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Imagine earbuds that not only don't have to be plugged into your smartphone, computer or other device but don't have any wires connecting them to each other either. Sort of like the Apple AirPods, but not with the premium Apple price tag and designed to be platform neutral so they work great with Android or iPhones. That's the Micro from Rowkin. Coupled with the charging case, they're surprisingly good and easy to work with.
Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ gives the Rowkin Micro a whirl and quite likes what he finds. In fact, with standard eartips, they fit better and sound better than the Apple AirPods too. However, the design isn't without some inherent limitations, as discussed...
Check them out: http://amzn.to/2hKhDmE
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tiny wireless earbuds but are they any
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good let's find out Dave Taylor here and
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I want to talk about wireless earbuds
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now when I say that you immediately
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think ah Apple earpods but there are
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other players in that market including
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the wrapkin micro that's this so let's
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start with a small unboxing it's in a
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box comes out and it's in very nice
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piece of packaging here and then the
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packaging actually has a bit of a magnet
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which took me a little while to figure
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out and you open it up there's some very
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minimal instructions on this side here
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is the actual charging unit and I
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actually already have the earpods in
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here but we'll come back to that in a
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second and then on the bottom and you
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can see I kind of ripped it because I
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opened it the wrong way is a little
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container that contains a microUSB
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charging cable and a set of ear tips to
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make sure you get the right fit as with
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all of these sort of products it is
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super important to try different ear top
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ear tips to make sure you get the ones
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that are exactly the right size for your
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ears now let's talk about these these
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are the routing micro and I open it up
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and the little ear pods earbuds whatever
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you want to call them they're right here
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and they're small and all I have to do
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to use them is put them in my ears and
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then push the button on the outside of
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each one and it will tell me that I have
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left ear and right ear and then it will
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tell me that it's paired with my device
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if you've never paired it it just goes
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straight into pairing mode super easy
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and then when you're ready to play all
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you have to do is actually play some
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music and they sound pretty darn good
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actually
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particularly if you put in the extra
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effort to make sure you're using the
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right ear tip they actually have a
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pretty nice sound to them so let me pull
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these out okay so I want to talk about
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them doesn't do you much good to watch
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me listen
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to them right so the design is clearly
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clearly inspired by this these are the
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Apple earpods and they come there are
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little tiny guys they fit in their holes
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and basically this base unit is a
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charger so on the Apple earpods you have
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these that have teeny tiny batteries in
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them and then every time you put them
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back in their little carrier / base
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they're charging so pretty neat design
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clearly rockin went the same route and
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said that's a really cool idea we could
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do the same thing so they took these
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little tiny wireless earbuds and they
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put them in a unit that is really pretty
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much the same size it's slightly
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different dimensions but it's awfully
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small so what's in here a battery and it
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works out really nicely because the
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battery actually when you put these in
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and you just put them in nose-down
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there's no special order to put them in
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and as soon as I close this up you can
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see maybe there's two little tiny red
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lights here so they're starting to
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charge already and this base unit can
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charge them fully four times and on a
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full charge the earbuds will give you
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three hours of listen or talk and you
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know you really just completely run out
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of power then 15 minutes in this will
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give you an hour of listen time or talk
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time so very nice and that means that
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the combination of the two gives you
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about 12 hours of active use now if
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you're like most people you're probably
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not gonna listen for 12 hours without
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some breaks you're not gonna be on a
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phone call without at least a bio break
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seriously turn off the phone before you
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use the bathroom
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super weird separate conversation so
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with these this could be easily a full
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day of you actually listening and if you
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have longer hair like I do you can put
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the earbud in and then no one would even
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know it's there so you can pretend that
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you're paying attention to people when
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secretly it's I don't know it's like a
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spy movie right okay we have control
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check I don't know not sure that's
4:24
exactly what they'd say but you know
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really neat
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and I really there's a lot to like about
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these now there's a couple things worth
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knowing but before we get there let me
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also tell you that these run Bluetooth
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4.1 and they cover all the different
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fancy Bluetooth audio protocols
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starting with a2dp and including SPP AVR
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CPH SP and hfp don't ask me to define
4:50
what they all are I don't know but if
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you have an audio gear that works with
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Bluetooth and has the ability to do more
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expanded audio quality than these are
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gonna be able to handle it which is
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really nice they also have and I have no
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idea where they have a built-in
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microphone so you can use it for phone
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calls not super great but pretty nice
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and the nice thing is is you can also
