If you have an iPhone and are thinking about going full wireless in regards to your earbuds, this Apple AirPods Pro review is a perfect option for you to clear up any confusion.
The updated noise-canceling mode is helpful, as well as the increased overall enhancements to audio and appearance are much appreciated, but, of course, they are very expensive.
The Apple AirPods Pro offers aggressive noise cancellation and a better build than the initial AirPods, which is why they appear to be the best Apple headsets available today.
Besides, at $249 / £249 / AU$399, they are still very expensive, and as such, they cannot be considered the best wireless headphones available, although coming nearly close to being one. However, a proposed entry-level variant of these Apple earbuds – the AirPods Pro-Lite – might alter that.
Although the fit is stronger than the initial AirPods, you’ll have to get used to operating them with the multi-touch, touch-sensitive edge on each tip – it takes little getting used to, but it is a cool way to trigger noise cancellation and avoid songs that you don’t like.
Apple AirPods Pro – An Ideal Option for iPhone Users
If you’re an iPhone user searching for some well-fitting wireless earbuds with decent sound output, AirPods Pro is your answer – the upgrade makes them much less likely to fall out, and the added microphones offer strong noise-canceling (especially while commuting), as well as a handy Transparency feature, which lets the outside world in.
The AirPods Pro’s sound quality has changed from the older design – there’s a noticeable focus on vocals including bass, which means these earbuds are safer for pop lovers than most of those who want a more realistic experience that lends itself through folk songs and perhaps more orchestral rhythms.
The battery performance is excellent, and we noticed that the quoted 4-5 hours from a full charge was factual. However, we suggest charging the case daily, since you can be caught off guard, if the case unexpectedly runs out of electricity.
The AirPods Pro is the result of several years of work into a solid audio device if you want the latest headphones Apple has produced. There are improved true wireless earbuds available, but for Apple fans and iPhone users (who can afford them), these are an excellent option.
Let’s explore Apple Airpods Pro with respect to more details:
Apple AirPods Pro – Release Date and Price
30th October 2019 was the day when the AirPods Pro got released internationally. You can easily buy them from your nearest Apple shop or other Apple-certified retailers. Apple AirPods Pro hit the markets with a price tag of 250 bucks. The price for sure has jumped.
The 2019 model of the AirPods costs about 159 bucks. However, one thing to note over here is that the newer model is not a replacement for the older one. You might be thinking that it is too pricey right?
Well, fortunately, a less expensive model of the AirPods is rumored to hit the market soon; AirPods Pro Lite. This will cost you a bit less, maybe more, the exact price tag is not here yet so we can’t say anything about it.
Let’s set it up
The best thing about the AirPods pro is that it fits up in your ear perfectly. Like all the other official gadgets of Apple, the AirPods Pro can simply get connected to your iPhone or whatever you have, instantly. Just open up the case and you’re good to go.
Oh and by saying “simply” we mean to say that you must have the IOS 13.2 or above in your primary Apple device. Only then, you will be able to ‘simply’ connect your AirPods along with availing all the features that it offers. For example, you can control the noise cancellation feature and the transparency directly from your iPhone’s control center.
Initially, you will have to activate and pair the AirPods with your phone. Next, the AirPods will automatically link up with your iCloud account, and boom! Now you don’t need to connect them separately with your other Apple devices again and again. Once it gets paired up, it remains connected till eternity!
Now, after getting connected, upon opening the Bluetooth settings your AirPods will examine the fitting. It will check whether the earbud size that you’ve chosen is perfectly sealing your ears or not. Doing so is pretty essential as it greatly affects the overall sound quality. The passive sound reduction is achieved by creating and maintaining a perfect seal in your ear canal.
You’ll then hear a short chunk of music. This means that the AirPods pro’s mic is examining the sound (it assesses how the music should sound) internally. When you see the green letters, know that you have passed the assessment.
One more feature it has which will show you that these AirPods are very “Apple-ish”. If you want to change the tips of your earbuds, you don’t need to wiggle the tip and hope for it to come off. The tips just click off or click on to their place. There are these little clips on the stem which provide constant support to the tips of the earbuds. The earbuds are made up of silicon and they are replaceable, however, 4 bucks for one earbud is a little pricey.
You will surely have to get used to taking the earbud tips off because, to be honest, they don’t come off easily, you’ll have to learn the trick behind it through practice. Once you reach the Pro level, it will be a piece of cake. However, you don’t need to take them off every day though. Just remove them when you need to clean them up, otherwise, let them be.
