I’ve never been a fan of in-ear headphones or buds.
It’s simple - I hate rubbery endings entering my ear canal and I somewhat feel violated
every time I try to stick something in my ears.
Plus, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I get the itches after awhile.
For that very reason, I’ve been a huge of Apple’s standard AirPods and not the Pro
model.
Although I felt tempted to purchasing them on more than one occasion, spending $250 for
something that will eventually be thrown away, especially when knowing I probably won’t
like it, made no sense to me.
A month ago, however, I received the AirPods Pro as a gift, so naturally, I got excited
and ditched my regular AirPods in order for me to dive into the Pro world.
A month and I half later I have a conclusion - I was wrong...and then I was right but for
a reason that I didn’t expect.
Let me explain.
Hey guys, this is E, and if you are new to the channel, welcome.
My name is Iskren, and most people call me E, and at first, the AirPods Pro got me very
excited because of their noise-canceling feature.
As someone who gets migraines, having a busy life and children, finding the personal quite
time is as essential sometimes as drinking water.
This is where noise-canceling comes very handy, however, when my head feels as if it’s going
to explode wearing over-ear headphones like the Sony wh-1000xm3 or 4...or Bose QC35, feels
as if someone has put my head into a vice clamp so you can imagine I my high hopes for
the AirPods Pro and their noise-canceling capabilities.
I gotta be honest, they are not as noise-cancellingy as a good pair of over-ear headphones, but
surprisingly they manage to get rid of the background noise admirably given their insignificant
size.
Also, the pass-through vents help keeping the in-ear pressure at normal, unlike most
buds, which is awesome.
The sound quality that comes from them is good, nothing too exciting tho, maybe a bit
better than the regular AirPods..., especially in the low frequencies.
Some say that they sound better than the regular AirPods mainly because of the noise-canceling
feature but I am more focused on the new Special Audio feature that will be introduced only
on those Pro models.
The case itself is a bit bigger and taking the pods out is a new muscle memory that you
need to acquire if you had the regular AirPods in your possession before.
Again, nothing unexpected or disappointing.
Still one of the smallest cases on the market and still just as white.
The case is wireless charging enabled but you need to keep it sideways for some of the
vertical chargers out there.
Battery life is as expected - around 4.5 hours on a single charge and 24 hours overall with
the case.
I never manage to go above what Apple claims to handle on a single charge because honestly,
I can’t stand any buds or Pods for that long anyway.
This is where things get weird.
The regular AirPods sort of rest on your ear pinna or whatever it’s called, and sit like
little hooks once placed in.
This is why there are people who can’t wear them, because of the shape of their ears.
The AirPods Pro, don’t rest on your ear like a hook, but rather stay in place by the
means of the ear tip.
It’s a bit difficult to explain, but basically the seal that is created when you insert the
AirPods Pro is what keeps them in place.
They don’t necessarily lean or rest on any part of your ear.
In the box, the Pro’s come with additional ear tips which are probably the cheapest Apple
product you can buy right now, coming to you at $7.99.
By default, the AirPods are preinstalled with the middle-sized ones.
As per the recommendation I stating using them with the M size right away.
I was surprised that they felt so soft in my ears as if I had some small pieces of clouds
stuck inside.
For the first time, I didn’t feel violated and I actually loved how they felt.
Of course, I don’t know if it’s just me, but the occasional itches came along as I
kept wearing them, but nothing too annoying.
After few days of wearing them just as I am used to wearing my regular AirPods, I came
to the conclusion that the M size is not for me - because they would fall down every once
and a while.
So I switched to the S size and ran the AirPods seal test.
Unfortunately, the S size was too small to make a good seal thus ruining not only the
noise-canceling experience but the overall sound as well.
So, I switched to the largest ear tips, and at first, that was it.
They fit snug and life was great again.
30 minutes in and they started falling down with even more passion.
I’ll tell you why.
When on the move or even when static, the ear tends to sweat.
Although the largest tips were making a great fit and were staying in place at first, after
the first sign of sweat I could feel the AirPods gently leaving the premises of my ear and
if I was to smile, I might even pop them out like a bottle of champagne.
To test further, I switched back to the M size again and in fact went into an AirPods
tip replacement marathon trying to figure what was wrong.
No matter what I tried, every time I smiled I was risking of losing an AirPod Pro or two
somewhere.
So yeah...they don’t work on my ears or in my ears.
Why am I saying all that?
$250 is a lot of money these days so if you can try and borrow or somehow test the AirPods
Pro before you buy them to do that because you don’t want to waste that much cash with
uncertainty in mind.
If you are lucky to live in a place where you can return them after purchase, then that’s
great, but if you can’t or you are like me and you have doubts, maybe just go for
the regular AirPods or maybe try the PowerBeats Pro.
As for my AirPods Pro...my wife is very happy.
It’s been an absolute pleasure,
This is E
Over & Out