My opinion: Google is selling and pricing hardware based on software capabilities. For a lot of people, myself included, some of these features are amazing. That said, at the end of the day, it's still a $160 version of something that are commonly broken, and have cheaper 'dumb' versions of for a few bucks. This makes me really hesitant to buy.
Ideally, what I'd like to see to make myself, and I'm sure some others, a buyer is a free replacement program. I'm more than willing to support awesome software if I don't have to worry about it's backing hardware breaking so easily, especially something a lot of folks jam in their pockets.
I see Google's recent hardware plays as Google trying to get into the high margin fashion industry, which is currently Apple's exclusive domain. Sony used to be the other tech fashion company. Google will have a hard time dragging along its existing customers, who are not primarily interested in fashion.
Typically for 90 days, which if I'm spending $160 on earbuds had better be a tiny fraction of their lifespan.
Obviously it's better to have 90 days of accidental damage protection than to have none, but my wired earbuds are a couple of years old and would cost maybe $20 to replace with another decent pair.
A lot of people rag on the extended warranties from places like Best Buy, but they are perfect for things like this. I spent roughly $200 on a pair of Bose earbuds almost a decade ago. They are in my pocket everyday and they therefore take a beating. Their general lifespan for me is 12-18 months. Sometimes the buttons start sticking. Sometimes the wire starts to fray. Sometimes one ear randomly dies. Sometimes I forget them in my pocket and they go through the washing machine. Whatever the problem, I take them to Best Buy and get a free replacement and re-up the extended warranty for $20. I am probably on my 6th or 7th pair at this point.
I'm on the other side I guess, but with the same conclusion.
I can tell from the design that I will never wear those ear buds. There is no way to create a decent seal in the ear using just hard plastic, so the sound will suffer for music, and that's the main reason I buy earbuds.
I'm not a snob about music stuff, but for around 100 USD I get a decent pair of earbuds that create a proper seal and gives me good music quality. I'd love the features, but I'm not going to sacrifice the main reason I use in-ear headphones in the first place - the ability to relatively cheaply have good quality sound.
To help you in your future shopping: EarBUDS are hard plastic on-ear. EarPHONES are in-ear :)
One important difference besides the fit, is that earphones are more sound-isolating as well, allowing you to listen at lower volumes and save some of your hearing.
They can be a safety hazard. Pedestrians wearing them don’t pay attention to their surroundings at all. The fact they are in ear means it’s hard to notice when someone is wearing them. I view non isolating as a necessary feature for earphones generally used on the go. I know people swear by them for long train and subway commutes but I think it’s pretty stupid wearing them for walking about, just like wearing headphones while cycling.
Sure. Personally, I have both. Sound-isolating earbuds for uses in cafes, trains, etc. And non-isolating ones for running. Alas, given that Google has removed the headphone jack, that solution works less well here.
I have a pair of Sony's noise cancelling headphones and they seem to only cancel out constant or piercing loud noise like HVAC or a power saw. They let voices through clearly without muffling it like you would expect a regular pair of headphones to do.
I haven't tried them outside, the sound of an approaching car seems like something they would filter out but they might have some smarts to them.
Read the article because I thought google came out with a "light" version of the pixel.
Given how fast phones become outdated, and battery life deteriorate, 200$ is what I want to pay for a phone if I have to replace it every other year...
I lose and break headsets all the time. For me they are consumable. That's way too expensive for consumable.
Then one is stuck with a device that may not be able to receive updates based on carrier. Google have product dedicated to their Fi Network, which is as close to the source as you can get.
I agree there should be a lower end model out. I really enjoy the Nexus line they had. The Nexus 4 was dirt cheap and still works great today. I have a 5x for Fi, but I would much rather use the Nexus 4 if it were capable of using the network.
They really should come back with a smaller form factor at a lower price.
> Given how fast phones become outdated, and battery life deteriorate, 200$ is what I want to pay for a phone if I have to replace it every other year...
Outside of the phones which stop getting security updates, that says more about the success of marketing rather than any real requirement. If you aren't hung up on needing to have the latest hardware, you can buy an iPhone every 4 years and not miss anything other than, perhaps, the need to uninstall something like Facebook's bloated apps.
This is just google trying to be apple, except with shitty products. The $160 airpods actually bring something new and worthwhile to the market. This $160 "wireless" wired earbud brings nothing except inconvenience.
