

(Note that while the eartips on the regular AirPods do offer some level of noise reduction, they don’t seal the same way as the Pros.) That’s the surprising amount of isolation provided by the silicone ear tips even without an electronic assist. The thing that truly differentiates the Pros from the base model AirPods is the noise canceling tech, and like the previous-gen Pros, the new model has three distinct modes.
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And along with the option of wireless charging, Apple claims the next-gen Pros have a longer battery life, including a full 30 hours with Active Noise Canceling on, which is 6 hours better than their predecessor.

The case is now also splashproof and sweatproof like the earbuds themselves.

It now has a tiny speaker in the bottom so that you can ping it with the Find Me function that has helped to find countless iPhones. And whatever it lacks in style, it adds in some smart functionality. While the white hard plastic charger-which looks a lot like the case for the base AirPods on steroids-feels a little utilitarian for a high-end product, it is compact and easy to use. Apple also added new extra small ear tips so the second-gen Pros will fit more consumers. The earbuds themselves are quite lightweight and comfortable enough that I found it easy to forget I was wearing them, though your experience may vary. Ultimately, the similarities are a good thing, because the previous-gen Pros are a well-designed product.
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If you and someone else in your house keep a pair of the previous-gen AirPods Pro on the kitchen counter, you might take advantage of Apple’s free emoji engraving service to help make it clear whose case is whose. The earbuds and charger are about the same size, and the earbuds even use the same silicone tips. When I removed the second-gen Pros from Apple’s ubiquitous compact white box, they looked quite similar to the previous-gen Pros. Our testers didn’t give the original Air Pods a recommendation, for example, summing up the sound as "a bit boomy, grainy, and dry." The first-generation AirPods Pro fared better, earning a Very Good rating for sound quality on top of an overall recommendation, though the model doesn’t rank among the very top scorers in our ratings of noise-canceling wireless earbuds.ĭo the new Pros perform even better than their predecessors? Here’s what we learned after spending a few days with them.

The design is sleek-the downward-facing white stems quickly became something of a fashion icon-and Apple eliminated the pain point of some early wireless headphones with easy pairing, especially with iPhones and other Apple devices.īut in our labs, the early AirPods fared less well. The model is now available at Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Target, and other retailers nationwide.Īpple’s AirPods earbuds have been a commercial success from the very beginning, and with good reason. As always, Consumer Reports will be buying a pair of AirPods Pro through normal retail channels for the testing done in our labs and this story will be updated with our testing results. I requested a press sample from Apple to get an early look at the earbuds’ new features. On the other hand, a new variable noise canceling mode called Adaptive Transparency, which is supposed to attenuate the volume of loud noises, didn’t quite work as expected. All of those features more or less delivered on their promises during my evaluation.
