the crowds. Sometimes setting the appointment over the phone and answering dozens of questions only to explain them again in person to the in store “genius” can be very aggravating.

Apple rolled out with “Find my Airpods” feature in their new IOS update. The fear of forever losing a 249.99 pair of Airpods is the unthinkable. Also not to mention how easy it is to lose a single airpod if you do not return them to the charging case afterwards. If you lose one Airpod there are really not to many options provided except for buying a new set at full retail.    Unfortunately the HD Airpods do not have GPS locating capabilities but you can replace them for very cheap. Joanna Stern of the Wall Street journal wrote “How to not lose your Airpods”  tips for solving common problem on how to not lose your Airpods. Apple generates a small fortune in replacement sales, It is estimated that replacement AirPods and their cases will account for 5% to 7% of all AirPod sales this year projecting around $700 million in 2019. The solution to this problem is as simple as buying inexpensive mini bluetooth tracker to attach to the charging case. Just in case someone steals your gym bag or Airpods you will be able to track the dishonest person down or discover if someone returned them to the gyms lost and found.

Pros = Lower replacement costs

Cons = Apple store crowds,  Expensive replacement costs

Using Personal Trackers

an inexpensive method to finding your lost HD airpods.

Newer Colors and Styles

HD Airpods come in an variety of cool matte finished colors

According to Mac rumors they speculate that the new Airpod pros will come in a range of new colors. Gold, Black and Silver and Gray in new matte finishes. Apple has made beats headphones like the Solo 3 in more than a dozen different colors over the years but as far as Airpods go they have only created the same generic white pair year over year. The HD Airpods come in some stunning colors. Pink Airpods are extremely popular in the HD Airpod 3.0 collection. Most people always ask me “Are those the new Airpods?”  or “how did you get them so early?”. They also come in black and pastel green and blue with a cool matte finish and feel to them.

Pros = Stunning Colors you cant get from Apple

Cons = Only 6 colors to chose from for now.

How Can You Tell The Difference Between Airpods Vs. HD Airpods

Buying Airpods from street vendors can be a risky proposition.  Here one day, Gone the next.

Spotting a Fake

You would need to look extremely close.  Visibly its very hard to tell which one is real.

For some of the Airpod clones circulating the market today its extremely hard to tell if your product is fake. Some of the knockoff Airpods are even coming in the original Apple packaging. For a counter measure Apple created a serial number checker on their website. It is common sense to always research and examine the product and quality of the different Airpods. If a shady looking guy you met off craigslist is selling them to you in a dark alley and claiming they are Apple there is limited ways to check and ensure the quality, you should always be weary before you hand over the cash. The HD airpods are a safer play because if you buy them from spectralbody.com there is a friendly return policy and no online retailer is wanting to jeopardize their reputation over such a small item. The price point of 19.99 is not enough to lose sleep over in case everything does not work out for you. When you hold both Airpods in hand you can notice a few slight variations but no one at the gym is going to notice that you are wearing “fake Airpods” when they are very hard to distinguish without actually holding them.

Pros = Buying Airpods online give you a layer of buyer protection

Cons = Buying Airpods face to face from street vendors can ptentially cause issues in case they do not work.

Are Fake Airpods Worth It?

In my opinion you have to really understand the purpose you are buying headphones for. 249.99 for Apple Airpods Pro are really the highest priced earbuds today. Buying a 19.99 pair of earbuds that perform 90% as well for the gym is a no brainer to me. They make the perfect gift for that friend you have still using airplane style earphones. Or possibly they are a good fit for a child who is more than likely to lose them at school. Apple Airpods come with a good warranty but spending an entire day at the Apple store speaking to a “genius” only to find out you still have to pay some costs out of pocket is discouraging. If you can sacrifice the GPS and battery life differences I think the HD Airpods are the best economical solution.

Pros = Affordability, On case battery indicator, Crystal clear sound and many cool colors

Cons = Slight difference in battery life,  Tiny amount of missing bass,  Shorter range and limited warranty.

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Carlo is a rising star in the fitness and health industry. He has collaborated with many athleisure / activewear start-up brands and has a passion for trending fitness-related technology.

Buying Fake Airpods
Buying Fake Airpods
Information about buying fake AirPods for the gym
Spectral Body