Google's translate in real time, while apple's were a copy-cat of countless other wireless headphones. I'd argue the opposite of your claim. (Apple did make them smaller than usual though, which is new I suppose).
Haha, have you actually tried Google Translate? All the websites I translate come out half wrong or untranslated. I doubt "real time speech translation" works any better, probably much worse. Not to mention you need to be online the whole time, but Google fanboys will buy anything...oh wait, isn't that phrase reserved for Apple users only?
Googles don't translate anything though - all they bring to the party is a button that works with Google's translation software on your phone. Previous HN threads included responses from googles who worked on the feature that confirm this.
Also, which earbuds do you think the AirPods are copy-cats of? The only real wire-free buds out when they were announced were the original Bragi ones which were priced over $100 higher, had lower battery life, and were larger.
Neither product translates anything. They're both heavy on marketing (Apple's proprietary bluetooth chip, Google's on-phone-but-locked-to-one-BT-headset translation capability) and both are incremental improvements on existing tech.
The tit-for-tat here is getting silly. If you have a Pixel, buy Google's if you have an iPhone buy Apple's. If you have neither buy a few pair for $3 and laugh at the fools wearing the $160 ones.
That being said, I've used the Apple ones and actually feel like they're a reasonable value at the price. The ease of pairing them (open the box with an iPhone nearby) will spoil you. They also are findable with the "Find my iPhone" app, based on their last known position which is a critical feature for such an easy to lose item.
Haven't tried the Google ones, but do think real time translation is a "magical" feature that Jobs would have loved -- assuming it's easy to use and works well. I'm the type to work my ass off learning a new language when traveling, so it does make me feel like people are cheating. But that's a feeling that we should all be getting used with tech advancements.
I don't believe so, but that isn't their point. The point being that Google is tying the translation feature into these headphones to upsell them, even though it could be done without headphones at all.
Yeah I used Google Translate that way in Japan earlier this summer, it was life-saving. I do see the point of convenience the earbuds bring to it, though, not having to hand the phone forth and back.
There were several different wireless earbuds before AirPods including Earin, Bragi, HearNotes and many more you've never heard of but they're all inferior to AirPods.
Apple is never the first or second or even third entrant into a new market, but when they do enter they're usually the best by a significant margin.
I haven't owned any other Bluetooth headphones that can charge as fast as the AirPods, sense when they are in your ear and pause your music if you take one out, or are as small and light as the AirPods. What headphones did Apple copy?
I'd be very interested in an objective comparison between AirPods and every other true wireless earbud that existed at the time. I have no doubt the AirPods would win on nearly any measure.
Being better doesn't make them less of a copy. Fast charging was a thing before Apple put it in AirPods. Motorola did the pausing trick long before Apple and I believe Bose or Sony did it too.
Managing to best everyone else at their best feature is what the AirPods do but nothing they do is innovative.
The very definition of the word "innovative" is "featuring new methods, both advanced and original." If Apple has been able to best everyone at their best feature, then, by definition, AirPods are innovative since they do things that nobody else has ever been able to do before, right?
> "featuring new methods, both advanced and original."
When you Google the word "innovative" that's almost the definition that comes up, only slightly different punctuation. Google says "featuring new methods; advanced and original."
In any case it's stating that to be innovative the method must be new, advanced, AND original. If it's not all three, then it's not innovative.
While there's plenty of examples of tech companies constantly copying each other instead of genuinely innovating, I think "smart headphones" are a very Google-y idea even if Apple did it first. Fits right in with the original vision of Glass.
Also, it's an example of a fairly obvious technology just waiting for the tech to make it possible, as depicted several years ago in the movie Her.
I'm not sure if they're really "shitty". I think their phones do offer up some unique features. Updates to Android are really nice and all the special sauce Google adds to the phones are pretty compelling.
I think what is shitty is their retail game. They're not even close to competing with Apple on this one. I've also heard a lot of conflicting stories about their support. That would be my biggest concern buying a phone or product from them. (I do have the nexus 6p but thankfully never had to contact support.)
Do the earbuds actually do any of the translation work? I think they are just bluetooth earbuds with touch control, all the real-time translations are done in google's translation app. Google released this real-time conversation translation to the app back in 2015. I don't see anything special to the hardware itself that could justify the $160 price.
