Like most of the population, during the pandemic, I would play Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ANCH) for hours and hours. It was an oasis to get away from all the sad news at the time. One of my friends also played ANCH too, so to pass away the time locked inside, we would jump on the phone, talk shit and play ACNH together.
During that time, I was an AirPod loyalist. You could not pry them out of my ears. Once I went wireless, I told myself, I. WAS. NOT. GOING. BACK. The convenience of no wires, putting my phone down and walking away, it was a dream, I was living in the future.
That was until my AirPods kept on dying while I was on the phone with my friend playing ACNH. And before you ask, yes, I fully charged them, and they were new-ish.
My aunty, who I was staying with at the time, would use her wired Apple EarBuds to chat with her friends, which inspired me to give them a whirl during one of the common occurrences where my AirPods ran out of juice.
During one of my ACNH binge sessions with my friend, I jumped on the phone and decided to give the wireless headphones a crack. The moment I plugged the cable into the lightning port and put the earbuds in, dear reader, my life changed.
No longer did I have to race around my house looking for my charger when my AirPods made the dreaded “do, do, do, do”; there was no need for charging; I could put my earbuds in and listen to audio endlessly, or until my iPhone died.
I have been on the wired headphone propaganda train since then, and I’ve been slowly convincing my friends to use them too. (Okay, one friend, but that’s better than none!).
Wired headphones are the best for chatting on the phone, not just for battery life, but for clear, crisp audio.
There were times when I was using AirPods, and the audio would cut out, causing me to constantly repeat myself. With my wired earbuds, I don’t need to worry about the sound cutting out.
I am also a very big voice memo girlie, I would pick voice memos over texting and phone calls every single day, and the wired earbuds are the perfect companion. There is something so satisfying about holding the earbud microphone close to your mouth while you divulge the most insane story to your bestie. If you haven’t done it yet, I highly recommend you do.
Wired headphones also bring some form of nostalgia to me, I was a teenager when the iconic iPod ads were first aired and seeing the bright white headphones flail around while people danced was a source of joy for me (and still is, to be honest).
They’re also affordable. You could pop down to your local JB Hi-Fi right now and buy a pair for $29. For less than $30, you can have the entire world in your ears.
In all honesty, I still use Bluetooth headphones — both AirPods and Bose noise-cancelling headphones — but it’s circumstantial use (planes, working out, trying to block out the loud people in the office, etc.)
So while I’m not a wired headphone purist, I’m still a massive stan.
Sure, it’s annoying that you need to have your phone on you at all times to enjoy the experience of wired earbuds, but most of the time, I do have my phone on me, so it’s not a real burden.
The only issue is that the port you have for your earbuds is the same for the charger, so when you’re listening to music and your iPhone needs a charge, you’ve got to forfeit the wirey goodness to top your phone up.
And it is not only me that loves a wired headphone, I’ve been noticing people in my office, on the bus and working out use these types of headphones. Oh, and Gigi Hadid is a big fan too.
So if you turn your nose up at wired headphones, I implore you to pop in some wired headphones and start the first day of the rest of your life.
Image: iStock