every other headphone with active noise cancellation at least that I can
remember using has made some effort to passively isolate the user from outside
noise whether that's through Big over-the-ear Ear cups or through the ear
canals themselves and that is where the airpods 4S break the mold in a big way
they're available in two flavors one without ANC that looks a lot more like
traditional airpods and one with active noise cancellation in spite of the fact
that it doesn't use silicone ear tips like the airpods pros and my daily
driver airpods Pro 2s there's no reason that active noise cancellation can't
work in an open environment in fact years ago noctua demonstrated a concept
for a cooler that would actively generate sound waves that canel out the
waves from the spinning of the fan it's just that doing it is really hard hence
the reason that cooler never came to light let's have a look at what's included ah yes the bare minimum
documentation no stickers no charging cables nothing wow Apple minimalism it
really is your bag baby oh this is a pretty minimalistic feeling case though
I am liking that good gravy is this ever
small that is already a huge factor for
me in my decision to go with airpods Pro Twos for my daily driver but look at
this it's so much smaller it's even 10% smaller than the older airpods 3 case
and they've got some new features the stem has been updated with the same
pressure sensor that we used to find only on the Pro Models although not
missing is the touch sensor so while you can squeeze to play and pause or summon
Siri or whatever else it is that you want to do you can't swipe up and down
for volume control a feature that I personally use a lot they've added ip54
water resistance though that's a maor factor if you're a sweaty boy like me or
you live in a rainy environment like the Pacific Northwest and that's not just
the airpods themselves but also the charging case which is super cool it's
really light too and they've apparently adjusted the fit so they should be more
comfortable for more people now personally I'm always going to feel like
something that doesn't have a silicone tip is just going to go flying out of my
ears but with these that doesn't seem like a rational fear things are about to
get a little wild Andy you ready let's see if I can still do a handstand come
on make some noise all right let's
go
okay airpods Force still in now you be
looking at the new case and thinking wow that's cool and all but I bet they had
to remove a lot of features to make it that small and you'd be right but only
sort of if I compare to the top-of-the-line airpods Pro 2s you don't
have the wrist strap you don't have the speaker for find my you don't have
wireless charging which is sort of a downer in fact it doesn't even have a
convenient pairing button for those of us who uh don't use an iPhone and
therefore can't rely on just flipping open the lid nearby and hoping that it
will pair but that is only true of the
nonc model thec model not only has
active noise cancellation for another 50 bucks you also get the find my speaker
and you get wireless charging which seems like a pretty compelling value to
me though it's worth noting that the wireless charging isn't quite the same
as what we've come to expect allow me to demonstrate just like the airpods pro
twos it'll work on an Apple Watch charger
or on a CH compatible spot especially
one with mag safe but unlike the airpods pro tws it doesn't actually stay in
place on that mag safe charger so it'll
charge but it won't hold say if you wanted to charge it
vertically right I don't think that this was a malicious thing on Apple's part it
just seems to be down to the fact that the magnet array is so big that it just
wouldn't fit in this teeny tiny case so realistically that's the only major
thing that we gave up here that is unless you like having a pairing button or you like hanging little Jewels or
figurines off of your airpods case let's listen to them shall we oh but not until
after we thank our sponsor dbrand who oh
here it is sent over their new airpods
for grip case let's put one on just like
with their existing cases the application process is super easy you
just take off the adhesive cover throw this boy on a little something like
that last part's not necessary it's just fun and it's protected you can check out
their airpods for grip cases as well as they wide range of other products
including phone skins and cases console skins and cases and occasionally really
like random stuff they did a Rubik Cube ones who can even keep up with these
guys time to listen to these things conveniently I'm in the middle of my
daily drive and iPhone challenge it's going great by the way so pairing this
should be as simple as hey look at that
airpods not connected to this phone not yet they're not double tap it from the
charging case oh that's kind of cool who needs a pairing button now I canest the
noise cancellation the HVAC just kicked on as expected the nonc model has no
active noise cancellation and as I've come to expect from airpods very poor
passive noise isolation I can hear the HVAC in here as plain as I can hear the
sound of my own voice let's go ahead and
change gears a little bit yeah let's just temporarily share audio that is
super convenient
ha I was about to say
and it's trash and then it got a little bit better and then it got a lot better
and then I moved my head a little bit and it got way worse it takes a long
time to kick in compared to the airpods pro 2s yeah it's got the same H2 chip
but boy is it ever doing work when you don't have a good seal are my airpods
dead yeah I'm going to charge these I'll I'll BRB oh we're back recording again
and even something percussive like
that it gives it a weird Echo didn't do
nearly as much as the airpods pro 2s which Apple now says can be used as
hearing protection let's try switching them out now that these are
charged it's not as good but it's very
impressive something percussive right is going to penetrate these much more
easily because noise cancellation can't respond that quickly at least nothing
