now apple already refreshed the airpods earlier this year but only with an extra
hour of talk time and a wireless charging case accessory and in our
review we asked apple to address some of the other annoyances that we have with
their original iconic design and believe
it or not guys apple actually listened to us
i mean obviously they couldn't admit something like that publicly
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let's start with the biggest change apple makes in-ears now eliminating one
of the best non-ear canal invading options on the market well i mean
actually it's not eliminated you can still buy the non-pro air pods on
apple's website but then you'd be walking around with visibly old air pods
which pretty much defeats the purpose doesn't it you don't want to look like a
commoner do you actually no you don't
because this change in design means that the sound quality of the airpods pro is
greatly improved now that the earbud can form a proper seal with the ear it's
unclear whether the better audio is mostly due to that seal or the updated
speaker design but regardless the new airpods pro has fuller mids and more
bass all without being overpowering overall i'd say they sound about as good
as some of the other wireless ear puds that we ear puds this is what happens
when i can't hear myself talk i put these in overall they sound about as
good as some of the other wireless ear pads we
well that clearly wasn't the problem overall they sound about as good as some
of the other wireless earbuds we had on hand although you can really notice a
difference when comparing the airpods pros directly with audiophile options
like the sennheiser momentums interestingly apple's own powerbeats pro
appear to have less punch in the mids and lows than the new airpods pro which
could be part of why the powerbeats pros have dropped from 249 to 200 on the
apple store swapping quickly back and forth between the airpods pros and the
galaxy buds though thanks to Android 10's awesome new bluetooth output
switching feature we'd say the audio quality was honestly a bit of a toss-up
so then why are we so positive about this how does apple justify the airpods pros
being a hundred and twenty dollars more well part of the answer is that the
airpods pro have active noise cancellation a new feature that apple
invented just for this product sorry no that
that's been a thing for a long time but you wouldn't actually guess it based on
apple's marketing which calls the airpods pro a new class of headphones
in case you're not in the loop headphones with anc use outward-facing
microphones to detect consistent external sounds like background noise
they then create an equal and opposite audio signal which cancels out the first
one it usually works great in environments that are noisy in a
consistent way like the cabin of an aircraft but when it comes to
unpredictable punctuated sounds like human voices it tends to struggle where
apple says that they've innovated is by also equipping the airpods pro with
inward facing microphones to detect sound inside your ear canal to ensure
that the active noise cancellation is working correctly apparently the airpods
pros sample audio 200 times per second
and then adjust the amc so you're only hearing what you're supposed to hear
now granted to my knowledge there's only one other pair of in-ear wireless
earbuds on the market with active noise cancellation and that's the sony wf-1000
mx3s so while the airpods pros may not be
breaking entirely new ground they're certainly entering a somewhat exclusive
club and probably introducing this concept to millions of consumers for the
first time so is it any good well for a first
effort i will say you know actually you know what forget
it not just for a first effort the anc on the airpods pros is
pretty fantastic it activates as soon as you put them in even if you haven't
paired them to anything yet and hearing the sound of the world just kind
of get sucked away is always cool it's
it's like those scenes in movies where the protagonist realizes something
totally crazy like wait
this is an apple product that i like
now of course this feeling is similar to the effect that you'll have heard if
you've used full-size headphones with anc before but it's also different in a
way that's kind of hard to describe like there's something special about having
that anc effect while only feeling a small pressure in your ear canals
instead of a giant clamp on your head i also found that the
like the brain pressure sensation that some people describe feeling while using
noise cancellation was very subtle on these compared to many of the over ears
that i've used in the past perhaps due to apple's included pressure
equalization vents another huge plus for the airpods pro is comfort
many wireless earbuds including apple's own powerbeats pro use hooks braces and
rubber doohickeys in order to secure themselves in place leaving you feeling
like there's a a small creature kind of holding onto
the side of your head for dear life but the airpods pro much like their
non-in-ear cousins almost seem to just kind of
rest or float in your ear
it's hard to say whether it's the extraordinarily lightweight the
excellent force distribution or even just the shorter stems but the
experience overall is well it's kind of magical on that subject while many
wireless earbuds allow users to tap on them or slide on them for controlling
their music the airpods pro have a new control method you pinch the force
sensor in the airpod stem once short or
long twice or three times with the default being a long press for
transparency mode but that can be reconfigured to summon siri if you're
not comfortable with being like hey siri to no one when you're walking around in
public you can also turn anc features off all
together by long pressing on the volume slider but not on the airpods pros but
rather in the iOS control center there's no such option on Android i'm afraid and
there are a handful of other Android pleb inconveniences including no first
party battery life reporting or support for remapping the four sensors to summon
google assistant fortunately though for us plebs
Android is infinitely customizable and there's an app for that
and honestly we think there's a good reason
to go through the hassle of tracking down an app the airpods pro give up
nothing of the everyday usability of the regular airpods though with that said
anc does cut your per charge listing time down by half an hour and they
otherwise improve on them in every way
and while you could say well the case is bigger and that kind of sucks i actually
disagree i recently started daily driving powerbeats pros when the galaxy fold
seduced me over to the no headphone jack side and i really liked everything about
them except that the case was simply not
pocketable so it was always inconvenient to get them i had to go and grab my
backpack the airpods pros by contrast yeah
they're bigger than the airpods but they easily fit not just in your pocket but
in that small extra pocket that keeps them from bumping or scratching your
phone or getting scratched by your keys so they're bigger but they're just as
compact as a rolled up pair of wired earphones anyway and wireless charging
feels pretty much like chucking my earphones onto my nightstand
so this size has made the transition a lot
easier if i had to make a decision based on price though well the galaxy buds are
similar sounding and just over a hundred bucks if you can live with some audio
latency issues and the anker sound core liberty 2 pros are a better sounding
option for a hundred dollars less if you can live without anc
or social status and that's kind of it in a nutshell i could recommend a dozen
other things but every single one of them would have a caveat
in my opinion these are hands down the most refined combination of sound
quality comfort and ease of use and they are absolutely my go-to's at this point
even if that's only because dbrand paid for them for me
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video description these things really are great uh
speaking of great if you think our videos are great you should watch one of
our other videos oh yeah where we rounded up a bunch of cheaper
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this thank you dbrand