I lost my AirPods and refuse to pay to buy new ones. The latest 3rd generation AirPods — these are great! We reviewed them! — Starting at $169. The older 2nd gen version is $120 (yes, there are occasional sales online). These prices are not ridiculous. After all, they’re a luxury item, and the price is on par with other quality wireless headphones.
However, I don’t want to pay $169 for headphones. I prefer to pay in a much lesser way. For example… $20 or $25? I don’t think I need to explain myself here. I want more money in my pocket. This seems pretty reasonable.
Yes, I’m totally going to settle for quality. Apple AirPods feature spatial audio with Dolby Atmos, superior feature pairing, and long battery life. We don’t expect a $20 set to do it all, but completely decent.
Luckily, Amazon has a dizzying array of inexpensive AirPod-like wireless earbuds. They have weird brand names you’ve never heard of, and prices seem arbitrary (and often Amazon has coupons, making prices even more confusing) . I’ve tested them and tried to find one that fits my needs. Inexpensive, but still usable.
I tested five different anonymous brand white earbuds, or as I like to call them ShitPods.
Here are my criteria for choosing 5 out of many options:
• It had to look like an AirPod. I skipped earbuds of different colors and shapes that might have been okay.
• Prices under $25.
• Lots of reviews and good or high ratings. (Yes, this could be a game, but at least it’s a start.)
• Free shipping and returns with Amazon Prime.
But first, two big disclaimers.
1) I mostly use headphones for listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Music quality is not my main concern. If you are an audiophile or music is your passion then you should probably pay more for better headphones. You must be able to hear well) is important to me.
2) All of these were available on Amazon, but after a month of testing, 2 of the original 5 listings had already disappeared. This is what Jon Harman of New York Magazine recently wrote in his article “Junkification of Amazon” There are strange fake brand names such as “CXK” and “Raviad”.reviews are common deceive or lie, In many cases the seller is not the manufacturer and the price is always in flux. If you read this months after it was published, chances are the product link has moved again.
