Apple obviously did a great job with the new AirPods Pro and were excited to finally lay out hands on this great device. Gone are the days when the AirPods will be dropping right off your ears because it doesn’t fit right well and so slides off making it bad for workout and any activity that requires you moving continuously.
The new AirPods Pro offers a newer design which is awesome and great for a 2020 standard. The eartips makes the earbuds sit comfortably right into your ear providing the actual active noise cancellation which enhances your listening experience altogether. If you’ve ever wondered what the quality of the audio output of the AirPods Pro is then we might be able to offer you an honest insight into that.
But the reality remains that the AirPods are becoming more expensive but well its basically due to additional technology and software that makes them match up with our modern tech standard as far as modern days are concerned.
But take the earlier generation AirPods as an example, it costs about $150 which some thought of as being outrageous considering alternatives that did the job better but those older AirPods were very comfortable and despite that, they sold anyway making them one of Apple’s best selling products of the previous decade.
But then the new intro, the AirPods Pro which I obviously thought of as just being a gimmicky upgrade initially with an exorbitant price tag of $249 but then comes the important part of it, the active noise cancellation technology which was obviously missing in the previous generation. The earbuds uses microphones to listen to ambient sounds and then generate an opposite sound into your ear which in turn tunes down the surrounding noise which includes your talkative colleague who’s always making calls to her boyfriend or those car engines and so forth.
Still on the new technologies, the AirPods Pro also offer an interesting feature called the Transparency Mode which also use the earbuds microphones to listen to sounds around you then offering you those surrounding sounds more clearly despite listening to music. I personally found this feature to be completely useful considering some scenarios which might require you listen to the environment around you like your colleague who gossips about your new tuxedo.
The new Transparency Mode an be activated by holding down on a button at the stem of the AirPods Pro and voila you’re in transparency mode.
But with just two modes mentioned above for $249, you might wonder if the new AirPods Pro is a super upgrade from the normal AirPods. But because this is an upgrade which is obviously interesting, we might compare it with other expensive earbuds in the market today. The AirPods Pro still outshine so many of its competitors aside from its beautiful design which now includes an eartip that protrudes right into your ear canal therfore reinforcing the noise cancellation, its also comfortable and this time around, it won’t fall off.
There is the new Galaxy Earbuds, Amazon EchoBuds which is powered by Alexa technology and even the newer Jabra Elite 9T all which offers amazing audio quality. The designs of these earbuds are somewhat similar because of their shape which has no tail whatsoever unlike the AirPods Pro.
People had at some point made fun of the AirPods of looking like Apple’s wired earpiece with its wires cut off but then this new compact design on the Pro model features a much shorter tail which is really interwting but then we wonder how that will impact on the mouthpiece/microphone of the earbuds.
Apple AirPods Pro design
If anything is obvious, it’s the design of the new Apple AirPods Pro which although similar to the previous AirPods, it’s still far more unique in terms of its design.
While the eartip placement looks like the mouth of a goldfish, the tails is now obviously smaller and shorter and the controls are now tweaked meaning you’ll have to adjust to this new ie assuming you’re coming from previous generation.
As for the casing, we know the normal AirPods have really tiny casing which tits really well wherever you place them but the case of the AirPods Pro is slightly different because the casing is a bit bigger maybe because it supports the Qi-Wireless charging system as well giving the earbuds more juice to burn through.
But then we found that the casing is equipped with the lightning port and out of the box Apple is nice enough to imcude a lightning cable to USB Type-C cable which means you can use this with your iPhone and so forth.
There are optional eartips which can be switched on if the default one isn’t your size whatsoever. While the earbuds are completely white, it would have been interesting if Apple would consider some of us who likes plain black colors. There are platforms online that can help you tweak your AirPods Pro to whatsoever color you’d want it to be.
Another thing which isvlike a blessing and curse is the “Hey Siri” command with which you can ask Siri to control the volume for you. While this feature might sound nice, there are other downside to it such as not always responding to your commands, or worst the volume suddenly gets too loud or overtly quiet, sometimes it takes about four seconds for Siri to speak, confirm and activate the command which might even make you look absurd while you’re talking to your AirPods Pro.
A touch sensitive volume control would have been a great alternative on the earbuds which would have at least been a much better experience for users rather than having to bring their smartphones out everytime to control the volume or worst asking Siri to do it all the time.
