Design & Construction

Ever since the AirPods Pro first launch into the true wireless market many years back, it has been the benchmark go-to for every single one of its competitors. Well, today the bar is finally raised yet again with the AirPods Pro (2nd Generation). Can it live up to the hype that Apple has created? Well, there is only one way to find out. Following the philosophy of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it', Apple literally kept the aesthetics as well as the dimensions the same since its design has proven itself to be timeless and yes, one of the smallest case still. Like the originals, the case of the new AirPods Pro 2 has a lanyard slot for us to attach any lanyard of our choice to the right side of the case. It is indeed a handy feature that many of us have been using unknowingly by buying third-party case in the past with some form of slot to attach a lanyard and hand our AirPods to the side of our pants for convenience. However, do note that sadly Apple does not include any lanyard in the package nor sells any official 'Made By Apple' lanyards for diehard fans. The new case is now also said to be IPX4 certified for water-resistance. Now like all other Apple devices, the AirPods Pro 2 earbuds and case now has the new U1 chip built-in for Find My tracking that helps you locate your devices' exact location alongside Precision Finding for guided direction. Both the case and earbuds can make audible tones too and they are plenty loud for one to hear in a regular home. Certainly. I would say it is a pioneering feature for the case to make audible tones that we will potentially see other companies follow suit in the near future. To add to that experience, the sounds can also help indicate if the case is attached properly to a charger when docked or plugged in and you may turn that off in the settings if you want. Just like its predecessor, an LED indicator is found on the front of the case to notify you of the battery status as well a pairing button at the back for easy Bluetooth discovery. At the bottom of the case, the AirPods Pro 2 still uses the Lighting port for wired charging but MagSafe and Apple Watch users can rejoice because the AirPods Pro 2 is now not just Qi Wireless charging capable, it is also MagSafe compatible to ensure that the earbuds are in the right spot for charging. Meanwhile, those who own a Apple Watch can now use their Apple Watch charger to charge it too and yes, in both scenarios, the case will magnetically stick to the pad so no worries of it falling off. Personally, being heavily invested in the ecosystem, this undoubtedly is a one of the best features yet for integration. Onto the earbuds, the AirPods Pro 2 did not change anything about the shape and fit of it. Pretty much you will be hard pressed to tell if someone is using the first generation or 2nd generation. However, now Apple has added another vent at the top to help with pressure equalisation. Now for controls, both earbuds uses the same command of which, a single press will play/pause or answer a phone call. A double press will skip forward and a triple press will skip backward. Holding it down will switch between Active Noise-Cancelling or Transparency mode. The force sensors are still as tactile and responsive when you press them slightly, recognising commands even when you use it with wet or sweaty fingers. Wait, so how does one control its volume then? Well, now Apple has finally added touch controls to the stems of the earbuds. So a simple swipe up will increase the volume and a swipe down will decrease the volume. You may also speak to Siri while having the earbuds in to bring up its smart assistance. To address the major fit issues that plague its predecessors, Apple is now including a Extra-Small eat tip in the box alongside the regular sizes of Small, Medium and Large. You can also check if you have a good seal via the settings for a Ear Tip Fit Test. It is still commendable that the AirPods Pro 2 still has the best non-invasive in-ear that doesn't sit too deep into your ears letting you easily forget that you have them in after a mere 5 minutes. With a much more accurate skin-detect sensor, you can remove one earbud to hear someone and the music playback will be paused. The earbuds are also durable with a pretty standard IPX4 water-resistant rating. It takes a little less than 30 minutes to do so and if you are in a rush, a quick 5 minute charge allows for 1 hour of music playback. Since the case and earbuds both have a glossy white finish, they do pick up fingerprint smudges easily but they are hardly visible. The case does also scratch up within a few days of use to so a case is always recommended.

