We have multiple giveaways running!

Phone 14 Pro & Ugreen Nexode 140W chargers Giveaway!

WOWCube® Entertainment System!

reMarkable 2 next generation electronic paper tablet giveaway!

Hohem Go AI-powered Tracking Smartphone Holder Giveaway!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Why is it normal nowadays that things are getting more expensive with age. That’s such bulshit.

[deleted]

Bruh, these are generic earbuds. At 100 bucks they're overpriced and at 150 are just a bad buy.

It's corporate greed. 100%. There has been no increase in the cost of obtaining raw materials, other than the demand from stockholders to increase profits. The concept of constant growth needs to be called out for the unsustainable scam that it is.

I remember when I bought BOSE headphones for $150. Earbuds? Fat chance

While I don’t disagree that corporate greed and corruption plays a part, claiming raw material cost have not increased is factually incorrect. I work in procurement/supply chain. You would be shocked at how much various raw material has increased in price over the last few years. Some of it is the rarity of certain metals and other Covid related issues. Others I’m sure is other companies gouging us.

Technically l, if inflation is 20% and corporations report 20% earnings growth, they’re on break even by buying power despite record profits.

Overpriced at that range , nowhere near as good as competition

There has been an absolutely massive increase in the cost of obtaining raw materials. Also, containers cost 4-5x as much as they cost 2 years ago.

Wasn't even worth 50

The goal of the corporation is always to maximize profits. The notion that randomly in the past few years corporations got more “greedy” is hilarious. It’s just a politician talking point to deflect away from the economical context they set up

I own them, I think they are amazing for the price.

r/confidentlyincorrect

Yup! I work in manufacturing of servers and NAS systems and there has been significant delays on many different parts due to worldwide shortages. It’s been going on for 2 years and will continue until at least mid 2023.

You are actually incorrect. Container costs have been dropping rapidly on most routes. Many are on late 2020 levels.

Source

At 150$ ? I don't think so

Lololololololol

Good luck. Imma stick with a company that’s going to still exist in a few years.

I'm pretty sure the reviews were pretty good, I don't think they were overpriced at $99, considering you get Bluetooth 5.2, decent ANC, wireless charging, and average sound quality. $150 does make it a stretch

I own these and I hate them. Would never recommend them for $99 let alone $149.

Hahahaha instead of these overpriced Bluetooth crap, buy a wired earphones for a fraction of the price and enjoy! I heard moondrop chu, cca cra+, 7hz salnotes etc are cheap and sound good.

Or something cheap enough that I won't care. I've found pretty decent earbuds in the $25 range, and I don't care if I drop the case in to the water while kayaking (done it), lose them somewhere (done it), etc.

And they're out on the market for almost 2 years now...

They're decent, but nothing out of this world. $99 was a price that was on the limit.

[removed]

Eh, how many $99 buds are available on the market with those features today?

Audio technology has a different pace from other technology, it being two years old in this case doesn't really negatively impact it.

I agree $150 is too much, but I disagree with saying they're generic earbuds that aren't worth $99, since imo that's false.

You can compare that to the earfun air/free Pro 2 which have the same features and are $56 on their site right now with free global shipping. Plus earfun is known for having really good ANC so it's not like they suck.

To be fair to the wireless ANC earbud vs the headphone. Making it small is expensive even if it doesn’t sound as good.

Personally used to be a pretty hardcore only over ear headphone guy…. Then I got glasses.

That's a sale price, if we're talking about sale prices the AKG N400NC for $50 was still the best deal in Bluetooth audio.

At the Earfun's regular price they're around $89-99. I haven't listened to either so I can't talk to differences in audio, ANC, or build quality. I do know a lot of reviews for nothing praised the build quality at $99.

I see inflation and increase of costs of components/materials commonly mentioned as causes for increased prices.

Most companies don't base price on what it costs. They base price on what the market will bear. If it costs them $80 to make headphones that sell for $100, and manufacturing costs went up, so it now costs them $90 to make headphones, they will still sell at $100, because that price was presumably optimized for demand and their marginal costs. They just make less money. If they increase price to $110, then they will sell fewer headphones, which could decrease revenue.

If price went up purely due to inflation, then the price would have gone up comparable to inflation, and people probably wouldn't care that much.

They are increasing the price because they have discovered that they will make more revenue at $150 than $100. So if they sell 150 headphones at $100, and 120 headphones at $150, they will make more money at $150. They may also find it's cheaper to make fewer headphones.

Nothing to comment

Inflation is not a cause of price increases. It is just the symptom of price increases.

That's because I did not know they existed, even though I was on the market recently. They hit the only headline they could make.

