The AirPods 5 squeeze active noise cancellation into open-fit earbuds that cost €149 (about 98,000 FCFA), and nothing else Apple showed in audio this year is as useful. On sale since 18 September 2026, they sound better than the AirPods 4, finally shrug off sweat and dust thanks to an IP57 rating, and the better-equipped version is €30 cheaper than before. One number holds them back: four to five hours of listening per charge. We would point iPhone owners who cannot stand silicone tips straight at them. Frequent flyers, much less so. Android users, not at all.
Introduction: the AirPods 5 end a two-tier range
Apple unveiled its new earbuds on 9 September 2026, during the event built around the iPhone 18 Pro. Pre-orders opened that same evening and the earbuds reached shelves on Friday the 18th. The naming is plain: AirPods 5, plus a variant sold as “AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case”, as set out on Apple’s official French page.
They take over from the 2024 AirPods 4, whose line-up had an irritating side. Buyers had to pick between a €149 model with no noise cancellation and a €199 one (about 131,000 FCFA) that had it. Fifty euros for a switch. The fifth generation puts active noise processing in both boxes and brings the dearer one down to €169.
Our newsroom has not had the AirPods 5 in its ears. This page therefore cross-checks Apple’s data against half a dozen published reviews and the first feedback from French-speaking outlets.
Verdict in brief: a lot for €149, if the open fit suits you
Verdict in 30 seconds
Apple's open-fit earbuds gain credible noise cancellation, a fuller sound and proper water resistance with no price rise. Four to five hours of battery life and the lack of any size adjustment mean they will not suit everyone.
For whom iPhone users who refuse silicone tips and want to take the edge off everyday noise
Avoid if You fly often, listen for more than four hours at a stretch or your phone runs Android
We like
- Noise cancellation on both versions, from €149
- Richer sound and a very natural Transparency mode
- IP57 rating against sweat and dust
- Calls judged clear by reviewers
We like less
- Only four to five hours of listening
- No choice of size, fit depends on your ear
- Stem volume control reserved for the €169 model
- Repairability scored 2 out of 10 by iFixit
AirPods 5 specs
| Format | Ouvert, sans embouts |
|---|---|
| Puce | Apple H2 |
| Réduction de bruit | Oui, jusqu'à 50 % plus efficace que les AirPods 4 ANC |
| Autonomie écouteurs (ANC) | Jusqu'à 4 h (5 h version boîtier sans fil) |
| Autonomie totale (ANC) | Jusqu'à 20 h (22 h version boîtier sans fil) |
| Charge | USB-C ; Qi et chargeur Apple Watch sur la version à 169 € |
| Résistance | IP57 |
| Contrôle du volume | Glissement sur la tige (version à 169 €) |
| Capteur cardiaque | Non |
| Traduction en direct | Oui (iPhone compatible Apple Intelligence) |
| Sortie | Septembre 2026 |
| Launch price | 149 € (169 € avec boîtier de charge sans fil) |
Three rows of that table matter. The H2 chip comes first: it is the one inside the Pro models, which explains why the software features are almost identical from one range to the other. Then the IP57 rating, where the previous generation stopped at IP54. Last, the weight. At 4.3 g per earbud, each one is more than a gram lighter than an AirPods Pro 3.
AirPods 5 design: nothing changes to the eye, the case is where it happens
Put the AirPods 5 next to the 2024 pair and you will not spot the difference. Same rigid shell in glossy white plastic, same short stem, same compact case with rounded corners. The dimensions Apple publishes match to the tenth of a millimetre. White is the only colour, and tbreak notes that it gets slippery and grubby quickly after a workout.
Two versions, two cases
The €20 (about 13,000 FCFA) between the two models buys four things. Wireless charging on a Qi pad or an Apple Watch puck. A speaker in the case that chimes when you hunt for it with Find My. A sensor that sets the volume when you slide a finger along the stem. One more hour of listening per charge, too.
The basic case charges over USB-C only. Apple’s listing mentions nothing in the box beyond the earbuds, the case and the paperwork, so check that you have a cable at home. Neither case carries the ultra-wideband chip found in the Pro models, Gizmodo points out.
