- RATING
The AirPods Pro 3 would have to be one of the best earphones money can buy right now with superb audio quality, unrivalled active noise cancellation and remarkable Live Translation. That’s a feature set that’s hard to top.
As I write this review of Apple’s new AirPods Pro 3 naturally I’m wearing them while listening to music – but in my office there’s a floor standing Philips fan turned up to its highest setting and 55-inch LG OLED TV at its normal volume – and I can’t hear either. I can only hear the music.
Apple said when it unveiled the AirPods Pro 3 that the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) was the best of any in-ear wireless headphones. And I must say I have to agree.
The AirPods Pro 2 I thought had amazing ANC so when Apple made this claim about the AirPods Pro 3 my first thought was how do you improve something that in my mind couldn’t be improved.
But somehow Apple did it. And it’s absolutely amazing.
Apple says it has 2x better ANC than the AirPods Pro 2 and 4x more noise removed. It certainly sounds like it – or should we say DOESN’T sound like it.
What is helping the AirPods Pro 3 is the new foam-infused ear tips but it’s the ultra-low noise microphones and advanced computational audio that’s doing the heavy lifting.
So if it can make a big fan sitting two metres away disappear auditorily imagine what it can do to the background sounds of your next flight and your commute and in your office.
But the ANC is but one part of the AirPods Pro 3 offerings which also include stunning improved audio quality, spatial audio and head tracking along with the newest feature – Live Translation. And it can also track your heart rate.
The AirPods Pro 3, powered by Apple’s H2 chip, have had a slight design tweak to make them more comfortable for more users and give them a more secure fit so they stay in place when we’re exercising, training in the gym and running and walking.
The AirPods Pro 3 also have an IP57 sweat and water rating so you don’t have to hold back with your training.
And because so many people wear their AirPods when exercising the new AirPods Pro 3 can now track your heart rate using a custom photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor.
It does this by shining an invisible infrared light pulse 256 times per second to measure light absorption in blood flow.
The AirPods Pro 3 can also detect when you start up to 50 workouts thanks to the sensor fusion from the AirPods Pro 3’s accelerometers, gyroscope, GPS and a new on-device AI model on iPhone.
Whenever we walked with the AirPods Pro 3 it did use the in-ear sensor to detect our heart rate. Apple says if you have AirPods Pro 3 and Apple Watch – the Health app will be able to take readings from both devices to improve accuracy.
The other part of the design change is new multi-port acoustic architecture which controls airflow and how it carries sound into your ear.
The audio quality of the AirPods Pro was already unquestionably high but Apple’s audio wizardry has raised the bar with even higher clarity, warmth and a larger scale.
It is truly extraordinary.
We listened to all kinds of music that showcased the abilities of the AirPods Pro 3 which could detail precisely guitar strings and keys on a piano while delivering an absolute knock out with the bass on the drop of a DJ set.
While we know audio quality can be quite subjective, we can all agree there has been a noticeable improvement across the board with the AirPods Pro 3.
The impressive new feature is Live Translation which allows users to hear real time conversations translated in your ear in English.
At the moment it only works with English (UK and US), French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.
To test it we looked up videos on YouTube in Spanish.
We squeezed both AirPods Pro stalks to place the earphones into translation mode and pressed play on the YouTube video.
Within seconds of hearing the video, the AirPods Pro were delivering the English translation in our ear.
And it also was being transcribed in real time on our iPhone’s screen so you can see as well as hear the translation.
The computational audio comes in to play again with help from Apple Intelligence and it’s nothing short of brilliant.
And we’re expecting more languages to become available in the near future.
The AirPods Pro 3 also have Conversation Awareness so if it detects you talking it will automatically turn down the volume of what you’re listening to and turn it up again when your chat is over.
On the battery side, the AirPods Pro 3 offered eight hours of playback – and that’s even with ANC turned on. That’s a 33 per cent improvement over the AirPods Pro 2.
The AirPods Pro 3 are available now and are priced at $429.
VERDICT
The AirPods Pro 3 would have to be one of the best earphones money can buy right now with superb audio quality, unrivalled active noise cancellation and remarkable Live Translation. That’s a feature set that’s hard to top.
