I had to laugh when I saw “fake AirPods” trending on Twitter over Christmas.

There’s the entitlement of it, obviously – like, mate, you’re 17, of course your grandmother didn’t spend a minimum of £159 on something you’re only going to drop down a subway grate.

But also, I was one of those people who bought “fake AirPods” for somebody in my life this Christmas. As an “extra” gift rather than a main one, and because I’d bought some off of an Instagram ad a month previously and was actually quite fond of them, thanks.

I resisted the idea of individual earbuds for years – they’re so expensive! so dinky! there is literally no chance I will not accidentally run one through the washing machine one day! But thanks to Apple’s now-combined charger/headphone socket (ugh), if you too listen to music or podcasts throughout your working day it’s something you will probably come round to eventually. Maybe the third, or fourth, time it turns out you forgot to charge the ugly wireless earphones you bought for the gym – I don’t know your tolerance for the sound of a generic motivational playlist.

Instagram, which of course knows me quite well, had been shilling cheap and cheerful colourful pods to me for months before I took the plunge – but, of course, the day I decided to buy they swapped out all my adverts for cuddly cat beds, and it was 20 minutes before an advert finally popped up for a trendy rose gold pair for £40. Which defeated the purpose. But clicking the link was like a tracking cookie reset, and it wasn’t long before a cheerful, pastel-coloured alternative popped up in my feed.

Ordering your generic earbuds

The Instagram ad link took me to a nicely-designed website selling “Glopods”, a product that – per their current website – is “not Airpods” and “not affiliated with Apple in any way”. The Glopods came in a variety of pretty pastels as well as white, black, grey and navy for the boys (lol): I chose mint green for mine.

Although priced at £19.99 (including free UK delivery) on the website, when I clicked to pay with PayPal I was charged slightly more: £20.24. Which I thought it was pointless quibbling over, but it’s worth bearing in mind that some of the sites offering these products might be based on an older dollar conversion.

After paying I received a confirmation email quickly followed by a second, semi-personalised, note in a friendly tone, warning me that the products would take up to two weeks to arrive due to “high demand”. Which I thought was a funny way of saying they shipped from China. The order arrived in seven days – no complaints here – in a plain brown envelope, with the UK postage label appearing to have been stuck over something else. I didn’t investigate further though – I knew what I was getting into for twenty quid.

What’s in the box?

The box that the earbuds came in was solid enough, although bearing the distinct hallmarks of something that had been run off of a standard, rather than commercial-grade, printer and without any cellophane wrap or seal (#plasticfree). There was no mention of the “Globuds” brand, and it’s worth pointing out that there was absolutely no consistency of appearance between my box and the box that the black ones I ordered a month later arrived in.

The earbuds sat in their case in a small plastic tray (#maybenot), and came with a (short) charging cable featuring Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector and an instruction leaflet. The green was, to my delight, minty-er and prettier than it appeared on the website, and the buds themselves had a lovely matte finish that I much prefer to the genuine article.

Also. Twenty. Quid.

But are they any good?

First, a caveat: I have never used actual Apple AirPods because: poor. But yeah, they’re alright, subject to a couple of minor annoyances.

The first was that, for the first couple of weeks at least, I had no way of knowing whether they were fully charged or not. There’s a light built in to the case which sometimes glows either blue or red (and sometimes flashes), but there never seemed to be much logic to the lights – and the second pair I bought, in the different box, had no flashing light at all. But I got rid of the short, unreliable charging cable and started using my iPhone charging cable, and found they worked a lot better.

The second is that they have a habit of randomly connecting to my phone while in their charging case (something which the genuine article, with its claims of seamless connectivity, almost certainly doesn’t do), or of only playing from one bud. When that happens, I return them both to the charging case and start again. I find it a minor inconvenience for, if you don’t mind me saying again: TWENTY. QUID.

I’m not sure of how the touchscreen controls work as I could barely decipher the instruction sheet, and I’m yet to use the built-in microphone – but that’s partly because I have a deep-seated prejudice against people who take calls on AirPods. I wear an Apple Watch, so I tend to control music volume, playback and skipping on that when I can’t be bothered reaching for my phone.

But since connecting them to my phone via Bluetooth – amusingly, it recognised the pods in the same way it would the real deal, rather than me having to manually pair them – they’ve been reliable enough, as long as I wait for a robotic female voice to say “connected” before I press play on the latest, sexually explicit episode of the Unladylike podcast.

But you didn’t give us a link, Lis!

No, I didn’t. It’s partly because I don’t feel comfortable giving the product a personal recommendation – your mileage for the quirks I set out above may vary considerably, and you have every right to expect more reliable performance for the price.

It’s also because in between my first and second purchases, the site shifted to a new domain – which makes me think they won’t appreciate a link from a blog post with “fake AirPods” in the URL for sketchy SEO reasons.

If you search for the brand name I mention on Google you should be able to find the site pretty easily – but buyer beware, obviously.