AirPods Pro - First Impressions

08 May 2022 | ~3 minute read

My shiny new AirPods Pro were delivered today. Here are my first impressions of the most expensive earbuds I’ve ever bought.

I’ve had the AirPods Pro for around an hour or so now and I’ve been having a play around with them. I still need to use them properly for something like walking dogs or in the office, but my first impressions are that they’re okay.

Honestly, I’m not sure they were worth the £189 ($233) I paid for them.

The good

Pairing with my iPhone SE was obviously a cinch. As with everything Apple, the whole thing was extremely straightforward. I just had to open the case and my iPhone automagically detected them.

The case is way smaller than I was expecting it to be. I have a pair of much cheaper bluetooth earbuds from Amazon, and I was expecting the AirPods pro case to be a similar size, but it’s way smaller:

The not so good

Given the price of these things, I was expecting the sound quality to be mind-bogglingly good. Especially given some of the feedback I’ve had from friends who have them.

I’ve tested some music on Apple Music and a podcast on Pocket Casts. While the quality of both is good, it’s not as good as I was expecting. It’s probably on a par with my much cheaper Sony WH-CH700N headphones.

Now, getting the similar quality sound in an earbud as full headphones is pretty impressive, but again, the quality hasn’t been as amazing as people have said.

I’m still yet to try the spacial awareness sound thingy – truth be told, I don’t even know how to test it!

I also don’t like how when the noise cancelling is turned on or off, you just get a beep. So I’m unsure as to whether I just turned it on or off. So I have to sit there turning it on and off to compare the sound and work out which it is.

It would have been much better if there was an audible “noise cancelling on/off” when the button is pressed. That’s what my Sony’s do.

In closing

I’ve still got to put these things through their paces and I’ll be sure to write a full review once I’ve done so. But this is the first time I’ve used an Apple device and I haven’t been instantly wowed.

Sure, they’re good; but for nearly £200, I was expecting them to be great. I still need to test out the battery life, noise cancelling, comfort and microphone. So they may still be great.

More to come, I suppose…

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