Yesterday, Apple held its big iPhone 12 event where it announced four new iPhones as well as the HomePod mini, a smaller $99 version of its HomePod smart speaker. However, Apple didn’t talk about the other new product that was announced yesterday, the Beats Flex, a pair of $50 wireless earphones with excellent battery life.
The all-new Beats Flex are the next generation of the BeatsX wireless earphones that were first released in 2017, but Apple has made some significant improvements. Most notably, it dropped the price. The Beats Flex cost just $50, which is a drastic drop-off from the $150 price tag that the BeatsX demanded when they were first released. (However, Apple and Beats had both been selling the BeatsX for $100 for the last year-or-more.)
The other big upgrade is that the Beats Flex charge via USB-C. This means that they won’t charge via Lightning, nor do they support wireless charging, which are the two charging methods for the latest iPhone 12. However, the USB-C charging enables the Beats Flex to charge faster (a 10 minutes charge gets you 1.5 hours of listening time) and have a longer battery life (up to 12 hours). Apple and Beats also claim to have improved the audio quality and the durability of the Beats Flex.
Like the old BeatsX, the Beats Flex have been integrated with Apple’s W1 chip, which helps them fast pair with your iPhone or iPad. However, it’s not Apple’s newer H1 chip that has been integrated into the newest AirPods and AirPods Pro, meaning the Beats Flex do not support hands-free Siri.
The announcement of the Beats Flex is also important because Apple just announced that all new iPhones will not come with wired earbuds in the box, meaning if you want cheap earbuds the Beats Flex might be your best best.
The Beats Flex is available to order now. It comes in four different colors: black, gray, yellow and light blue.