IP57: sweat and dust stop being a worry
This is the upgrade that drew the fewest headlines and, for a reader in Douala, Lagos or Accra, possibly the handiest. The first digit of the rating covers dust, the second a brief dunking. A rainy-season downpour, a gym session at 32 degrees or a motorbike-taxi ride down a laterite track should no longer damage your AirPods 5. Apple still does not sell them as swimming gear.
On longevity, iFixit, quoted by iPhon.fr, gives them 2 out of 10 for repairability. Oddly enough, that is the best score any AirPods have ever received. A technician with the right tools can now get the batteries out. Apple sells neither parts nor a manual.
Comfort and fit: the open design either wins you over or falls out
An open-fit earbud rests at the entrance of the ear canal without plugging it. No tip, no blocked-ear feeling, no dull thud from your own footsteps. Anyone whose ears get sore after twenty minutes of in-ear buds knows exactly what we mean.
Reviewers all agree. The Tom’s Guide tester wore the AirPods 5 for six hours straight without discomfort, and T3 writes that they almost vanish once they are in.
The trade-off is well known: a rigid shell does not adapt. Gizmodo puts it bluntly, if the AirPods 4 sat badly in your ears, these will sit badly as well, since the shape is the same. BGR adds that they stay put on a walk but can drop out during hard exercise, and describes a slight feeling of pressure over the first few days when noise cancellation is switched on.
Display: there is none, the stem and the iPhone do the work
No screen on the AirPods 5, barely a status light on the case. Everything is controlled by pinching the stem: one click starts or stops playback, a long press switches between noise cancellation and Transparency, and a vertical swipe changes the volume on the €169 model only. BGR regrets the lack of haptic feedback.
The rest is handled on the iPhone, from battery level to the equaliser. Siri understands head gestures as well: a nod is enough to pick up a call. Handy with your hands in the dough.
Performance: sound quality, noise cancellation and calls as the press heard them
This is where the AirPods 5 are judged: with music, against the surrounding racket, and on the phone out in the street.
Sound quality: clear progress, bass still shy
Nobody disputes the jump from the previous generation. Tom’s Guide talks of a rich, detailed sound with no harshness at all. T3 describes a fuller, more spacious presentation, with low end that carries weight without spilling over. iPhoneSoft’s summary of The Verge mentions more bass and clearer voices.
The reservations overlap. tbreak misses some punch in the bass and finds the treble sounds processed at times. MacRumors finds the lower mids muddier than on the Pro. BGR hears slightly flat voices on podcasts.
Our reading: physics is talking. With no tip to seal the canal, part of the low end leaks away, and no adaptive equaliser can fully make up for it. For an afrobeats album in a taxi or a series in the evening, the result will be very good. For careful listening in a quiet room, the AirPods Pro 3 keep more detail.
AirPods 5 noise cancellation: good on hums, weaker on voices
Apple quotes up to 50% more outside noise removed than with the AirPods 4, and claims in its press release the best noise cancellation on the market for an open-ear design. Superlatives of that kind are hard to check. The reviews do point the same way, though.
BGR says it has never heard better at this price. Air conditioning, fans, bus engines and the rumble of a metro train are clearly softened.
The limits are just as plain. Sharp noises that arrive without warning get through; Tom’s Guide mentions car horns. So do voices. T3 would rather call it noise “reduction” than isolation, and that is the right word. Video reviewer Bryan Tong, relayed by WatchGeneration, rates this noise cancellation 7.5 out of 10 against 8.5 for the Pro 3. Apple puts the latter’s advantage at three times more noise removed. One small flaw noted by Tom’s Guide: a faint hiss when the processing runs with no music playing.
Good to know: in traffic, the open fit has a safety advantage. Even with noise cancellation on, you still catch a horn or a motorbike filtering up the queue. With well-sealed in-ear buds, far less.
Transparency and Adaptive Audio
Transparency mode collects the warmest comments. T3 calls it exceptional, and The Verge writes that the difference from bare ears becomes almost impossible to notice. Conversation Awareness lowers the volume the moment you start speaking, which saves pulling out an earbud at the till.
