Earlier this morning, Apple released their brand-new AirPods Pro, that are priced at
$250 and are already available to order on their website.
So in this video, we’re going to tell you literally everything you need to know about
how they work and how they compare to the regular AirPods.
First off, the AirPods Pro come with a wireless charging case, so it’s actually just $50
more than the AirPods, and from the looks of it, you truly get a lot for the extra money.
They feature a brand new design, with a shorter stem, and they come with three sizes of silicone
ear-tips that plug into your ear, so they create a seal for better, deeper bass, and
they’ll have a better fit compared to regular AirPods, which don’t fit very well in some
people’s ear canals.
The vents on the outside of the Pro equalize pressure inside of our ear, so you’ll never
feel like your ears are plugged like you do with other silicone-tip earphones.
The stem is shorter and thicker than it was before, so you can easily tell when someone
has the AirPods Pro.
They offer some very cool features like active noise cancellation and active EQ tuning, which
I’ll talk about in a minute.
There’s also a new force sensor on the stem, which allows you to control all of your music
by pressing on it instead of tapping like before.
Press once to play, pause, or answer a phone call.
Press twice to skip forward. Press three times to skip backward.
And press and hold to switch between noise cancellation mode and transparent mode, which
basically uses the microphones to listen to ambient sound and play it into your ears,
sort of like the live listen feature.
There’s also Hey siri support for volume and music controls.
One of the biggest complaints of the regular AirPods was that they just didn’t sound
like a $200 pair of earphones, and it seems like Apple if fixing that.
Last year’s AirPods were only able to produce bass at a low-frequency of around 65hz, but
this year’s AirPods Pro can go all the way down to 20hz, which means seriously deep bass
reproduction.
The Adaptive noise cancellation uses microphones to listen to noise up to 200 times per second
and then the AirPods Pro send anti-noise signals to counter and eliminate it.
The Adaptive EQ feature uses microphones to automatically tune the sound to the shape
of your ear, so you get a wide soundstage, no matter how your ear canals are shaped.
The speaker driver uses the same technology as Apple’s HomePod to deliver distortion-free
bass, and the inward-facing microphone actually listens for distortion and then adjusts the
frequencies to make sure they never sound distorted.
Apple also boasted about their new high dynamic range amplifier, so the sound quality should
be improved as well.
AirPods Pro also come with the new H1 chip for reduced bluetooth lag, improved power
efficiency, support for Hey Siri, and a more stable connection.
This allows for things like streaming music to 2 separate pairs of AirPods from just one
iPhone that’s updated to iOS 13.
The AirPods Pro are also IPX4 sweat and water resistant, just like the Powerbeats Pro.
As for the battery life, you get the same 5 hours as the regular AirPods if you’re
not using the noise-cancellation features.
But if you are using them, the battery life only gets reduced by half-an-hour, which is
pretty impressive.
Not only that, but you actually get half an hour more talk time during calls than the
regular AirPods do.
And charging the AirPods Pro for just 5 minutes gets you an extra hour of listening time.
Now if you include the charging chase, you actually get over 24 hours of listening time,
just like the regular AirPods.
The case itself has actually gotten a little bit bigger. It’s the same thickness as before,
and it actually got a bit shorter, but it’s quite a bit wider than before. The main thing
is that it didn’t get thicker, so it’ll still fit comfortably in your pocket.
And it also supports wireless charging using any qi-compatible charger.
Unfortunately, the case uses a Lightning port for charging, but at least it comes with a
lightning to usb-c cable in the box for use with the new 18W USB-C charger than comes
with the iPhone 11 Pro.
And another interesting detail is that AppleCare+ is still the same exact $29 price as with
the regular AirPods.
They’re already available to order, and we’ll be getting our pair delivered this
Thursday, so if you want to see some in-depth testing videos, make sure to hit that subscribe
button.
So with all of those specs out of the way, let me give my personal thoughts on what matters
the most about the AirPods Pro, and if they’re actually worth the extra $50.
There were 3 main issues with the original AirPods, people didn’t like the long-stem
design, the unique shape didn’t fit all ear canals, so people who actually really
wanted AirPods couldn’t use them, and finally, the sound quality wasn’t as good as other
earphones in the same price range.
It now seems like Apple has attacked all three issues, shortening the stems, making the fit
customizable with 3 sizes of silicone tips, and they seem like they’ve worked on the
sound quality as well, especially with the new Adaptive EQ and Active Noise Cancellation
features.
The design itself has changed just enough with the new stem design, new black styling
on the outside and new case, so you can easily differentiate the AirPods Pro from the regular
AirPods.
Not only that, but the new “Pro” name will definitely help with marketing, making
the $250 price tag seem not as bad subconsciously, since you’re getting a “Pro” product.
You’re also getting some added features like water resistance and a much better control
system than before with the new force sensor.
I personally think the best part about these earphones is that they use the microphones
to actively adjust the frequency of sound as well as the noise cancellation so that
each user gets high-quality sound no matter how their ears are shaped.
That’s something you can’t get with any other earphones right now, and thanks to the
already-great reputation of the AirPods, especially for reliability, people know that the AirPods
Pro are going to work great!
Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below, and if you want to see us unbox the
AirPods Pro on thursday and compare them to the AirPods 2, click that circle above. Thanks
for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one!