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Sound Quality

Well-defined, balanced and energetic is how I would describe the sound of the AirPods Pro 2. Let's start off with the bass response. In short, it is well-controlled and tight but far from being deep-sounding and punchy. It would never distort at loud volume and never bleeds into the mids when it is at a low volume level. Thanks to the refined high excursion drivers and high dynamic range amplifier and H2 chip, the highs sound bright and forward with good clarity. The mids do sound extremely crisp with plenty of details. With the introduction of Personalised Spatial Audio. the depth of soundstage is improved significantly alongside distinct left and right channel being heard clearly. The excellent instrument separation puts the earbuds on a streak in proeducing one of the cleanest sound signatures that benefits those who listen to mainstream genres of Pop, R&B, Hip-Hop, Indie, Jazz and many of its sub-genres. However, those who listen to songs on the more extreme ends of Electronic Dance Music, you will find that the sound can be quite disappointing since it is far from sounding as deep and immersive as the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3. In the settings, you will first be greeted with the battery life status of both the earbuds and the case. Next, there is the Noise Control settings where you can easily switch from Noise-Cancellation, Off or Transparency Mode. The press and hold control can be customised between Noise-Control of ANC, Transparency and Passive Noise Isolation or used to bring up Siri. Just below, a Ear Tip Fit Test allows you to check for a good seal on the sizes of ear tips that you have fitted on so as to ensure you have the best quality sound output and noise-cancellation performance. Choosing between pressing once or twice toend the call is also ready for you to customise. You can then choose to enable or disable Adaptive Transparency; a feature that constantly measures the noises and surrounding sounds around you and actively reduce any loud bursts of construction works or sirens to protect your hearing. Moving on, we have Automatic Ear Detection for automatic play/pause when removing the earbuds from your ears as well as automatic iPhone connection. One of the most important feature here is the newly-introduced Personalised Spatial Audio, where you will need to capture a front and side view of your face and ears by moving your head in a circle to allow the TrueDepth camera on your iPhone to scan your facial structure for further sound enhancements. These optimisation will enabled through machine learning and AI from Apple's anthropometric data, however the camera data used to develop your profile is processed entirely on your device and image is not stored so you can be sure that your data is safe and not utilised for research purposes. You can switch the microphone usage of automatic, use left or right earbuds individually. Onto the case settings, the charging sound can be enabled as well as optimised battery charging to reduce battery ageing from accidental long charging time. You may also enable or disable Find My Tracking on the earbuds and case. At the bottom, the about tab allows you to check your model number, serial number and firmware version as well as limited warranty time frame. The AirPods Pro 2 does automatically and periodically updates itself without notifying you and it is indeed hard to keep track and stop an updates if the new software is reported to have potential bugs that may affect the performance of the earbuds. Lastly, there are the Accessibility settings to take customisation even further for those in need. Some of these include the press speed, press and hold duration, noise-cancellation with one earbud, dynamic head-tracking of following your iPhone, the tone volumes and volume controls duration. Some of these feature are definitely much needed to really make the user experience catered to your individual use cases. For Audio Accessibility, Headphone Accommodations enables for Custom Audio Setup where you can add an Audiogram in the Health app based off a pure-tone audiometry test specially made for those with hearing impairment. The audio can be tuned between balanced tone, vocal range and brightness. boosting of soft sounds from slight to moderate to strong as well as enabling Transparency for both playback media and phone. Now, one of the hidden feature here is Background Sounds where there are a range of sound to choose from. Basically what these white noises do is to help mask sounds for you to focus. And I have to say, it is pretty cool. They help you focus and concentrate on tasks when you get a little tired from listening to music. There is an entire list of sounds to choose from. Some of these include Balanced Noise, Bright Noise, Dark Noise Ocean, Rain and Stream and my personal favourite has got to be ocean. You can control the noise volume as even use it alongside media playing or stop playing those sounds when you locked your iPhone too. Another feature is Live Listen where you can leave your IOS device in another room and listen to the noises via your AirPods Pro 2. If you have a tendency to play music at loud volumes. headphone notifications can measure that and notify of the potential hearing damage to warn you. Announcing of notifications are also another Siri add-on to verbally speak new notifications when you are not looking at your phone screen, however I usually turn it off since it disrupts my listening experience way too often. If you want to share your audio, you can use the audio sharing feature found in the music playback controls to listen to the same audio on both AirPods or even the AirPods Max. In terms of ANC performance, Apple has claimed to have twice the performance of its predecessors and I found that to be quite true. You still don't have the ability to customise the ANC strength as Apple takes a simplified and adaptive approach to constantly measure your surroundings. Ranking it against the competition, I would say it is the best among the Sony WF-1000XM4, Jabra Elite 7 Pro, Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 and Marshall Motif ANC. Next, Transparency Mode allows you to hear your ambient surrounding sounds so you can always hear the next train announcement or traffic noise to stay safe. Comparing it to the rest, the AirPods Pro (2nd Generation is still as top-tier and the best since its transparency does scans 48.000 times per second to detect and filter out loud bursts of noises or selectively take in relevant noises. Lastly, the most wowed feature of the AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) has to be its call quality and in calls, the earbuds uses dual beam-foaming microphones to pick up your voice and filter out the noise in the best possible way. As expected, the AirPods Pro 2 now takes the throne as the widely-acclaimed champion of call quality.

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Connectivity & Portability

The earbuds support the latest and greatest AAC and SBC codecs together with Bluetooth Version 5.3. The earbuds also automatically power on/off when docked and taken out from the case. The battery life peaks at 6 hours per use and up to 5.5 hours with Spatial Audio and Head Tracking enabled and up to a maximum of 30 hours with the case.  The package also comes with a Lighting cable for charging and if you ever wished for wireless charging, the earbuds doesn't disappoint. As mentioned, the earbuds is now not only Qi Wireless Charging capable with MagSafe compatibility that helps it magnetically attach to the charger. You may also opt to use an Apple Watch charger to do so too. Across IOS devices, Bluetooth Multi-point connection is supported so the earbuds will automatically connect to any of your IOS devices signed in with the same iCloud account at any one time. If you try to watch videos or movies with these, they do not have any latency in audio transmission.

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PROS​​

• Durable Construction

• Ergonomic Fit

• Low Profile

• Adaptive Equaliser

• Personalised Spatial Audio with Dynamic Head Tracking

• Adaptive Active Noise-Cancelling

• Adaptive Transparency

• Audio Sharing

• Bluetooth 5.3

• Long Battery Life

• IPX4 Water Resistant​​​​​

• IOS Integration Multi-Point Bluetooth Connection

• Responsive Sensors For Music Playback, Volume & Calls

• MagSafe Qi Wireless Charging with Apple Watch Charging Capability

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CONS​​

• No Customisable Sound Equaliser

• No USB-C Charging

• No AptX Codecs Support

• One One Colour Available

The Bottom Line

In all, the AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) is a premium travel-ready earbud with strong yet straightforward features that keeps its users happy. The top features why it is so sought-after in a saturated market of true wireless earbuds has got to be its seamless IOS integration, adaptive noise-cancelling and transparency as well as personalised spatial audio. The AirPods Pro 2 is definitely the way to go if you need a complete package with an decent price tag to match. It is indeed a painless and hassle-free experience that Apple has nailed after taking user feedback from its customers seriously.