Calls: the strong point few saw coming
On paper, nothing new: two beamforming microphones per earbud and the Voice Isolation feature. In use, Tom’s Guide reports calls its colleagues found crystal clear, BGR excellent quality, tbreak a natural voice free of compression artefacts. For anyone who strings video meetings and WhatsApp calls together all day, that is a serious argument.
AirPods 5 battery life: the number that stings
Four hours. That is what Apple promises for the base model with noise cancellation on. The full official figures fit in three lines:
- €149 model: up to 4 hours with noise cancellation, 6 hours without, 20 hours counting top-ups from the case;
- €169 model: up to 5 hours with noise cancellation, 7 hours without, 22 hours with the case;
- fast charging: five minutes in the case for roughly one hour of listening, on both versions.
What the reviews measured
T3 logged about four and a half hours before dropping to 12% on the better-specified model, which matches the promise. The magazine still makes it the main complaint of its review: too short for a working day. Tom’s Guide calls the score very disappointing next to rivals that go beyond eight hours for the same money.
Some nuance is needed. Cult of Mac recharges its case every three or four days in normal use. If you listen in one- or two-hour stretches, you will never run into the problem. If your meetings run back to back from nine to noon, you will run into it every day.
Charging: quick, and useful during power cuts
According to T3, thirty minutes in the case take the AirPods 5 from 12 to 80%. The case holds four to five full recharges in reserve. During a two-day outage that leaves some headroom, and a power bank refills it over USB-C. The charger of an Apple Watch Series 12 also does the job with the wireless case.
Software: iOS 27, Live Translation and an equaliser you can finally adjust
The AirPods 5 live through their integration with the iPhone. Open the case near the phone, a card pops up, pairing is done.
What the H2 chip brings
Live Translation is the headline feature. It requires an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence, meaning an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, the iPhone 18 Pro for instance. Apple switched it on in the European Union at the end of 2025. Reviews cool the enthusiasm: BGR finds it a little slow for a real conversation, and Cult of Mac notes that it loses the thread when someone speaks fast. Fine for asking directions, not for negotiating a contract.
With iOS 27, released on 14 September, Apple adds a three-band equaliser. It is not much, but until then there was nothing.
Health: what stays exclusive to the AirPods Pro 3
Let us be precise. The AirPods 5 have no heart rate sensor, despite the pre-launch rumours. They offer neither the hearing test nor the hearing aid feature of the Pro models, according to TechRepublic’s comparison. The optical sensor listed in the spec sheet detects that the earbud is in your ear, nothing more. These earbuds are neither a fitness tracker nor a medical device, and Apple does not present them as such.
Android compatibility: the AirPods 5 and Android, a marriage of convenience
The question concerns most readers in Africa, where Android dominates by a very wide margin. Short answer: it works, and you lose half of what you paid for.
On the plus side, they pair like ordinary Bluetooth earbuds with any Tecno, Samsung or Xiaomi phone, and the stem keeps controlling playback.
The list of what disappears is longer. Apple offers no Android app: no fine tuning, no equaliser, no firmware update without an Apple device. According to MacRumors, automatic pause when you take an earbud out, Siri, spatial audio and the native battery read-out do not work. Neither does Live Translation. At €149, competitors sell models you can set up entirely from Android.
Price and availability: the AirPods 5 price in France and in West and Central Africa
Official price and street prices
On the French Apple Store, the standard model costs €149 (about 98,000 FCFA) and the version with the wireless charging case €169 (about 111,000 FCFA). French retailer LDLC listed that second model at the official price in early October. Discounts did not take long: on 1 October, iPhoneSoft reported €30 off at checkout on Amazon France, which means €119 (about 78,000 FCFA) and €139 (about 91,000 FCFA).
Our advice goes to the €169 model. T3 and BGR reach the same conclusion: stem volume control and the extra hour of listening change everyday use.
Where to buy the AirPods 5 at the best price
Écouteurs ouverts avec réduction de bruit active et traduction en direct, boîtier USB-C.
