AirPods Max

Apple launches AirPods Max with a ‘custom acoustic design’ and Digital Crown for €620

Apple's holiday surprise is very expensive
Life
AirPods Max

8 December 2020

After many months of rumours, Apple today announced AirPods Max, the latest member of its headphone line that brings the technology of its popular AirPods earbuds to a new over-ear design to rival high-fidelity offerings from Sony, Bose, and Beats. And in a nod to Apple’s other ubiquitous wearable, the Apple Watch, the AirPods Max have a Digital Crown to control your music.

The new headphones, which come in five colours to match the iPad Air 4 and cost a whopping €618.75, include all of the features Apple has brought to the AirPods and AirPods Pro, including active noise cancellation, Transparency mode, and spatial audio. The somewhat large cups are wrapped in a “breathable knit mesh canopy” that spans the stainless-steel headband and is designed “to distribute weight and reduce on-head pressure”.

That bit is important since the AirPods Max weighs 13.6 ounces, which is significantly more than the Bose Noise Canceling Headphones 700 (8.3 ounces), Sony’s WH-1000XM3 (8.99 ounces), and the Beats Studio 3 (9.2 ounces).

The AirPods Max feature a “custom acoustic design” and feature all of the technology Apple debuted in the AirPods and AirPods Pro

The ear cups aren’t customisable as was rumoured, but Apple says they attach to the headband “through a revolutionary mechanism that balances and distributes ear cup pressure, and allows it to independently pivot and rotate to fit the unique contours of a user’s head.” A Digital Crown is affixed to the right cup to bring volume control as well as playback and other controls.

Like the second-gen AirPods and AirPods Pro, the AirPods Max are powered by Apple’s H1 chip to bring super-connectivity with low latency and lengthy battery life. Apple says the new headphones feature 20 hours of battery life on a single charge with noise cancellation and spatial audio enabled, but they don’t include a charging case. Instead, you get a soft Smart Case that puts the AirPods Max into an ultralow power state to preserve battery between uses.

Curiously, the AirPods Max do not have Hey Siri support, so you’ll need to use the Digital Crown to activate Siri. They charge via a Lightning-to-USB-C cable but a power adapter is not included in the box. As with other Airpods models, they can be used as Bluetooth headphones with non-Apple devices but Apple warns that functionality is limited.

The AirPods Max are available for preorder in the US today will begin shipping on Tuesday 15 December. At time of writing there was no preorder or release dates on Apple’s Irish website.

IDG News Service

Read More:


Back to Top ↑

TechCentral.ie