I agree. I own both the B&O E8 2.0 and AirPods. The AirPods are better all round because of convenience, mic quality, battery life, range and sound quality is only slightly worse. AirPods are very easy to use and that is their main advantage...I never use my E8 2.0 ever now. For flights I use my B&O H9 Noise cancelling (they E8 are not noise cancelling), for everyday I use AirPods.

Graham1982 wrote:

My daughter wanted some Airpods for Christmas/birthday and I was reluctant due to the price tag and the way they look i.e. horrible in my opinion.

The new AirPod Pro's look ok? Besides what looks "good" to a grown adult and a kid on the street, in front of their mates, is a very different level of "good".

If you're thinking the E8's are some kind of AirPod-beater, please don't, They are decent, but a) would she really want wired earbuds in 2020 and b) do you want to spend that kind of cash to use at school? There are plenty of entry-level buds out there. 

Dear moxxey (and everybody else, in case I have made a mistake with the model number):

I mean these:

Hi everyone:

In which case let me restate the intention behind my message. Lots of my assertions might be based on half truths or things that I have come to think over the years, not, as someone pointed out above, what a 12 year old would think.

Okay I repair/act as an agent for the repair of phones iphones as a sideline and I have a Mac Pro cheese grater. Thus I am not a Mac hater but I do feel that some of their stuff is style over substance and that they aren't always great.

I am not in the income bracket to afford b & o brand new and to be honest, even if I was I don't think I would purchase b & o brand new because as much as I love it, I couldn't justify the expense.

Now, I am fully aware of the ridiculing and things that can go on at school both being a teacher and a student that grew up in Essex before it was famous for The Only Way is Essex. One example I can remember as a kid was that when Kickers were fashionable, my parents unknowingly brought me some imitations that looked exactly the same but were called "Kopies" and this was the name written on the green and red tags, oh how my classmates laughed and I did not.

Thus, as much as I would like my daughter to rise above such behavior, I remember being on the receiving end of it and not liking it thus I would not buy her a Airpod clone as that could encourage that kind of situation.

My main reason for floating the idea of a B & O alternative is that by getting her a pair of these, it clearly would not be a cheapo option, cheaper yes but not cheapo and B & O do have some kudos. I really wanted to consider these if the sound quality was better, I don't want my daughter blindly getting into the cult of Mac (as she is in danger of doing now, she has an Iphone 6S I gave her as her first phone (as a consequence of my repair work) yet this year she was already harping on about can I get the latest model because (spurious reasons).

For example, I have a Pioneer plasma that I took out of someone's house when they moved from 2001 (so old it has a separate processing unit) and a Beovision 5. I don't have and will not buy a new TV from Argos or Tesco or whatever, whether it is 4k or not, if and when either of these break I will buy another B & O, not because it is B & O but because the quality is better.

Therefore I would rather my daughter was educated a bit about purchase options rather than blindly go the route of kids that brought those Beats by Dr Dre or Skullcandy things from a few years back that were awful.

Cheers

Graham

AirPods are surprisingly good. They work well for what they do. I would not consider them style over substance. I guess there are cheaper options but they are not better. My 2 cents worth.