- AmazonSee at Amazon
- CdiscountSee at Cdiscount
- FnacSee at Fnac
- DartySee at Darty
Some links on this page are affiliate links: Wanda-techs may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. This does not influence our opinion.
In West and Central Africa: resellers, warranty and fake pairs
Apple does not sell directly in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire or Senegal, and we found no official price in FCFA. The AirPods 5 get there through authorised resellers, such as the iCenter at Douala Grand Mall, or through parallel imports. Expect to pay more than the French price once shipping, customs and the seller’s margin are added. The manufacturer’s warranty lasts one year; ask the seller who honours it locally.
Above all, beware of copies. A new pair offered at 25,000 FCFA on a market stall is fake, no exceptions. Insist on a sealed box and check the serial number on Apple’s warranty coverage page before you pay.
Pros and cons
The pros
- Active noise cancellation on both versions, with no price rise.
- Clearly richer sound than the 2024 generation, according to most reviews.
- One of the most natural Transparency modes on the market.
- IP57 rating, suited to sweat, rain and dust.
- Very comfortable open fit, good call quality.
The cons
- Four to five hours per charge, far from the eight hours of the Pro models.
- A single shape: if it does not suit your ear, there is nothing to be done.
- Stem volume control and wireless charging reserved for the €169 model.
- No heart rate sensor and no hearing health features.
- Very limited use on Android, next to no repairability.
Alternatives to the AirPods 5
Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2)
The most direct rival wears the same logo: the Pro 3 isolate far better, last eight hours and measure your pulse, for €249 (about 163,000 FCFA) before discounts. To keep your ears completely free, the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 play sound from their temples.
Conclusion: should you buy the AirPods 5?
Yes, if you tick two boxes: an iPhone in your pocket and ears that dislike tips. In that precise case, very little does better at this price. The AirPods 5 soften commutes and the office, sound better than before and no longer fear sweat.
No, if you already own AirPods 4 with noise cancellation: the gain is real, but it does not justify buying again after two years. No again if you travel a lot. And still no on Android.
Apple chose to keep the earbuds tiny instead of fitting a bigger battery. We get the logic. We would have liked six hours all the same.
Our pick
AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case: at €169 (about 111,000 FCFA), this is the version to go for because of the stem volume control, the five hours of listening and wireless charging, provided you own an iPhone and enjoy the open fit.
Frequently asked questions
How much do the AirPods 5 cost in France?
Apple sells the standard model for €149 (about 98,000 FCFA) and the version with the wireless charging case for €169 (about 111,000 FCFA). Noise cancellation is included on both. In early October 2026, Amazon France was already showing €119 and €139 with a discount applied at checkout. In West and Central Africa, prices depend on resellers and imports.
How long does the AirPods 5 battery last?
With noise cancellation, Apple quotes up to 4 hours for the €149 model and up to 5 hours for the €169 one. Switch it off to get 6 and 7 hours. The case takes the total to 20 or 22 hours, and five minutes of charging give back around one hour of listening. It is the main criticism in published reviews.
Do the AirPods 5 work with an Android phone?
Yes, as standard Bluetooth earbuds: music, calls and basic controls on the stem. Apple, on the other hand, provides no Android app. You lose the settings, the equaliser, spatial audio, automatic pause, the native battery read-out, Live Translation and firmware updates. The AirPods 5 mostly make sense if you also use an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac.
AirPods 5 or AirPods Pro 3: which should you choose?
It all depends on your ears and your journeys. The AirPods 5 are open, light, very comfortable and cost €149 or €169. The Pro 3, at €249 before discounts, seal the canal with a tip: they isolate about three times better according to Apple, last eight hours and add a heart rate sensor. For flights and intense sport, take the Pro. For the office and calls, the open model is enough.
Are the AirPods 5 waterproof?
The AirPods 5 are certified IP57, against IP54 for the previous generation. That rating corresponds to protection against dust and to brief, shallow immersion. Sweat and rain are therefore no problem in principle. Apple does not intend them for swimming or the shower, and resistance decreases with wear.
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