The AirPods Pro Alternative: A Review of the Earbuds with a Built-in Screen

The earbuds under review are designed to mimic the functionality and design of Apple's AirPods Pro, but with a unique twist - they come equipped with a built-in screen. The stems of the earbuds feel super light, similar to those of the AirPods Pro, which helps balance the weight of the device. However, upon closer inspection, it appears that the stems are largely hollow, with most of the weight concentrated on the top part of the earbud. This design choice makes them less comfortable in your ears when worn for extended periods.

The earbuds come with a charging case that feels like it's made of the same material as Apple's AirPods Pro case. The screen is small but fully functional, and when tapped, it comes to life with various features and settings. The user interface is intuitive, with options such as playback controls, volume adjustment, active noise cancellation, transparency mode, equalizer, timer, light level, language, scene lock, find my earphones, clock, and camera button. The camera button can be used to take photos or activate the flashlight, which turns on the screen.

The screen is small but does not look half bad in real life. Some of these features are actually kind of useful, such as having a remote shutter button that allows you to capture photos with your iPhone or seeing your device's battery life at a glance. The earbuds also come with a find my phone feature that shows up in Bluetooth settings when the device is held down on the back.

The sound quality of the earbuds is subpar, sounding cheap and lacking the high-quality audio that Apple's AirPods Pro offer. However, the addition of a touch screen might be enough to justify the price difference between these earbuds and their premium counterparts. The earbuds also come with a proprietary connector, which may limit their compatibility with certain devices.

The patent filed by Apple recently suggests that they may already be working on developing earbuds with similar features. If so, it would be interesting to see how they implement these features in a real-world product. Some potential ways that Apple could add utility to the screen include adding a find my button that allows you to locate your iPhone and seeing device's battery life at a glance. They could also use the screen to display track progress or album artwork, turning them into miniature iPods. Furthermore, having an external screen would allow users to update firmware remotely, making it easier to install updates and see their progress.

