The original AirPods Pro came out in October 2019. Here we are three years later with the AirPods Pro Gen 2. You may not notice many changes on the outside, but the AirPods Pro Gen 2 is packing some great new features and tech inside. From the outside, Apple has updated the Charging Case watch now includes a built-in speaker and a built-in lanyard loop so you can attach a lanyard to the AirPods. Now that the case has a speaker, if you’ve ever used the Find My app, you will now be able to use Find My for your AirPods Pro case. Inside the Find My app, if your AirPods are outside of the case now, you’ll see the case listed as a separate item that you can play a sound on, and the sound is pretty audible, so you can quickly find your AirPods in case you miss placed them. This is all powered by the Apple U1 chip. We have seen this chip in other devices, but this is the first time we have seen them in an AirPods case.
The charging case now also supports MagSafe, so if you have an Apple Watch or if you have a charging dock that supports a MagSafe charger, when you place the AirPods case on the Apple Watch charging puck or a MagSafe compatible charger, it will automatically connect via magnets no longer requiring you to find the perfect spot that starts charging the device. Also, note that the AirPods and the case are now IPX4 sweat and water-resistant.
The H2 chip now powers the AirPods Pro Gen 2. The new chip allows for superior noise cancellation, three-dimensional sound, and battery life for the AirPods. Transparency mode has also been vastly improved as the new H2 chip can ensure not to pass through sudden loud noises like a police siren driving by. Instead of feeding high-pitched noise through your headphones, it will know to lower such noises to protect your ears. This year, the AirPods have a new custom-built driver and amplifier that works hand-in-hand with the H2 chip giving us much deeper base levels and crisper highs across all volume levels. I can attest to this, as I have noticed a significant increase in the amount and quality of bass I hear in my music. I listen to a lot of EDM, hip-hop, and Spanish music, which tends to have deep bass tones, which are now more pronounced. Apple has excelled in the sound quality and engine inside the AirPod Pro Gen 2.
Noise cancellation has also been greatly improved. I have yet to test this on an airplane to see how much better noise cancellation is in that scenario. Still, I can say that when I have noise cancellation on, I no longer get that kind of ringing feeling in my ears, as some active noise cancellation headphones can emit an audible, high-pitched noise that sounds almost like static. That is no longer present in my testing AirPods Pro Gen 2. I also feel that there have been slight improvements to the shape of the AirPods Pro as they fit right out of the box for me with the medium size ear tips. We also have a new ear tip size in the box, extra small. Hopefully, it translates to other people who have had issues with the fit in the past and now have a higher chance of getting the perfect fit. Apple has a feature inside your iPhone that will test to see if you have the proper ear tip on your ear, ensuring you have the best fit for sound quality and noise cancellation possible.
Even with all the new tech, Apple has found a way to keep battery life pretty good. We get 6 hours of listening time with active noise cancellation and an additional 30 hours when considering the battery inside the case. We also now have swipe volume controls on the buds themselves; swipe up or down to raise or lower the volume, and this is available on both AirPods AirPods whether you are wearing one or both of them at the same time.
We still have the magical seamless switching, which I feel has improved with iOS 16. Going from my iPad to my iPhone to my MacBook is pretty seamless, and there isn’t much of a delay anymore.
All in all, I think the AirPods Pro Gen 2 is worth the upgrade if you had the first generation AirPods Pro, and if you didn’t, this would make a nice gift for the holidays, whether it’s for yourself or someone else.
So will you be buying the new AirPods Pro? Let me know what you think in the comments below and if you have any other questions, feel free to ask away!
Images courtesy of Apple.com
