Home > Consumer Reviews > Apple MA850G/A In-Ear Headphones with Remote & Mic

Swampy68 states that the remote does not have functions for next/back pause etc. Well actually they do, it is the centre of the remote. Clicking/double clicking gives you all these functions.

The description states this quite clearly!

Being a fan of Apple products generally (I own an iMac, Macbook, iPhone, Apple TV, and numerous iPods) I was pleased to see that they had finally got around to releasing a decent specced set of headphones.

As with all Apple products the packaging is excellent - there is a little container for the spare ear buds (sizes provided as small, med and large), a couple of spare metal cones (forgotten the actual term for these!) and a nice holder for the headphones themselves which is a little fiddly to use on a daily basis.

The headphones themselves are well made and have a mic and volume buttons which dependant upon firmware updates on the various products will work to a greater or lesser extent - I am assuming that Apple will fine tune any future upgrades to their products to make these more functional.

The downside I was not too impressed at first. Tried the medium buds and sound was poor and uncomfortable, small sounded a little better, when I used the large WOW what a difference using the correct size makes. Please take the time to play around with these headphones before jumping to any conclusions about their sound.

Having been a huge fan of Etymotic HF2's I have to confess I was intrigued to see how the Apple in-ear headphones with remote and mic faired.
To my surprise they produced a far, far better sound than I was expecting, particularly for the price. I'm not big on lots of bass, but for those who are there is always the option of increasing the bass on your iPod's EQ.
You do hear the cables moving a little, but this is a not an uncommon problem with in ear phones. The remote is brilliant- it's just great to have a small and simple remote and mic all integrated into one. They do work with the iPhone- the only thing you can't do is adjust the volume.
I would highly recommend these for people who want a fantastic pair of mid range headphones for their iPod Touch or iPhone at a reasonable price.

Firstly i would like to say that i have had these headphones for over a year and know what I'm talking about having used them virtually everyday for he duration of ownership. The real reality is that i shouldn't have done it, i shouldn't have fallen for it but who could have failed to. They looked so good when i first bought them but unfortunately it was not to be. There are multiple problems with these headphones all huge reasons to AVOID. Firstly the sound quality as stated before i fell for it spending 50 smackers on a pair of headphones which promised so much yet their are headphones for £15 cheeper on the market for example the seinheizers for 30-35 quid which i have tested next to my apple ones. Believe me the sound quality sounds so poor on the apple headphones and i felt severely ripped off.

The other problem with the sound quality was that it deteriorated even more as time went on so much so that the sound started to crackle. i later found out this was caused by the small removable metal caps because earwax gets caught in them because the space between the gaps in the caps is so small it builds up and is very hard to remove. this built up over about 3 months and by this time i found them almost impossible to use because of the crackling sound. admittedly you are given a spare set of caps but the same thing happens to your second set and then you are left without any way of replacing them because typical apple they don not supply spares.

This relates as well to the ear buds themselves which are flimsy and prone to tearing which mine did. because of this ridiculous policy by apple i was forced to buy fake replacements (because only the smalls fit me) on an american site (the only place i could buy them) for $14 dollars. So thanks apple £50 for the shoddy product and then i have to replace the flimsy ear buds for extortionate prices. The Headphones are also flimsy the rubber bids bellow the plastic have all torn and i am now left with headphones which look like they've been put through the shredder.

Another irritant on this product is the fact that the remote cannot be used on a 2nd gen ipod touch. Firstly why? And secondly if not, why cant they release a patch in order to rectify this. Surely at least £10 of the product was the remote and if not then why cant they replace a similar set without the remote because in my eyes the remote looks bad and flimsy and in a very difficult position to use especially while running the only time i "would" ever use it trouble is i cant. no surprise there.

Finally one of the ears of broken and i get no sound through it. Personally i think something has broken in the remote, its on that side but i cant be sure. Still i am not happy and don't expect this sort of thing to happen only 13 months after purchase therefore out of warranty. Please people don't buy this product. It's style over substance and i feel gutted that i didn't realize this before. spending a lot of money in this case doesn't necessarily mean you get a good pair of headphones. Buy some seinheizers instead save yourself £15-20 and a lot of time spent on the phone to apple.

These are just great. Wonderful clarity over wide frequency range. Very present sound. Well done Apple, or whoever designed these.