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use just one so if you're not used to
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having stereo phone calls you can just
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put one in and then you're ready to roll
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now let's have a quick close-up of this
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because the design actually is more
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sophisticated than it looks there's a
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teeny tiny LED and the little bar on the
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base of it is actually a button so there
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are all these different sequences that
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you can learn how to use for example if
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you get a phone call one press answers
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the call when you're on a call one press
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actually hangs you up if you don't want
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someone to call you I think you can
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double tap or you can just ignore it now
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you want to talk to Siri or you want to
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talk to Google assistant because these
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are super friendly with both Android and
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iOS all you have to do is double tap so
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I can double tap and I can say Siri
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what's the weather outside or give me
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directions or the texts mom or something
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like that when you're in music mode one
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tap plays and other tap pauses and
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there's a little bit of redundancy
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because both of these are exactly the
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same design so you can tap either ear
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depending on if your left or right eared
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or left or right handed I guess I think
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if you're right-handed your left ear is
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dominant not sure about that but be that
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as it may however you want it to work if
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you are used to just using the left ear
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for calls you can just put it in your
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left ear and hey mom how are you doing
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yeah
6:35
that's good oh no I'm paying total
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attention to what you're saying just
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kidding I would never ever do such thing
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now
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so all sorts of really cool things they
6:48
are sweat and water-resistant so you
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know anything that goes in your ear
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anything that goes on or near your body
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probably should have some level of sweat
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resistance I don't know that I'd swim in
6:59
these I'm pretty sure that will
7:00
invalidate the warranty and I'm pretty
7:02
sure that route can would just sit in
7:04
there right now going oh god don't tell
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him to swim in these they're not
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designed for that but if you go for a
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jog and you get a little sweaty okay and
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these they'll stay in I've tried them up
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worn them for a period of time when I've
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been walking around and stuff and they
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do a pretty good job of staying in your
7:19
ears now one of the very few things I
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don't like about these is there's no
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indication on the earbuds themselves
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which ones left and which ones right
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when you power them up it actually says
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left ear right ear so of course roughly
7:35
50% of the time I do that and I say oops
7:38
and a half which ears it's a little
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tedious there's really no reason they
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couldn't have figured out some way to
7:43
denote which is which but the other
7:46
thing that's interesting is that the
7:49
earbud itself actually route and cells
7:52
in a variety of different setups so this
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is the micro which ultimately really
7:58
refers to the charging base because they
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also have something called the bit and
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the mini that have the same little tiny
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Bluetooth earbuds and those just have
8:07
different bases for charging and stuff
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so depending on what you're looking for
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you might want to compare them and so
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what we haven't talked about is we
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haven't talked about the audio quality
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and I have to say I was very favorably
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impressed when I put these in you know
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it's the same with like the air pods as
8:25
you look at these and you're like okay
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these are tiny honestly how much audio
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fidelity are you gonna get out of
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something this small and the answer is
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they're actually pretty darn good and
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these are quite comparable they have a
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lot of the same problems but they have a
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lot of the same richness to and what I
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mean by a problem is that in terms of
8:46
audio fidelity they do a real
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good job on the highs and on the
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mid-range and there actually is bass and
8:53
it actually sounds pretty good but it's
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like upper base lower mid-range that
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area it just feels like there's just
8:59
something missing so there's not much
9:01
presence with these earbuds and if
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you're someone who's looking for a
9:05
really good audio fidelity then
9:07
seriously these are the wrong kind of
9:09
product any product that's just a tiny
9:11
little earbud that goes in your ear and
9:13
has to have all the circuitry for
9:15
Bluetooth and has to have a battery and
9:17
everything there's just not gonna be
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enough circuitry for you to get really
9:20
great audio fidelity now the earbuds I
9:23
have that sound fantastic are the ones
9:26
where they're not doing all those other
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things so you know you sort of have your
9:31
trade-offs here so I will say that these
9:33
sound really good get the right to ear
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tip on it and like I said it comes with
9:38
multiple choices get the right ones in
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and you might be pretty surprised they
9:43
sound really quite good you know and
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there's a lot I like about them so
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before I tell you the price let me ask
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you for two favors number one if you
9:53
don't mind go ahead and click on that
9:55
subscribe button
9:56
super appreciate it and number two so we
10:00
can actually get some feedback going on
10:02
here either leave me a comment letting
10:04
me know if you liked this video or just
10:06
simply click on that thumbs up icon
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because it's really helpful for me to
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know if you're appreciating what I'm
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doing obviously now the only thing left
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to talk about with these rockin micro
10:18
Mike and micro earbuds is the price and
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they are a hundred and twenty $9.99 at
10:25
amazon.com and that's a pretty
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reasonable deal and you know by
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comparison these are about a hundred and
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fifty nine bucks from Apple but while
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Apple says they'll work with Android
10:35
this is pretty much like most everything
10:37
Apple makes it's really part of the
10:39
Apple iPhone Macintosh ecosystem these
10:43
are gonna be perfectly happy in both
10:44
worlds and in fact you know I've been
10:46
using them with my iPhone 10 so they
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work really well
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I like the rockin micro I think if you
10:53
want to get a shot and try the wireless
10:56
earbuds these are a really worthy
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competitor so I say check them out
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Dave Taylor and I'll catch you in my
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next video
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[Music]
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