Could you recommend a few?

Airpods 2nd gen is around 110-120 much better value

They're on sale very often though. It's a sale tactic where they put it at a higher msrp so they can claim to have very deep discounts and entice you to buy them on a "limited time" offer.

So yea sure on paper the price difference is $50 but in practical reality from a consumers perspective the earfuns will end up being around less than half of the new nothing price.

[deleted]

Fuck dongles though which you’re stuck having to use with almost any phone these days. I’ve bought cheap ones in a pack and neither lasted more than two days, not to mention the awful sound quality. And the “good” ones barely last more than six months if you’re lucky. If headphone jacks weren’t a thing of the past I’d tend to agree with you.

What are these "good ones" you are referring to? Apple usb c dongle is considered great for most use cases

So they plan on absolutely nobody buying these except the segment of buyers who will pay more for flashy but underperforming hardware, just like their phone. There are so many earbuds significantly better than these for the same price or cheaper. Just like how there are better performing phones at their phone's price point.

AirPods Pro first gen is still a great pickup, you can probably find them for ~$150

When governments manufacture money out of thin air, inflation is inevitable. That money has to come from somewhere.

If you were paying attention, during 2020-2021 governments said inflation wasn't going to be an issue.

In 2022, we were told that this wasn't inflation, it was just a temporary issue. Then we were told it definitely wasn't inflation, it was just issues with the supply chain. While still maintaining that this is all temporary and prices will come back down.

Now, finally, they respond by hiking interest three times in a row, as priced continue to rise.

nothing to see here. blame the wealthy and the corporations!

This is your governments fault. Wherever you are. The only solution is putting politicians on poles.

Greed does that pretty well

BOM cost on this thing is probably close to $35 bucks. It’s 1) a price increase for the sake of increasing price or 2) they don’t have supply so are raising the price because they can.

I work for one of the largest import brand in the US. We still have freight surcharges on all goods because of how expensive containers are for us. Your source literally shows how expensive costs got. The person I was responding to said there had been no cogs increases.

That’s why I bought cheap “AirPods” from an off brand site. Not as good as real ones but they work just fine and if I lose them I’m out $25 instead of $100 or now $200

So, they looked around and saw how everybody else was increasing profits and decided to follow along?

I can get pretty good sounding wireless earbuds for $20 on Amazon. They are just jacking up the price out of greed.

I hear ya on the over the ear headphones. Those were the best. I’m in the same boat with ya

Ah. What a way to invalidate all the reviews these ear buds had for cost/value. I wonder if that had anything to do with this approach instead of retiring them and releasing a v2.

Sneakflation.

Also 50% increase? What utter bullshit. I hope they suffer the full force of price elasticity.

no anc

I have gone through three apple ones in the last year. They work great until they don’t. But they have been the best, along with the google brand one I had with my pixel 3 before that. I will admit that I have a very fast paced job and it is more wear and tear than a normal person would probably put on one. But when I had a jack on my phone I never went through earbuds as quickly as I have gone through dongles and I always bought relatively cheap earbuds.

Tbh sound wise I bet they are worse than Anker buds that are like $30 (which are better than Samsung Buds + which are one of best in the $100 category from the reviews I've seen). Then there's ANC, wireless chargin and interesting-but-nothing-special design which add some subjective value, but for me it's absolutely not worth the difference in price. As long as they are not super fragile, build quality doesn't matter tbh - all of them have a 2/3 year expiration date.

So, you're saying that Nothing is out of this world?

Nothing raised the price!

Nothing makes sense.

>Tbh sound wise I bet they are worse than Anker buds that are like $30 (which are better than Samsung Buds + which are one of best in the $100 category from the reviews I've seen).

I can't really comment on this from personal experience, but I'd be pretty surprised if Anker buds sound better than Samsung buds+. I've not had good experience with Anker music items in the past, and the Samsung Buds+ are universally acclaimed. (Audio preferences can be subjective though).

>but for me it's absolutely not worth the difference in price.

That seems pretty subjective. IIRC, Anker's cheapest noise cancelling buds MSRP at $100, so I still don't see the Nothing earbuds as being overpriced at $100.

Nothing to see here.

Nothing is crap

Wow you got me there lool

Wired sounds better.

[removed]

All a matter of what you want and how much you care for sure. I mean the justification given for this increase is that its essentially R&D costs having to do with firmware and product improvements. Company went from 3 to 185 engineers supposedly.

Hardware hasn't changed but firmware with audio can be a difference. Of course.... if I'm honest most people probably don't notice the difference, or at least don't find it worth the extra.

Said as someone who will never buy both of these and admittedly is mostly bought into apple ecosystem, which is a whole other debate of worth.