In conclusion, while the earbuds with a built-in screen have some intriguing features, they are not without their drawbacks. The sound quality is subpar, and the design choices may make them less comfortable to wear. However, if Apple can improve upon these issues and add more utility to the screen, it could be an interesting addition to their lineup of earbuds.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthese are a set of knockoff earbuds from China that have copied Apple's design and tacked on a screen of questionable utility let's unbox them together figure out what the screen does and talk about whether Apple should do this themselves just picking these up you can tell immediately it's not a real Apple product I mean the Box itself feels flimsy you can see all these creases in the paper Apple would never let cosmetic issues like that slide even though they're using Apple's design they aren't really meant to pass as a fake there's not a single Apple logo in site which is you know probably smart getting into the box we've got uh what appears to be a basic product manual here at the top all of the controls appear to be the same as the existing airpods Pro okay I love this right here uh it says to learn more just go to support.com guu uh my guess that's not not where the product manual is located okay uh let's toss this aside here are the earbuds they're wrapped in this unslightly plastic real quick do we get any extra accessories in here yes it seems we get a uh kind of rather flimsy feeling USBC to USBC cable oh and we have some ear tips here at the bottom let's check how many we get oh and they just kind of all fall out cool as I said these look just like the second gener generation airpods Pro but with a screen so you can see the built-in speaker there on the bottom of the carrying case and they even have that new lanyard anchor there on the right hand side it is just a bit thicker than the actual airpods Pro uh possibly because you know that built-in screen the earbuds feel super light like apple uses the stems of the airpods pro to house the battery which helps balance the weight these it seems like the stems are largely Hollow and the weight is all on the top this also makes them kind of less comfortable in your ears when just all the weight is located right there on the inside so it seems these are supposed to pair just like the real airpods by opening the case near your iPhone let's go ahead and see if this works hm nothing seems to really be popping up okay so I couldn't get them to actually pop up but it does appear that when it held down the button on the back it did show up here in Bluetooth settings so I actually might be able to get these to pair with my phone heck I guess it's working it's actually laying through the earbuds which I guess they're calling the air plus Ultras sound quality though is is terrible they sound really cheap and I don't think the actual Like A and C is working at all let's check out the main feature though the screen so the screen comes to life when you tap it this kind of looks like it's a moon with a rocket ship encircling it uh you just swipe to the right to go ahead and unlock it so at first blush we see the battery life there we see it right on the top we have have each individual earbud and the case in the middle we have playback controls let's see if I tap on pause button yeah okay it actually paused my music so that's kind of cool if we swipe to the right we have our volume so it's at one and I can adjust this and as I'm adjusting this it is adjusting over on my iPhone next over we have active noise cancellation so off we can turn on a andc and then we have transparency mode when I did switch these it ought be told me in the ear uh in Chinese KN that it was switching to these different modes so there's active noise cancellation transparency mode and off I did not understand it through the language that they spoke but you can see visually here in English what mode your earbuds are on it looks like then we have some sort of equalizer and then next we have a a timer built in for some reason next up we have the light level this is like the brightness of the air plus Ultra case next we have the language of course we're going to leave it in English then we have our scen lock different animations you can use for the lock screen we have find my earphones so left and right earbuds you can find individually it does just play music through them then we have the clock which is set for 24hour time we can apparently like a song and then lastly a camera buttton let's see what this does okay this is kind of cool so if I go ahead and I press on this camera button here it'll actually take a photo here on my iPhone so tap it and yeah I just took a photo so you've got like a remote shutter here on your airpl Ultra case oh and look there's a flashlight too which just turns the screen really bright and tap it to go away honestly the screen does not look half bad in real life and some of these features are actually kind of useful so the question is should Apple make a set of earbuds like this and why are we talking about this in the first place well it turns out Apple may already be working on it Apple filed a patent recently that described a set of earbuds with a touchcreen on the front a whole lot like this I see some ways that Apple could add real utility here and push the screen Beyond just a simple gimmick perhaps they could put a find my button that would allow you to find your iPhone and seeing your devic's battery life at a glance would also be a welcomed addition as with track progress or album artwork almost turning them into the miniest of iPods currently there's no user facing way to update the firmware on airpods putting a touchcreen on them would make it easy to install an update and see its progress finally I think it would be helpful when putting your airpods into lost mode you could visually display a message on the screen and instructions on how to return them to you you may even get them back importantly as Apple adds more tiers of airpods check out my other video on the differences and the buying guide it makes sense for Apple to look for new features to help differentiate the the lines something to make the pros feel more Pro an external screen could do that what about you guys do you think Apple should add a screen to airpods and what would you like to see it do let me know Down Below in the comments and be sure you are subscribed with notifications turned on so you don't miss any more Apple newsthese are a set of knockoff earbuds from China that have copied Apple's design and tacked on a screen of questionable utility let's unbox them together figure out what the screen does and talk about whether Apple should do this themselves just picking these up you can tell immediately it's not a real Apple product I mean the Box itself feels flimsy you can see all these creases in the paper Apple would never let cosmetic issues like that slide even though they're using Apple's design they aren't really meant to pass as a fake there's not a single Apple logo in site which is you know probably smart getting into the box we've got uh what appears to be a basic product manual here at the top all of the controls appear to be the same as the existing airpods Pro okay I love this right here uh it says to learn more just go to support.com guu uh my guess that's not not where the product manual is located okay uh let's toss this aside here are the earbuds they're wrapped in this unslightly plastic real quick do we get any extra accessories in here yes it seems we get a uh kind of rather flimsy feeling USBC to USBC cable oh and we have some ear tips here at the bottom let's check how many we get oh and they just kind of all fall out cool as I said these look just like the second gener generation airpods Pro but with a screen so you can see the built-in speaker there on the bottom of the carrying case and they even have that new lanyard anchor there on the right hand side it is just a bit thicker than the actual airpods Pro uh possibly because you know that built-in screen the earbuds feel super light like apple uses the stems of the airpods pro to house the battery which helps balance the weight these it seems like the stems are largely Hollow and the weight is all on the top this also makes them kind of less comfortable in your ears when just all the weight is located right there on the inside so it seems these are supposed to pair just like the real airpods by opening the case near your iPhone let's go ahead and see if this works hm nothing seems to really be popping up okay so I couldn't get them to actually pop up but it does appear that when it held down the button on the back it did show up here in Bluetooth settings so I actually might be able to get these to pair with my phone heck I guess it's working it's actually laying through the earbuds which I guess they're calling the air plus Ultras sound quality though is is terrible they sound really cheap and I don't think the actual Like A and C is working at all let's check out the main feature though the screen so the screen comes to life when you tap it this kind of looks like it's a moon with a rocket ship encircling it uh you just swipe to the right to go ahead and unlock it so at first blush we see the battery life there we see it right on the top we have have each individual earbud and the case in the middle we have playback controls let's see if I tap on pause button yeah okay it actually paused my music so that's kind of cool if we swipe to the right we have our volume so it's at one and I can adjust this and as I'm adjusting this it is adjusting over on my iPhone next over we have active noise cancellation so off we can turn on a andc and then we have transparency mode when I did switch these it ought be told me in the ear uh in Chinese KN that it was switching to these different modes so there's active noise cancellation transparency mode and off I did not understand it through the language that they spoke but you can see visually here in English what mode your earbuds are on it looks like then we have some sort of equalizer and then next we have a a timer built in for some reason next up we have the light level this is like the brightness of the air plus Ultra case next we have the language of course we're going to leave it in English then we have our scen lock different animations you can use for the lock screen we have find my earphones so left and right earbuds you can find individually it does just play music through them then we have the clock which is set for 24hour time we can apparently like a song and then lastly a camera buttton let's see what this does okay this is kind of cool so if I go ahead and I press on this camera button here it'll actually take a photo here on my iPhone so tap it and yeah I just took a photo so you've got like a remote shutter here on your airpl Ultra case oh and look there's a flashlight too which just turns the screen really bright and tap it to go away honestly the screen does not look half bad in real life and some of these features are actually kind of useful so the question is should Apple make a set of earbuds like this and why are we talking about this in the first place well it turns out Apple may already be working on it Apple filed a patent recently that described a set of earbuds with a touchcreen on the front a whole lot like this I see some ways that Apple could add real utility here and push the screen Beyond just a simple gimmick perhaps they could put a find my button that would allow you to find your iPhone and seeing your devic's battery life at a glance would also be a welcomed addition as with track progress or album artwork almost turning them into the miniest of iPods currently there's no user facing way to update the firmware on airpods putting a touchcreen on them would make it easy to install an update and see its progress finally I think it would be helpful when putting your airpods into lost mode you could visually display a message on the screen and instructions on how to return them to you you may even get them back importantly as Apple adds more tiers of airpods check out my other video on the differences and the buying guide it makes sense for Apple to look for new features to help differentiate the the lines something to make the pros feel more Pro an external screen could do that what about you guys do you think Apple should add a screen to airpods and what would you like to see it do let me know Down Below in the comments and be sure you are subscribed with notifications turned on so you don't miss any more Apple news\n"