Quality issue of earpods made in Vietnam

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Level 1

8 points

Quality issue of earpods made in Vietnam

I have currently 3 earpods purchased with iphone 5, 5s and SE. Sound is perfect.

I have purchased in a phone shop one set of Apple earpods made in vietnam. Quality is terrible and there is no need of being and expert in sound. Has anybody noticed it? If you put all of them on a table you can spot the differnce from the material of the cable (old one is more smooth, vietnam one is more ruvid and the vietnam microphone/pushbuttons has a more chuncky feeling.

But although the material of the cable or the material of pushbuttons are not important, the sound is important and the sound of those are not acceptable.

Tomorrow I'll go back to the shop with the 3 old one and the new one but I do expect the usual "this is the actual quality". Has anybody been able to make a comparison? Has Apple anything to say?.

Regards

Cesare

Posted on Aug 11, 2019 1:54 PM

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Answer 1

cesare33 Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 12, 2019 11:58 PM in response to Johnathan Burger

Dear Jonathan, I do like Earpods but here the issue is to understand if the quality is gone down or if I have purchased a fake. Doing a little bit of digging I have discovered that on the cable itself there is a marking with Apple details of the earpod. My old ones are marked 'designed by Apple in California assembled in Vietnam' and the quality is perfect.

The new one I have purchased are in a paper box, marked Apple made in Vietnam but the cable itself is marked 'designed by Apple in California assembled in China'. As you can see it looks strange. I have returned the earpods back to the shop in order for the to send back to Apple. I will keep you all posted. I would like a feedback from users that purchase recently the same Earpods and have checked the marking on the cable.

Regards

Cesare

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Answer 2

Aug 13, 2019 12:10 AM in response to cesare33

Where did You buy the "made in Vietnam" EarPods? I had similar experience with one pair of EarPods few years ago. I needed a new pair and I saw them in a noname store. The price was cheaper than in Apple Store. I knew from the start, that something is not right. They were counterfeit, not original EarPods. The build quality was solid, but the sound was terrible. I asked a man in the shop, and he said, that those EarPods came not from Apple.

So, like with everything - don't waste Your money on cheaper things, it could be a waste.

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