Regardless, if anything goes wrong with these earbuds I bet you the level of support you will recieve is Nothing

true if you want anc at $100 ive seen the samsung buds drop that low and they are pretty solid. Personally i would say save up for the sonys or airpod pros if you want a nice anc set though, ive tried a ton of different models and those stand out (sonys are better for both audio and anc, but airpods are more comfortable)

How to kill your business 101…

They were on sale for £40 in the uk in clothing retailers

echo bud 2 go for $60 on sale at amazon. Mine are doing good a year later

Is this an ad?

What's wrong with them

Absolutely subjective, but I did enjoy then better after a brief listen. Also tbh overall experience of using Buds+ is quite bad, controls are a nightmare.

With the value, it's all down to how much does one value the extra features I guess. It's less about audio and more about convenience, that's why airpods are so popular. (altho apparently the Pros sound great)

Nothing hikes the price like when Nothing hikes the price!!

Biggest issue is fitment. Movements that jostle the earbud even slightly will trigger the sensor making the earbud think I've removed it and cause audio playback to stop. This is most apparent when I wear them while doing any kind of physical activity. The touch inputs are also inconsistent. Sometimes there's a lag when I tap to play/pause, causing me to tap a second time because I'm unsure if my first input worked. Other times, something as light as my hair brushing the earbud will trigger it and stop audio playback.

Own a pair, listen to them everyday. Wanted to buy earbuds for 100$ - wasn’t disappointed with them. The design, battery, noise cancelling and sound - all is good for me :) But for 149$? Nah

These any good?

That all sounds like my experience with the OnePlus buds too

Unless they fix their connection issues, they are useless and worth Nothing(!) (Frustrated ex-user)

What a terribly written article. Title is enough, article is verbatim the tweet which they included. Riveting stuff.

Devialet gemini

I have recently bought JBL Live pro 2. I would totally recommend them. Really good noise cancelation, also good battery until now, good sound quality. (I'm not an expert in earbuds, but these are the best I've had until now)

Not earbuds, but as an owner of Sony 1000xm4s, their support is absolutely trash. Maybe a Microsoft-level generic "have you tried resetting them? That didn't work? Kbye."

Ordered these and found the ANC mode had annoying clicking noise in one ear, was the same on two models. I don't know much about earphones with ANC but found it very annoying and ordered the Oneplus buds pro instead and prefer those for sure.

As an average consumer who only has AirPod pros: This means nothing to me.

High price bad, low price good, unless apple or google gtfo with that expensive stuff.

[removed]

Airpods Pro costs more?

I'm not here to tell Nothing how to run their business, if they lose sales that's on them, I don't really care. Maybe for their customer base, the Nothing name brand is strong enough to justify the premium.

I'm just talking from the perspective of a consumer who has seen the reviews and has a basic idea of the specs, I disagree with people who think at $99 this was a bad deal

I know they cost more but my point is that I’m buying from companies that are well established in the realm of production and innovation. So you typically get what you pay for.

‘Nothing’ is well known for their unique design aesthetic but not much more, and unfortunately for your average consumer aesthetic is not always enough to rationalize a high price tag.

Warranties, name recognition, and public opinion are more important, and Nothing doesn’t compete in that realm as compared to Apple or Google, so they get to charge higher prices.

>I know they cost more but my point is that I’m buying from companies that are well established in the realm of production and innovation. So you typically get what you pay for.

Sure, I'm just not sure how that's relevant to discussing if Nothing earbuds are worth $99. Apple doesn't sell $99 earbuds, the Pixel Buds A don't compete with Nothing's feature set.

Okay in that case then maybe It’s just an opinion of mine. Not really sure how to move this dialogue forward anymore.

/r/AirReps, get those sweet Jenny 4.9 TBs. Best $57 I’ve ever spent.

Sounds exactly like a $30 pair of Tozo earbuds on Amazon ($25 without wireless charging).

1. The Tozo don't have ANC

2. Lol. The Tozo is not going to sound as good as the Nothing buds.

They do on the $60 version. Great value (sound quality for the price) but unlikely to be a chart topper. The ones without ANC are still really quiet though.

Greedflation … a trend nowadays

FIIL T2 Pro.

80$ with decent ANC and great fit, sound and battery life.

I've had the T1 Pro for over a year now and got it specifically for jogging (No mainstream earbuds fit my weird ears even anything between 100-400$ falls within minutes) and I've been been enjoying them so much I use them for everything, sounds as good as my wired 150$ Sennheiser.

I didn't personally try the T2 but everything I see about it says it's basically T1 but better in every way.