Battery life earbuds: 4 hours 30 minutes
Battery life case: 20 hours
Wireless chargeable case? Yes
Available colours: White
Weight per earbud: 5.4g
Weight earbuds plus case: 56.4g
Noise-cancelling? Yes
Apple’s AirPods have been a success story since day one, outselling demand consistently for years. The latest version, AirPods Pro, might have been expected to end this state of affairs as the new version is pricier than many rivals. But, no, the Pros continue to sell out.
Set-up is extremely simple, for Apple device users: open the case, the iPhone or iPad, for instance, spots the Pros, and that’s it, they’re connected. It’s not as straightforward with Android users, but works find.
They are in every way stupendously better than the previous AirPods. First, there’s the fit. There are three sizes of silicone ear tips in the box, easily attached or swapped. You’re then encouraged to do what Apple calls the ear tip fit test: an app on the iPhone shows you how to do this. It then plays a short burst of music in your ears. Because there’s a microphone pointing inwards, it knows what it should hear in your ear and can tell if this means there’s a good fit or not. The app encourages you to try another tip or adjust the earbud to get a good seal – sometimes squeezing it into your ear can be enough to fix the issue.
The AirPods Pro earbuds have shorter stalks than regular AirPods and you can squeeze them to change tracks, adjust volume and so on. Or to turn noise-cancelling on or off.
Active noise-cancelling is the biggest upgrade on the Pro earbuds. That’s where a microphone listening to the outside world creates a noise that’s the opposite in phase. When this is fed in, the two noises cancel each other out, letting you hear the music with much less hindrance.
Active noise-cancelling is part science, part magic and when it’s done badly, it’s horrible. Luckily, Apple’s noise-cancelling is absolutely top-notch. It is powerful enough to mostly quell the overpowering sounds of a jet engine but still remains subtle and not intrusive. There’s also a neat feature, “transparency mode”, which means you can have a conversation with someone while still wearing the AirPods Pro. Transparency Mode reduces the volume of the music that’s playing and amplifies outside noises, including your own voice. Of course, it’s definitely more polite to remove your earbuds when you’re talking to someone. And if you remove one bud from your ears, the music pauses until you put it back.
Even without noise-cancelling turned on, the audio quality of AirPods Pro is spectacularly good, thanks to the seal provided by the ear tips. That fit is also good at keeping the earbuds in place.
When you’re switching from listening on your iPhone to your iPad or MacBook, say, then the software is smart enough to do that seamlessly.
You can call on the Siri virtual personal assistant just by saying, “Hey, Siri” – you don’t even need to touch the AirPods as was necessary on some earlier models. This is another way to change tracks or volume, with your voice, or to do other stuff.
Battery life is not as strong as on the Samsung Buds+ but more than adequate.
