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- [Dan] Hey this is Dan with The Verge,
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and this is Microsoft's new Surface Earbuds.
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This is the companies first truly wireless earbuds
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and they follow along the Surface Headphones
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that were announced last year
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in the companies new audio line-up of products.
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As you can see they're pretty similar
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to other wireless earbuds we've seen before.
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You wear them in your ears,
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you've got a little case that you put them in to charge,
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and it's got a USB-C port to charge it back up,
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and Microsoft says these will last
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about eight hours on a charge,
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and in the case you get a full 24 hours.
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So it's pretty standard stuff that we've seen
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from other companies before.
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Now if you look at the design of these,
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you can tell that they do look a little bit different.
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They're quite a bit bigger than maybe
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you're used to from say Samsung's Galaxy Buds,
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or even Apple's AirPods.
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But they're so big because there is this
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touchpad on the outside that you can use
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to control a bunch of functions,
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you can skip tracks, you can raise volume,
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you can launch applications
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if you've got it connected to an Android phone,
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play Spotify automatically, things like that.
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And they like are typical sounding earbuds,
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these do not seal out sound,
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they are designed to allow ambient sound in,
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and here we are in the demo area.
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It's super loud, there's some bumping music
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like a club at I don't know,
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it's at noon right now.
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So it's kind of hard to tell
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how these things actually sound in here.
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But if I were playing music,
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I would be able to hear it through my ears
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and also be able to hear the ambient sound.
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There's no noise cancellation,
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or anything else like that.
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Now because this is Microsoft,
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they don't just play music.
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They actually do some other things,
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then there's some microphones on here
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and some technology Microsoft has developed
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with PowerPoint and its AI processing
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to allow you to speak into the headphones
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while you're presenting say a PowerPoint slide show,
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and it will live transcribe
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what you're saying on the screen.
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So I can say, "Hey this is Dan with The Verge,
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"and these are Microsoft's new Surface Earbuds.
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"This is the companies first truly wireless earbuds
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"and they accompany the Surface Headphones
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"that were announced last year
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"as part of Microsoft's new audio product line-up."
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Pretty wild.
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The design on the inside is
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a little bit different than other earbuds,
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this ear tip does not actually go inside
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your ear canal like I said before,
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it's not designed to block out sounds.
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It's supposed to let sounds in,
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so it kind of just rests in there
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and then there's a little hook
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on the back side of it that when you rotate
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the earbud into your ear it kind of locks in place.
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Microsoft's including a few different sizes with this
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so you can customize it to fit your ears
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and find whichever size is most comfortable
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and fits you best without falling out of your ear.
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And Microsoft says these will be available
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before the holidays this year,
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so real soon.
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They're gonna sell for about $250
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which is a bit more expensive
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than what we're used to seeing
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from say like AirPods which start at 160,
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or Samsung's Galaxy Buds which are about 130.
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So Microsoft is really counting
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on the added productivity features
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that are coming with these to justify that price.
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Obviously we're gonna have a review
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coming for them when these are released
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and we'll have lost more time
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to test out their audio quality
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and see what they're like in the real world.
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But that's a real quick first look
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at Microsoft's Surface Earbuds.
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Hey thanks for watching.
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There's a ton of other stuff
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that Microsoft announced today,
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there's new Surface Pro laptops,
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there's new Surface laptop laptops,
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and then the company actually announced
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a new foldable thing that's not coming for another year
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we've got it, all of it
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on theverge.com and also youtube.com/theverge
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so please go check it out.