One of the rewards my company gives its employees when we get positive customer feedback is credit for places like Amazon. Now, I don’t really WANT to shop at Amazon. In fact, I don’t except for twice a year: My birthday and Christmas, both times using the credit given to me to treat myself. I’m hoping to convince my company to give me credit for someplace else as I want to completely disconnect from Amazon, but that’s another story.

Back in August, I picked up a pair of soundcore Liberty 4 NC earbuds. I was looking for a replacement for my Apple AirPods Pro 2. Don’t get me wrong, the AirPods worked just fine, but they were overpriced for what they are and I could never get the left earbud to fit properly. The Liberty 4 earbuds had a great sound at half the cost, if not less if they were on sale, they fit in my pocket with my smartphone, and the case had wireless charging, so I could use the same chargers I used for my AirPods with the Liberty 4s.

Then I forgot to take them out of my pants pocket on laundry day…

Fortunately, Christmas came around and I had more credit to use, so I picked up a refurbished pair of the same Liberty 4s for half the price. I now had the extra motivation to move from the AirPods as I wean myself from Apple throughout 2026. I already did so with my watch, moving from my Apple Watch Series 4 to my old Pebble Time Steel, so this was the next step.

The simple fact is that these earbuds sound great, are a much better price, and work with both Apple AND Android devices as I plan to move to a GrapheneOS Pixel smartphone later this year. I don’t need access to Siri or Google Assistant, so I’m not losing any functionality there. There’s also no AI involved, which I’m always for.

The AirPods Pro are now sitting in my desk drawer. Do I try to sell them or pop them in the recycling bin?