Beats Flex launched as a super-cheap way to get wireless headphones with iPhone-friendly fast-pairing and other handy features, costing just £49/US$49/AU$79. But now Beats (or Apple, its owner) has raised the price to £59/US$69/AU$99 quietly.
But if you were thinking of getting a pair and don't want to spend the extra cash, the good news is that in some places, they're still on offer for the old price! But that possibly won't last for long…
• See Beats Flex for US$49 at Amazon US (opens in new tab)
• See Beats Flex for £41 at Amazon UK (opens in new tab)
• See Beats Flex for £49 at Currys (opens in new tab)
• See Beats Flex for AU$72.45 at Amazon Australia (opens in new tab)
In our Beats Flex review, we said: "These connected wireless earbuds are a bargain, they have loads to offer for Apple users. You can hook them up to the Apple Find My network and you can share your audio with other Beats headphones and AirPods."
They do with with Android as well, just like regular Bluetooth headphones, but with iPhone, they give you more. And they'll probably be selling well over the next few months, as people buy the iPhone 13 and possibly need some headphones to match with them (since Apple doesn't include them in the box any more).
They're definitely among the best cheap wireless earbuds, and the price rise doesn't massively change that, but it's definitely better if you can save that money, right?
We're not sure why the price has gone up – it may be that the global chip shortage has mean they weren't profitable any more, or maybe there are other factors. We hope this isn't something we see across more of the best cheap headphones as Christmas approaches, but we'll see.