In-ear earphones get the Bluetooth treatment
Up-front disclaimer: I have several issues with earbuds, aka “in-ear earphones” – those things that you stick inside (or just on the outside of) your ear when you want to listen to music. For the most part, people experience earbuds when they buy their first smartphone or music player, and many don’t realize that you can graduate to less sucky devices to hear your music better.
The first big issue for me – comfort. Put these in your ears for any length of time longer than two minutes, and the outside of your ear starts to get sore. Next comes fit – most of the time the earbuds won’t fit correctly and will slip off, forcing you to jam the earbud further inside your ear canal, which can’t be a good thing for comfort or the health of the ear. Third – with some people there’s a bunch of gunk both inside and outside their ears, and these things tend to get grimy pretty quickly (there’s a reason why earbud companies never ask me to return their review samples).
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