(electronic music) first, they're one-size

fits most design just doesn't work with my ears.

And I know I'm not alone,

and two, they've got an open design

that just lets in so much outside noise.

I don't know how people deal with that

on trains or city streets.

But now, with the $249 AirPods Pro,

Apple has addressed both of those points

and gone even further.

For the first time,

they've got active noise cancellation.

I guess that's what makes them Pro.

These sound like the AirPods I've been waiting for,

and maybe you have too.

There's a lot that's new here,

so let's start with the case.

Now it opens on the longer end,

it's a little bit bigger than before,

but still fits in your pants pockets just fine.

And it also still supports wireless charging,

so you can plop the Pro's down onto a charger at night

with your iPhone when you're ready for bed.

More importantly, Apple's changing the way

the new AirPod'S actually go into your ears.

The old ones are hard plastic,

and they just kinda go in and sit there.

For a lot of folks,

that's fine, they stay in place.

But I'm someone who can't get them to stay put

no matter what I do.

The new ones have silicone tips

and an in the ear design,

and they stay put so much better.

Now, some people don't like how in-earbuds feel,

because they create the sense of pressure,

almost like you're underwater or something.

This happens because there's air getting trapped

in your ear because of that silicone seal.

So for the AirPods,

Apple came up with a really clever solution,

there's a vent on the outside that equalizes

the pressure on the outside and inside

so that discomfort of hearing your own voice too loudly,

that's not a thing with these.

Apple also designed the Pro so that the hard plastic

doesn't really touch your ear very much,

and that also prevents soreness.

Okay, so three sizes of silicone tips

come in the box with the AirPods.

Well, how do you know which one to pick?

You can run this test in the setting's menu

to make sure the ones you've chosen

produce a good seal for the best possible sound quality.

You're gonna hear a few seconds of music,

and in inside facing microphone analyzes

the sound in your ear canal as you're hearing it,

and it compares that back to the original audio.

If there's too much of a difference,

the ear buds might be loose,

and you're told to try another size.

Apple says some people might end up with different sizes

in each one of their ears,

and that's okay, as long as there's any seal at all

the test comes back green,

and you're good to go.

So when I took the test,

I got good results for both the medium

and large sized ear tips.

Choosing one really depends on comfort,

and how tightly it stays in your ear.

Pulling off those ear tips actually takes a bit of effort,

and they snap back on a little quiet click,

so you know they're on there good and tight.

If you lose them, Apple sells replacements in their store

for about four bucks.

The old AirPods used a series of taps on the side

to skip tracks or bring up Siri,

but now there's a new force sensor,

it's this little indent on both stems

that you squeeze to do things.

A fast squeeze will play

and pause tracks or answer phone calls,

a double squeeze skips to the next song,

and a triple goes back,

but there's still no way to control volume

with the earbuds themselves.

You've gotta pull out your phone or have Siri do it,

which is often just an awkward guess.

And squeezing the stem does take

a little bit more effort than tapping did.

I would have liked having the choice of either one.

Squeezing and holding the force sensor switches you

between active noise cancellation and transparency mode

which amplifies outside audio in a natural way

so you can hear traffic or flight announcements,

or order a coffee without yelling at the barista.

You can have transparency mode on whenever you want,

so if you liked how the old AirPods kept you aware

of your surroundings on a run outside,

you can get that same experience here.

But the big sell is noise cancellation,

and there are several ways to turn it on.

You can do it with the sensor,

you can do it in control center,

or you can just tell Siri to turn ANC on or off.

Apple's noise canceling system uses a pair of microphones,

one outside and one in.

The outside mic takes a reading of all the sound around you,

and then blocks that out with anti-noise.

And the inside mic, meanwhile,

listens for whatever does come through

and tries to cancel that out too.

Apple says the AirPods Pro can adjust their sound signal

at 200 times per second to adapt for the shape of your ears.

Now, I can't verify that number,

but I can tell you that this noise cancellation is legit.

It'll quiet down city streets and your office.

If you turn down the volume,

you can hear some of what's going on,

these aren't over-ear noise canceling headphones

like those from Sony or Bose.

On a plane you can't beat those,

but everywhere else, I'm really impressed

by what these AirPods can do.