What I really want is a windows desktop version of the google translate app so I can understand all the Chinese PUBG players who are playing on the NA servers(For some reason I can't really wrap my head around the Chinese say their own servers are unplayable do to latency). It's supper frustrating join a 4 play squad game on the NA servers and discover you can't understand any of your teammates in a game where communication is fundamental.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 105 ms ] threadIdeally, what I'd like to see to make myself, and I'm sure some others, a buyer is a free replacement program. I'm more than willing to support awesome software if I don't have to worry about it's backing hardware breaking so easily, especially something a lot of folks jam in their pockets.
I would imagine they have a standard manufacturer's warranty, and if you have a decent credit card, that warranty is usually extended.
Does warranty covers broken hardware? If you step on these buds, is google going to replace them?
Obviously it's better to have 90 days of accidental damage protection than to have none, but my wired earbuds are a couple of years old and would cost maybe $20 to replace with another decent pair.
I can tell from the design that I will never wear those ear buds. There is no way to create a decent seal in the ear using just hard plastic, so the sound will suffer for music, and that's the main reason I buy earbuds.
I'm not a snob about music stuff, but for around 100 USD I get a decent pair of earbuds that create a proper seal and gives me good music quality. I'd love the features, but I'm not going to sacrifice the main reason I use in-ear headphones in the first place - the ability to relatively cheaply have good quality sound.
One important difference besides the fit, is that earphones are more sound-isolating as well, allowing you to listen at lower volumes and save some of your hearing.
[1]https://www.lifewire.com/earphones-vs-earbuds-2640208
When I'm out and about I have to balance sound quality with not getting hit by a bus. For me anything I wear outside needs to let in outside noise.
I haven't tried them outside, the sound of an approaching car seems like something they would filter out but they might have some smarts to them.
Given how fast phones become outdated, and battery life deteriorate, 200$ is what I want to pay for a phone if I have to replace it every other year...
I lose and break headsets all the time. For me they are consumable. That's way too expensive for consumable.
If Moto could put a decent camera in there (go ahead and charge me an extra $50), it very well could be my ideal phone.
AKA no rooting for recent updates.
They really should come back with a smaller form factor at a lower price.
Shame as the Nexus line (especially the 4) was affordable and effective for everyday tasks. I still use the 4 as a media controller and web browser.
Outside of the phones which stop getting security updates, that says more about the success of marketing rather than any real requirement. If you aren't hung up on needing to have the latest hardware, you can buy an iPhone every 4 years and not miss anything other than, perhaps, the need to uninstall something like Facebook's bloated apps.
Also, which earbuds do you think the AirPods are copy-cats of? The only real wire-free buds out when they were announced were the original Bragi ones which were priced over $100 higher, had lower battery life, and were larger.
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15404918
The tit-for-tat here is getting silly. If you have a Pixel, buy Google's if you have an iPhone buy Apple's. If you have neither buy a few pair for $3 and laugh at the fools wearing the $160 ones.
That being said, I've used the Apple ones and actually feel like they're a reasonable value at the price. The ease of pairing them (open the box with an iPhone nearby) will spoil you. They also are findable with the "Find my iPhone" app, based on their last known position which is a critical feature for such an easy to lose item.
Haven't tried the Google ones, but do think real time translation is a "magical" feature that Jobs would have loved -- assuming it's easy to use and works well. I'm the type to work my ass off learning a new language when traveling, so it does make me feel like people are cheating. But that's a feeling that we should all be getting used with tech advancements.
Apple is never the first or second or even third entrant into a new market, but when they do enter they're usually the best by a significant margin.
Managing to best everyone else at their best feature is what the AirPods do but nothing they do is innovative.
When you Google the word "innovative" that's almost the definition that comes up, only slightly different punctuation. Google says "featuring new methods; advanced and original."
In any case it's stating that to be innovative the method must be new, advanced, AND original. If it's not all three, then it's not innovative.
Also, it's an example of a fairly obvious technology just waiting for the tech to make it possible, as depicted several years ago in the movie Her.
I think what is shitty is their retail game. They're not even close to competing with Apple on this one. I've also heard a lot of conflicting stories about their support. That would be my biggest concern buying a phone or product from them. (I do have the nexus 6p but thankfully never had to contact support.)