AirPods Pro Pricing
The earbuds aren’t cheap and far more expensive than the previous generation AirPods without the Pro. Released on the 30th of October 2019 worldwide, its since been selling well.
And as of now the AirPods Pro costs about $249 / £249 / AU$399 – which is a considerable hike over the 2019 AirPods’ $159 / £159 / AU$249 (with the standard charging case), and even the $199 / £199 / AU$319 with the AirPods’ Wireless Charging Case bundled in.
Aside that, they still offer interesting features such as the aforementioned electronic active noise cancellation system and the transpency mode but if that’s not enough to you, other interesting features which are more hardware based includes the interesting design which now introduces the eartips.
Sound Quality of the AirPods Pro
Aside fitting right well right into the ears, the AirPods Pro sounds really awesome. With improved software which now offers a high quality bass with high and cleared out frequencies as well as adaptative equaliser.
Listening to varieties of songs using the AirPods Pro showed absolutely high-quality results. Listening to genres such as Hip hop, Rock and Pop, the vocals are always clear while the bass are obviously better than the previous AirPods
Like any other super expensive over-ear headphones, the Apple AirPods Pro did performed awesomely well comparing close enough to these category of headphones. The detailed quality of the audio experience is what I really find intriguing and that I’d probably what anyone would want to experience.
Apple is definitely creating a much better experience with which a well balanced out vocal and bass elements conjoined creating a much hi-fi audio quality. While some audiophiles might still not find the sound coming from the AirPods Pro very natural enough, it’s worth noting that for a $250 worth True Wireless Bluetooth earbuds, the performance is far beyond mediocrity.
Battery life
No matter the quality of audio the AirPods Pro produces, what is even more essential is how long the battery lasts. But with the casing, it gives you a 24 hours of listening time when it’s fully charged but a single charge of a pair of the AirPods Pro earbuds will give you about 4.5 hours of listening despite turning on either the Active Noise Cancellation or the Transparency Mode features on. But with both of those features turned off, you’ll get a massive 5 hours of juice to enjoy.
These numbers are pretty accurate in real-world use – you’ll never really use the AirPods without either noise cancellation or Transparency on, but when flipping them in and out of the case you’ll rarely hit a dead battery.
But what’s even more interesting assuming you are the type that never tucks the earbuds back into the charging case for whatever reason leading to the battery dying, Apple claimed that a five minute quick charge will give you at least one hour of listening time. But a real life experimentation showed that the battery got 35% from 0% in those 5 minutes charge which worked for slightly more then one hour though still within that range.
Despite being a very premium earbuds, the AirPods Pro casing has no battery percentage indicator, a feature which exists in many Chinese budget-friendly true wireless earbuds on the market. Some even go as far as having an LED display which indicates the number of batter percentage while others use just LED indicators.
That doesn’t mean the AirPods Pro doesn’t show battery percentage whatsoever, you just have to go through a longer process before assessing it such as visiting the battery widget else the only color you’re going to be seeing is the tiny dotted green LED on the earbuds casing.
Its quite rare before the casing was overused over the week which means charging it might take nothing more than a single or twice in a week despite over using the earbuds themselves
As for charging the casing, Apple was generous enough to include a USB-C to Lightning cable along with the AirPods Pro meanwhile there is no power breaker meaning you’re either going to need to buy an iPhone or a Macbook to be able to use their box unless you could get a USB-C IN charger out in the market.
But though the charging case can be wirelessly charged which is an added value. So being able to just place your iPhone along with the AirPods Pro on a wireless charger and then in the morning grabbing your stuffs is really an interesting thing which we’d recommend. Anyways, it’s left for you to decide on that.
Should you buy it?
Yes you should upgrade to the AirPods Pro because it fits much better and doesn’t fall off your ear everytime you bed to pick up your pen or lace your shoes.
And if you’re an iPhone user and want the feel it high quality sounds with convenience then you might pick up the AirPods Pro. Though doesn’t offer the overtly best quality audio in the world, it definitely work efficiently which balances out nice audio quality with premium experience altogether.
Doctors usually warn against wearing overtly tight earpieces because of the long-term damage they could cause to your hearing. But being able to record how many decibels that your earbuds send into your inner ear can help you understand how to tune things down a bit in order to not hurt yourself. The AirPods Pro offers such incredible feature with which you can get the best out of your earbuds and experience a healthy listening experience at the same time.