Now, beyond noise cancellation,

you're probably wondering how the Pro AirPods sound.

And the answer is good, very good,

and way better than the previous AirPods ever did.

They're balanced, they're neutral,

and the ear tips seal results in a big improvement to base,

which is right where I want it to be on these earbuds.

The Pros have all new drivers,

Apple won't say how big they are,

and there's this feature called adaptive EQ

that runs whenever you've got noise cancellation on.

That inside mic listens

to how the music sounds to your ears

and adjusts the low end and mids

to make everything sound more full.

Turning off noise cancellation also disables adaptive EQ.

And you can tell a difference.

Now, there are headphones that offer more deeper base,

like the Powerbeats Pro,

or the Echo buds from Amazon, and others.

If that's your style,

these might not work,

but I think a lot of people are gonna be very happy

and more than satisfied by how the AirPods Pro sound.

These are not audiophile headphones,

they never have been,

but they're fun, and they're well suited for everything

from Taylor Swift to Miles Davis.

(funky music) So the AirPods

have this reputation as the best earbuds

for making voice calls with,

and that makes total sense,

the stems put the microphone closer to your mouth,

and a lot of earbuds don't have that.

But for the new AirPods Pro,

Apple made that stem a little bit shorter.

So my question is,

are these still the best way to make voice calls on the go?

I called Becca to see how they sound.

- Just waitin' for my friend Chris to call me.

(phone ringing)

- Hey Becca, I'm calling you from the AirPods Pro,

or the AirPod Pros,

or whatever we're supposed to call them,

but we're inside a soundproofed room, noise isolated,

so it couldn't get much better

for testing earbuds in this situation,

but how do they sound?

And this is me back on my iPhone 11 Pro.

Now, there's no beating a phone,

and now again, from the quiet room,

I'm using the second generation AirPods,

which, again, people loved for their voice quality.

And just as a wildcard,

I'm also testing the new Echo buds from Amazon,

which are only $130,

and also have pretty decent microphones.

But the real test is calling

someone outside on city streets,

trying to overcome all this noise.

The old AirPods did really well in this regard,

and you're hearing the AirPods Pro right now.

And here I am on a second gen AirPods,

where again, those stems reach

a little bit closer to your mouth,

and does that make a difference?

And here's the iPhone 11 Pro again,

of course the phone still reigns supreme,

but the AirPods sound pretty good for what they are.

Stepping away from Apple for a second,

here's what the Echo buds sound like when you're outside.

They're picking up my voice pretty well,

it's taking some time,

but the competition is catching up to Apple,

and these cost a lot less than the AirPods Pro.

So apple says battery life on the AirPods Pro

is good for 4.5 hours of continuous playback,

with the noise canceling on.

That's pretty close to the standard AirPods five hours,

and you get that here too

if you turn off noise cancellation.

But that battery is nowhere near the Powerbeats Pro,

which can last nine hours on a single charge,

albeit, they don't do noise cancellation.

Now, the saving grace with AirPods,

just like always, is the case,

which holds enough juice for 24 hours

of total listening time.

So having heard all that,

you're probably thinking, Apple did it,

these are the perfect AirPods.

Not quite.

See, much like iOS 13,

these can be buggy.

Sometimes the force sensor just stops working briefly

from time to time,

and changing modes in control center

doesn't always do what it should.

Now, Nilay is also testing the AirPods Pro,

and he's had his noise cancellation

just shut off randomly

until he turns them off and on again.

Now, these are minor issues,

and they don't happen very often,

I fully expect Apple's gonna fix them through iOS

or AirPod firmware updates,

but you're paying $250 for these earbuds,

and any bugs are kind of disappointing.

And second, you can change devices really fast

from your iPad to your iPhone to your Mac,

but you can't pair to more than one device at a time.

Other earbuds can do that,

and I'd love to see the AirPods do it as well.

Here's the thing about the AirPods though,

so much about their appeal is tied to Apple's ecosystem.

So if you have an Android phone,

you lose out on a lot.

You give up the instant pairing

by holding them close to your phone,

and you lose out on the ability to configure

what the touch controls do,

and so on, and so on.

Noise cancellation still works on Android,

and the sound quality remains the same,