Compact Design and Easy Usage
Let’s talk about the design. The new Apple AirPods pro is very light in weight. Like they do not weigh at all. This right here is a good as well as a bad aspect. Good in the sense that when you put them on, you won’t be able to feel a thing, the comfort is surely present. Bad in a sense that when you put them on, you won’t be able to feel a thing – when and if they fall off.
The older design of the AirPods had a long stem, so it was easier for you to skip the tracks that you don’t like. Well, now the stem is much shorter, so you’ll need to get used to it for activating Siri and skipping songs.
Here’s a catch. Forget about getting used to it. Apple has intelligently installed a capacitive force sensor in the stem of the AirPods pro. In that specific area of the stem where the capacitive force sensor is present, if you squeeze it, you can easily skip and jump through tracks. Through that sensor, you can also activate the transparency and the noise cancellation feature.
But, all this will require some practice (5 to 10 minutes max) before it becomes your second nature. The AirPods are compact though so initially you will feel funny while pulling them out of your ears. Give it a week or so, it won’t even matter after that.
It would have been much convenient if the haptic click was installed in the AirPods. It would have made the whole experience tactile and smooth. Anyways, the sensor which is present on the ridge of AirPods can be used for different tasks.
A plus point here is that you can assign a different function to each AirPod separately. For instance, the activation of Siri can be assigned to the left one and skipping of tracks to the right one.
One more thing! The music automatically stops once you take off the AirPods. They have 2 components. An accelerometer and an optical sensor. Both of these components work together and allow the music to play by itself once you put them on.
The AirPods pro, due to their lightweights will not fall off from your ear, so don’t worry if you are jogging or doing any other exercise. However, the tips of the AirPods are made up of silicon, hence it does get slippery because of the sweat and you may feel that they are slipping off but don’t you worry because once you wear them up, the seal makes sure that the AirPods stay intact with your ears.
Talking about sweat, the Apple AirPods pro is IPX4 water-resistant. It means that they’ll work if you are out taking a walk on a rainy day. The performance will not deteriorate.
Remember with the old pods, how they were so sensitive to external contact? Like even the smallest contact with anything (coat, hairbrush, bag strap) used to slide them away. Well, the AirPods pro is so well fit that these issues are now long gone.
All in all, it is a great experience when you use the Apple AirPods pro. Yes, they are expensive but they are also very well engineered. The design is compact and the comfort-related tweaks that Apple has performed over them add to the music experience and quality.
Sound Quality, Noise Cancellation, and Transparency
To be honest, it doesn’t matter how the gadget looks if the sound quality is trash. Thankfully, Apple has successfully installed custom drivers and they have also improved the bass quality. The middle and high frequencies are now much clearer, plus, the equalizer is adaptive too!
When we tested them by listening to songs from different genres, we noticed the bass has become more powerful and the vocals sound rich. At least, better than the AirPods 2.
One thing though. Listening to music through AirPods pro will make you feel like the music is being played inside of your head. This will annoy you at first because your brain is not used to working this way. The music you hear always comes from all angles, not from inside your head.
So, if you compare them with the on-ear headphones, you will automatically notice the difference.
The noise cancellation is however very powerful and useful as well. You can turn this feature on by simply heading towards the control center in your iPhone or you can just squeeze the sensor on the stem and it will turn on accordingly. Also, you can toggle it on or off from your Apple watch too. This depends upon your preference of course.
So, in the AirPods, there are 2 microphones present. These mics analyze the internal as well as the external sounds. The internal mic checks to see if you are hearing the music in a way that Apple has promised you or not, while the external one helps in canceling out the background noise. So, both of the mics work together. One alters the sound internally and the other one makes sure that the outside noise remains outside. Collectively, they produce a noticeable difference.
The noise cancellation however cannot shut off all types of sounds. For instance, being in an office environment you’ll still hear some sounds here and there but the constant sounds like the sound of cars swishing off while you take a walk on the road get completely blocked off and the noise of fan or wind gets blocked off completely giving you an out of the world experience.
Talking about transparency. This feature allows the AirPods to let the external sound pass through the seal with the help of a mic. The feature is very well implemented. It is very subtle too, like when you turn it on, the outside noise never comes crashing down onto your cranium. It slowly fades in and out. This experience is amazing because now you don’t need to take the AirPods off every time someone is trying to have a conversation with you. You can still listen to the music while having a conversation so that’s pretty cool.
You all might have seen the ads for the AirPods pro. In the ad, they show you that the transparency feature can be turned on or off through a simple swipe over the capacitive sensor right? Don’t believe them. It is not true at all. In reality, you will have to keep your fingertip forcefully on the sensor for a long time to activate the transparency feature.
