You Can Still Get Some Great Holiday Deals on New AirPods
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For most folks, the holiday season is officially over, but that doesn’t mean all the holiday deals are gone. If you didn’t get the AirPods you were hoping for under the tree — or you got a gift card instead — it’s still a great time to pick up Apple’s latest earbuds to help inspire your New Year’s goals.
While there’s every reason to believe new AirPods are coming this year, it could still be a few months before we see any. More importantly, the current second-generation AirPods Pro will be sticking around for a while; they just got refreshed with a new USB-C charging case, and most sources suggest that a third-generation model won’t appear until at least 2025.
This means that you don’t need to hesitate about picking up Apple’s latest and greatest AirPods, especially since Amazon has the AirPods Pro on sale right now for only $190 — and that’s the newest version with the USB-C charging case.
That’s pretty much the lowest we ever see Apple’s premium AirPods sell for and works out to $60 off their regular $250 asking price.
These latest AirPods Pro also feature IP54 water and dust resistance — something that was conspicuously lacking from the Lightning AirPods Pro — plus lossless audio support for Apple’s soon-to-be-released Vision Pro headset.
Thanks to their unique H2 chips that support new iOS 17 features like Adaptive Audio and Conversation Awareness, the AirPods Pro are the ones to buy, especially since they’re only $20 more right now than the regular price of the AirPods 3.
However, if you’re on a budget, or you simply don’t like the style of the AirPods Pro for whatever reason, you can pick up the AirPods 3 right now for only $150. These will still give you personalized Spatial Audio and sweat and water resistance without the higher price tag and active noise cancellation (ANC) of the pricier AirPods Pro.
Still, for only $40 more, we think the AirPods Pro are the much better deal right now unless you really don’t like the deeper in-ear design and have no need for ANC.
For those watching their pennies, Apple also still sells the 2019 AirPods 2, which can be had on Amazon for $99. That’s $30 off their regular $129 asking price. You’ll lose the Spatial Audio features of the AirPods 3 and AirPods Pro, but they still support hands-free Siri and are some of the best earbuds you can buy for under 100 bucks.
In fact, it seems the AirPods 2 have ended up being so popular that Apple is planning on releasing two new versions of its fourth-generation AirPods later this year — a lower-end “AirPods Lite” that will fill the entry-level niche for budget-conscious consumers to be joined by a pricier set of standard AirPods that could add ANC to the mix.
In doing so, Apple would discontinue both its 2019 AirPods 2 and 2021 AirPods 3, rather than continuing to sell the 2021 model alongside the newer “AirPods 4” as it’s done for the past two years. The two new AirPods models will reportedly feature the same physical design, differing only in the features each offers.
Still, while it’s a near-certainty we’ll see those new AirPods this year, they may not come until later. In the meantime, Apple’s AirPods 2 and AirPods 3 are still great earbuds at good prices, and Apple’s AirPods Pro, which will likely remain current until well into 2025, is an even better deal.