The wait for cheaper AirPods goes on. The AirPods Lite have been rumoured for a while now, but Apple's September 'Glowtime' iPhone launch event didn't see a cheap pair of earbuds arrive alongside a raft of other new AirPods and iPhones.
Apple has fared extremely well at the high end of the headphone market, with the flagship AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Max both earning five-star reviews from our test team and selling by the bucketload, so it makes sense that it would want to expand its purview to the cheaper end of the wireless earbuds spectrum. Sadly, though, we've yet to see the rumoured Lite arrive as the year wears on.
We did see new entry-level AirPods 4 and iPhone 16 become a reality at the September 2024 launch event, plus health-focused features for the AirPods Pro 2 and some minor updates to the much-loved AirPods Max over ears. The wait for even more budget Apple buds goes on, though, leaving us to continue speculating just what these phantoms AirPods will look like and sound like, what they'll do, and how much they'll cost.
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Apple AirPods Lite: release date rumours
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman recently claimed that production lines are readying for a run of 20-25 million pairs of new AirPods, which were expected to launch at the end of summer 2024 at the same time as the iPhone 16.
In a report last year, analyst Jeff Pu claimed that Apple was working on a cheap pair of earbuds, a model he referred to as the “AirPods Lite”. Inveterate Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo only fanned these flames, predicting that the next generation of AirPods would ship in the second half of 2024 or the first half of 2025.
We thought that we'd see the AirPods Lite revealed at Apple's Glowtime event on September 9th, 2024, yet that didn't happen. Instead, we were treated to updates to the AirPods Pro 2, USB-C charging for the AirPods Max and the official reveal of the new AirPods 4 in two variants, but no truly budget in-ears. The most likely release date, then, does seem to be early 2025.
Here's something else to bear in mind: it's quite possible that Apple has lined up the standard version of the new AirPods 4 as its new cheapest version of wireless earbuds and positioned the AirPods 4 with ANC as its replacement for the outgoing AirPods 3. The standard model without ANC will now cost $129 / £129, but that could end up falling to around £99 / $99, while the version with ANC will cost $179 / £179 when they go on sale on 20th September, around the same price as the outgoing AirPods 3.
Apple AirPods Lite: price predictions
Pricing at this stage is predominantly on US-based predictions, but industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo does have a specific number in mind. Kuo claims that Apple plans to target a $99 price point for the AirPods Lite, undercutting the current cheapest AirPods 2 model by roughly $30.
However, some speculate that Apple might introduce a new, cheap pair of AirPods at a slightly higher price and, instead, cut the price of the standard AirPods 3 to turn them into a more budget option.
Either way, it's unlikely Apple will have three pairs of 'standard' AirPods in its lineup. Apple now has a noise-cancelling version of the AirPods 4 costing $179, so that might help to justify a slightly higher price than the AirPods Lite. It may, however, negate the need for a cheaper model at all, as the AirPods 4 will become the budget version and the ANC iteration will be the more costly alternative.
If the Lite do eventually arrive, a serious cut from the current $129 benchmark feels like the most likely outcome. We reckon somewhere around $100 is more likely, which translates to around £80 / AU$150.
Apple AirPods Lite: design
We can pretty much safely bet that the AirPods Lite will be wireless earbuds, almost certainly daubed in the company’s now-iconic white paint and most likely with stem designs, although the length of the stem itself is up for speculation.
What we’d most logically expect is a similar design to the proposed model’s cousins, the AirPods 3 – i.e. short listening stems, an unobtrusive ear tip configuration and hopefully some touch controls for skipping tracks and changing volume on the fly. They were themselves an update on the AirPods 2's longer-stemmed, double-tap-control design, which Apple is now likely to have firmly moved away from for future models.
The excellent Pro 2 flagship model of the AirPods feature interchangeable silicone ear tips depending on the size of the wearer’s lugs, something that wasn't featured with the AirPods 3 (or the new AirPods 4). Our guess at this cheaper end of the price spectrum is that you’ll get an unadjustable tip rather than interchangeable ones, even if this unalterable design gives your inner-ear cartilage a potentially rougher time of it.
Perhaps to cut costs (and help differentiate the models) Apple will also do away with touch controls altogether on a cheaper Pod.
Apple AirPods Lite: features
The most likely competitors to the AirPods Lite would be the Sony WF-C500 and the Panasonic RZ-S500W. These class-leading budget wireless earbuds retail for around £89/$79/AU$149 and £100/$150/AU$219 respectively. And they show what to expect from cheaper AirPods.
You can’t expect too much from such affordable products, of course. But the excellent Sony WF-C500 do have IPX4 waterproofing, Bluetooth 5.0 and a 20-hour battery life, so we would expect the AirPods Lite to include similar specs at this price level, if not better. The AirPods 2 have a 24-hour battery life, so Apple is unlikely to drop below that figure. The AirPods 4 offer 30 hours.
We wouldn’t expect AirPods 4-level features like spatial audio support and wireless charging, though. Because of such feature omissions, the AirPods Lite might find themselves with an older, less powerful Apple chip too.
Now, the brilliant Panasonic RZ-S500W offer noise-cancelling technology, but that’s a very rare feature for earbuds at their price, often saved for models around and above the £150/$200/AU$300 mark. One of the new AirPods 4 has ANC, but it's safe to say the Lite model won't – Apple has to differentiate between the two ranges somehow.
Apple AirPods Lite: sound quality
This is the factor that matters most. After all, no amount of fancy aesthetic flourishes and clever functionality can mask poor sound quality, Apple label or no.
We’ve been impressed with the audio fidelity of Apple’s recent AirPods line. The AirPods 3 deliver a tonally balanced and decently detailed sound (even if it’s not as insightful as the best at their price), and we regarded the Pro 2 model as a five-star class leader in the sound quality department. Honestly, the AirPods 3's sound quality in a more budget model wouldn’t be far off what we can these days expect from a $99 pair, though this could again be one of the areas in which Apple chooses to differentiate the models. Fingers crossed it isn’t.
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