Still, the feature is easy to use but it is different from what you might have seen in the ads.
Another thing we did notice: if you intend to use the AirPods Pro to take calls whenever you are outside, you will find that you partially fail while noise cancellation is enabled.
This appears to be because while the sound is more inclusive, one automatically drops their voice, which prevents microphones from catching up your voice as effectively as they should.
Upon turning the transparency on, the world automatically comes back to life. You will be able to hear yourself digitally and hence this will make you speak louder. While many people can have conversations smoothly with the new AirPods pro, a lot of you may still find it comfortable to talk with the traditional way of talking through phones.
AirPods pro being a good guy/gal here tells you about your hearing health too. The same amount of volume is sent to both of the ears when you use them so with the help of your phone you can see if the sound that you are hearing is too loud or not.
The volume that gets pumped into the ears while listening to songs is also controlled by the AirPods. The noise cancellation can allow you to drop the level of the sound while giving you the same audio quality. This feature makes the Apple AirPods pro better than its predecessors and even the fellow products like the original AirPods pro or the powerboats pro.
Apple AirPods Pro Battery Review
The next thing to review is definitely the battery. The AirPods pro comes with a charging case. This case gives you a good 24 hours listening time if and when it is charged to the max capacity. As stated by Apple, the overall battery life of the AirPods Pro is up to 5 hours of listening to music. If you turn the transparency and the noise cancellation on, the time will be cut down to 4 and a half hours. And, the on-call talking time is about 3 and a half hours because the mic is being used while you are on the call.
The charging case is pretty helpful because it makes sure that whenever you are in the mood of listening to some music you find your AirPods fully charged up, ready to groove you up. also, the charging hours and the battery timings are accurate too. Just, don’t forget to charge your case.
The charging case is mildly inconvenient in a way that it’s difficult to tell how much battery is left in it. When you remove the AirPods, you can head over to your iPhone’s battery widget to see how much battery is left, but otherwise, you’re stuck staring at the little LED on the front, which is only either green or amber.
If your new AirPods Pro dies, Apple says you’ll get one hour of listening time with just five minutes of charging, but we considered it to be a bit stingy – chucking them in the charging case from dead yielded 35 percent battery life, which was a little more than an hour’s usage.
Just one hour of listening time for a five-minute charging time when the fresh AirPods Pro dies, Apple claims, but it was a little stand-offish – chucking them from the dead battery in the charging case brought about the battery life of 35 percent, a little more than one hour.
Well, normally you will have to charge the AirPods case only 2 times a week after using them daily. However, it would have been so convenient if the charging case indicated whenever the battery was about to run out.
Apple just being Apple has inconveniently placed a USB-C to lightning cable in the charging case. So if you already own an iPhone 11 pro or the new MacBook you are good to go, if not, sadly you’ll need to arrange a charging block.
Thankfully, Apple has provided a standard lightning cable so you can easily charge up the case with the help of a laptop. Also, the charging case of the AirPods Pro can be charged wirelessly too. So, just put it on the charging pad and it will charge up accordingly. That way you will also be contributing to the ecosystem.
Buy them if
- You are an iPhone user who likes to balance sound quality with comfort. Although AirPods Pro isn’t the best sound on the market, they are very decent and they fit with an iPhone to a great degree.
- You want to take care of your ears. It is an often-overlooked feature, but it helps you realize how much harm you are doing to your long-term hearing by recording the number of decibels in your skull. It’s only one tool for preventing hearing loss during a more intense battle, but Apple’s headphones give you even more information about it.
- The initial original AirPods are no more fit for you. This is the biggest reason we liked the new AirPods because they are much snugger and better than the previous ones and they are much more likely to last.
Don’t buy them if
- You are an exercise addict. We’d suggest a lot of other wireless odds for training – the Powerbeats Pro, for instance, is a good pick, or better-fit Jabra Elite Sports. Check out more on the latest running headphones.
- You don’t like real wireless headphones. There is another point here to speak about: maybe you don’t have true wireless. You might still be concerned about the noise because they don’t keep the ears warm – check the other wireless headphones if you want to feel the best match for you.
- You are sensitive when it comes to money. The Apple AirPods Pro is pretty expensive. If you don’t have a problem with Apple offering the better earbuds, check out other true wireless earbuds or consider the older AirPods, they’re still a good option.
We certainly hope that this Apple AirPod Review has eliminated all the confusion and second thoughts. stay tuned for more!