modern can but in terms of background drone these deal with it shockingly well
of course h fact is not the most challenging scenario
so to push them to the Limit a bit more
I've brought over some other devices oh god let's try a vacuum airpods Pro
twos mhm mhm mhm airpods
4C yeah looks like louder noises they're
going to struggle a fair bit more and another drug back is I get a bit more of
that pressure inside the skull feeling compared to the airpods pro 2s of course
having something is almost certainly better than nothing so let's throw
regular airpods in and uh yeah that's
horrible that's a vacuum sounds like a vacuum sounds of
course all of this is without me even playing any media so let's change that
up now I chose this because I wanted something with actual quiet Parts where
a background drone might bother me one of the nicest things about active noise
cancelling for me is that I don't have to turn up my media nearly as loud to
enjoy it at a moderate listening volume comfortable listening volume I have no
perception whatsoever of the background hum with the airpods pro 2s Oh weird the
transparency mode kicked in for my own speech for a second there and it was
amplifying my voice in my ears that was a little trippy with anything else going
on I wouldn't notice the difference the pro twos sound better but that's not bad
I'm a little surprised at how tight the base is for something that doesn't seal
it shouldn't surprise me that much given how good the speakers are on the latest
MacBooks and iPhones but could the airpods 4C be the Best of Both Worlds
you get the advantages of being able to hear the world around you but but
naturally not through the microphone and your headphones and then Amplified into
your ears and you get ANC that I would describe as good enough these do not
sound as good and I would say for the $50 difference unless you're the kind of
person who knows you're going to lose them all the time find my speaker is
probably going to pay for the Delta because if you're the kind of person who
loses things you don't want to spend as much maybe you should just get the one
that's less likely to be lost and these may be the very same drivers but without
thec you're not getting the same perceived Clarity out of them I thought
I was going to hate these they're not as comfortable for me they're fine and they
don't fall out obviously but it's the sound quality that I was expecting to
just not be up to par but Apple has done an outstanding job here not at making
the best possible you know almost $200
headphones certainly not but this is a great feature set and this is so small
like it's so packable you know like boom even in my hands looks
tiny there's a fair bit more to talk about here you get 5 hours on a single
Charge 4 hours withc and up to 30 hours
on a charge through the case according to Apple's claims and thanks to the H2
chip the airpods 4S are full of Apple's computational audio features like their
personalized spatial audio which personally I don't like but you might be
into it it really does give like a very wide Sound Stage I just find it feels
very processed so your mileage may vary as well as their adaptive EQ and voice
isolation so that your calls will be extremely clear hey speaking of which
Andy um I guess I should jump on a call with you call David yeah I can call
David sure on a call the inferiority of
the ANC is definitely more noticeable because there's no background music
there's there's no nothing it's just blank and also a little bit of static
because call Quality is not perfect so it kind of accentuates anything around
you uh oh uh how would you say the quality of my voice is right now I would
say the quality of your voice sounds pretty okay pretty okay how about now if
I was drilling something in the background uh how give me a rating out
of 10 6.5 out of 10 that's pretty darn
impressive but for our next trick I'm going to be switching over to my my
airpods Pro 2os to be clear I would expect both of these to be the same they
shouldn't have any difference in terms of their ability to pick up your own
voice oo unless they do I wonder if they have the same Hardware the same exterior
mic but they just have it turned off that would be such an apple thing to do
anyway here's the pros how's my audio quality right now it sounds a little
worse worse yeah so I've actually
noticed a thing my original airpods Pro 2os this is my second pair the quality
started out great for my mic and then over time people complained to me about
it more and more and more and I eventually replaced them for an unrelated reason I lost them and then
these ones started out great and I've started to get some complaints about
them so I don't know what if anything could degrade about them like am I
getting Shmo in the mics or something I I have no idea but it does seem like
they have gotten a little worse over time so the answer is Apple's pretty
good at handling background noise regardless of
which microphone you happen to be using at least in this Limited Test obviously
your mileage may vary the airpods fors have conversational awareness
theoretically allowing you to switch between active noise cancellation and
transparency mode so you can conduct a conversation the only issue I see is
that the airpods pro 2s having been around for a while a just got a really
cool firmware update that makes that additional $70 sound pretty compelling
since they can also be used as hearing protection and even a hearing aid and
number two they're often on sale when
you factor in the promotional pricing that you can find for airpods Pro 2
sometimes the difference between these two is not that much so instead of
looking like this if you compare them on in MSRP it ends up looking more like
this and that makes these a lot less compelling I would still take the
airpods pro 2s personally especially if it's only another 15 to
$35 but but at MSRP I think these are
the most compelling out of the three hope you guys enjoyed this video make sure you subscribe to ShortCircuit