Cheap iPhone Earphones From eBay - The Real Deal?

One of the problems with my previous phone - the Samsung i780 - was that it was incredibly hard to find accessories for it. I couldn’t find a headphone jack converter for it - and I really needed it because I couldn’t use the stock earphones as they kept falling out. So I couldn’t use my normal earphones with it, which was a bummer.

With the iPhone, it came with an in-built 3.5mm headphone jack, so things were great - or so I thought. Turns out that the iPhone’s headphone jack was 3.5mm, but it was recessed so that only mini 3.5mm plugs could fit it. That meant that I couldn’t use my Panasonic earphones with it (the earphones had a L-shaped jack).

Since it was about time that I changed earphones, I went to look around for a good pair, and I found that the Creative EP-630’s came well recommended for their value for money. The first place that I tried to get a pair at was eBay, and imagine my surprise when I found that the earphones were sold at nearly half-price! Thinking that it was extremely lucky of me to have found this super-bargain, I nearly purchased them on the spot, but for some reason, I didn’t — good thing though! I poked around, and found some places discussing the earphones that were listed on eBay and other places that were a fraction of the original retail prices. It turns out that almost all of these earphones were imitations and sounded nowhere close to their originals.

They look almost identical though - and they had imitations for almost any models in the market. For the plain Apple earphones to the complex Shures — everything was online and for sale. And just by the pictures on the listings, it was almost impossible to tell the real from the fake. The fakes even came with packaging so real you’d be amazed! After looking through several listings, I realised that there are some cases that have obvious mistakes though - just take a look at the listing photo below of these Panasonic RP-HJE500 earphones that supposedly came with aluminium housings, or in this case, “alminium housing”.

After receiving the earphones, you’ll realise that they’re manufactured at a lower quality too. For example, if you were to get a pair of Shures, you might realise that the imitations have plastic grey capsules, unlike the more metallic texture of the originals. The top halves might also be made of glossy plastic instead of the matte finish in the originals. The letters in the Shure logo are placed further apart from each other and in some cases, the “R” and “E” characters don’t connect like in the case of the authentic Shure logo.

So if you’re buying from eBay and the seller/price looks too good to be true - then it probably is! The earphones are probably still fine if you’re not too discerning about sound quality though - they aren’t the originals, but at those prices, they can be your pair of backup earphones or earphones for more rough use, like when you go exercising.

In the end, I decided to go to Amazon instead, and purchased my pair of Creative EP-630’s (link to Creative EP-630). It comes with a straight plug, and the sound quality is awesome for its price!

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Samsung i780 versus Apple iPhone

To cut a long story short, I sold off my Samsung i780 for an Apple iPhone. I bought the Samsung i780 at SGD680, and sold it off for SGD480. It was 3 months old, but in great condition, and I hated to see it go.

So that’s a SGD200 loss. Verdict? I love the iPhone. It’s gorgeous and user-friendly as hell. After getting it, I realised how clunky the Windows Mobile interface was. It just isn’t intuitive as the iPhone’s, or even Palm’s (which was what I was using before I switched to my Samsung i780).

With the switch, I gave up certain features like the ability to edit Office documents, do custom Windows Mobile programming, and use Microsoft Exchange, but I realised that it wasn’t a big deal at all. In fact, I didn’t even miss those features. So I guess it really boils down to what you really need, versus every features thrown into the mix. The Windows Mobile interface just didn’t cut it for me, which was why I decided to sell the i780, and I’m glad I did so!

Updates about the iPhone soon!

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Bottle of Wine

A woman and a man are involved in a car accident on a snowy, cold Monday morning; it’s a bad one.

Both of their cars are totally demolished, but amazingly neither of them is hurt. God works in mysterious ways.

After they crawl out of their cars, the man is yelling about women drivers.
The woman says, ‘So, you’re a man. That’s interesting. I’m a woman.
Wow, just look at our cars!
There’s nothing left, but we’re unhurt.
This must be a sign from God that we should be friends and live in peace for the rest of our days.’

Flattered, the man replies, ‘Oh yes, I agree completely, this must be a sign from God!
But you’re still at fault… women shouldn’t be allowed to drive.”

The woman continues, ‘And look at this, here’s another miracle.
My car is completely demolished but this bottle of wine didn’t break.

Surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune.’

She hands the bottle to the man.
The man nods his head in agreement, opens it and drinks half the bottle and then hands it back to the woman.

The woman takes the bottle, puts the cap back on and hands it back to the man.

The man asks, ‘Aren’t you having any?’

The woman replies, ‘No. I think I’ll just wait for the police…’

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