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It’s pretty rare to see Apple bring down the prices of its products less than a year after their official announcements, but it’s obviously even more unusual for a Cupertino-made device or accessory to become costlier with time.
Believe it or not, that’s precisely what appears to have happened to the Beats Flex recently with absolutely no advance notice. Released all the way back in October 2020 at a recommended price of $49.99 in four different colors, the “all-day” wireless earphones are now available from Apple’s official US e-store for $69.99 a pair.
The new and surprising list price is already reflected at a number of major third-party retailers, including Amazon and Best Buy, but for what it’s worth, the former can still hook you up with your choice of Flame Blue, Smoke Gray, or Yuzu Yellow flavors at or around the old price at the time of this writing after a $20 or so discount.
Of course, this is far from the best Beats Flex deal ever offered by Amazon, but on the decidedly bright side of things, it easily eclipses what you can currently get from the likes of Best Buy or Target, which is no discount whatsoever.
While the Beats Flex are evidently not as “modern” or as trendy as Apple’s hugely popular AirPods, this sudden and completely unexpected price hike brings the versatile, long-lasting, and “premium”-sounding earphones in direct competition with some of the best cheap wireless earbuds available today.
The good news is that if you don’t mind the “outdated” design, these bad boys can certainly hold their own against the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy Buds+… at least in terms of battery life, connectivity, charging speeds, and possibly even overall audio performance.
As for what exactly led to this highly unusual price increase, we obviously don’t expect Apple to come out with a public statement or anything on the matter, but we can theorize the “situation” probably has something to do with industry-wide surges in component costs. It remains to be seen if any other “iDevices” or accessories will follow suit anytime soon, although there’s no clear reason to expect that just yet.
