Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: I can only say 'Holy cow!'

I wrote my AirPods Pro 3 review in paradise. Physically, I was sitting in a resort in Maui, attending a conference and pounding away at my keyboard between meetings and presentations. When I put in my new AirPods, however, I entered a personal cone of silence. Gone were the conversations around me, the sound of the waves crashing against the shoreline. All I had was my music, my thoughts, and my fingers on the keyboard.

It's not that the AirPods Pro 3 do anything remarkably innovative compared to other wireless earbuds, which are often less expensive — you have your quality sound, active noise cancellation (ANC), transparency mode, and more. It's that they exceeded expectations at every turn.

Standing in the middle of a tech conference social mixer, surrounded by the drone of people talking specs, all I had to do was pop in the AirPods, put on some music, and nothing else in the world existed. It's a phenomenal feeling. So let's get into it. I've been using the AirPods Pro 3 for about seven days, and this is my full review.

Easy connectivity

After unboxing the AirPods Pro 3, the first thing you'll need to do is pair them to your iPhone. That involves the complicated process of... opening the AirPods case next to your iPhone. That's it. That's the process. Oh, and by the way, once you do that, any device that you're signed into with your Apple ID will also be able to connect to them — whether it be an iPhone, Mac, or iPad. This is not new; it's been that way since the first generation of AirPods. But it doesn't change the fact that it's lovely.

Once connected, there's no app to operate the AirPods — the settings are built into your phone's operating system, but not necessarily in an ideal way. In the Bluetooth settings area, you can adjust hearing modes, hearing protection and assistance (which we'll discuss later), controls, and a variety of other settings — there are too many to list here, to be frank. What is not there is the equalizer (EQ) for the AirPods, which is actually elsewhere in settings. There's also no custom EQ, which is annoying.

Maybe the EQ is optional?

While testing, I primarily listened to podcasts — that's my usual use case — but I also spent a good amount of time listening to music from artists such as Metallica, Scorpions, Evanescence, and more. Then there's also my go-to, Lindsey Stirling, for examining the entire spectrum of frequencies from the lowest dub-step bass to the highest violin notes. 

The AirPods Pro 3 have a nice, even sound profile, with no particular emphasis on any frequencies. It's a very flat profile, which is how it should be. You can set different EQs — also in the phone's system settings, but again, there are no custom profiles, which is not ideal. Fortunately, I enjoy the default flat profile, so I don't have any personal complaints, but it's not unreasonable to want to set your own sound profile.

ANC and Transparency are impressive

As I described above, the ANC on these AirPods Pro 3 is seriously impressive. The purpose of ANC is to reduce outside noise. The key benefit is to hearing health — the lower you can comfortably listen to your music and media, the less likely you are to damage your hearing. But Apple goes further by reducing all sound around you to a near whisper. You can still hear some things, but the volume is reduced to the point that it no longer matters.

ANC used to be great at removing constant noises, but fell short with sudden noises like a person talking or a car horn. That's still the case with lower-end ANC earbuds, but Apple does a remarkable job at eliminating sudden noises, too. When you put on any music or media, everything around you is simply gone. 

Transparency is what you get when you decide to let noise in from the outside. The AirPods Pro 3 are very good at that, but are also a small step back from the AirPods Pro 2. That's because transparency mode on the AirPods Pro 3 comes with a hint of sibilance in what you hear — it's a faint ring of higher frequencies, like talking in a bathroom, or a hissing sound on particular letters. It's not bad, but it's noticeable (and likely fixable with a software update down the road). 

Plenty of features I couldn't test very well

My wife would strenuously disagree with what I'm about to tell you, but according to Apple, I do not have much hearing loss. Personally, I agree with my wife's assessment. A misspent youth of playing loud music in too small a space left me with tinnitus to this day. Put me in a noisy room, and I will smile and nod without having heard a word a person three feet away is saying. Even Nuance glasses didn't help.

But, according to Apple, I only have 8db of hearing loss in one ear and 12db in the other. I tried using Apple's hearing aid feature, and I basically just got transparency mode, so there wasn't much help there. I tried it in a noisy bar, and I had a similar experience to the Nuance Glasses — if it helped, it was only by the barest margin. I'm hopeful that perhaps Apple is right, and maybe I don't have hearing loss, or at least it's not as bad as I've assumed it is.

As for Live Translation, it seems to work pretty decently. It's available in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and English from the UK, which by the way, is not the same as American English. Frankly, I'm happy that Apple recognizes that.

I don't have a native other-language speaker in my life, but I was able to test the feature by watching a movie dubbed into a different language, which the AirPods ironically would dub back into English, closing the loop. Not being a native speaker of a foreign language, I can't comment on the accuracy, but according to the subtitles, as compared to what Apple showed/told me, it was close enough.

What I noticed was a definite 1-2 second lag between what was on the screen and what came through on the AirPods, which made it a little difficult to measure how accurate one was over the other. That being said, I think it's fair to say that this could be useful if you're traveling in a foreign country where people speak one of the supported languages. Although, having traveled to Germany, Spain, France, and South Korea, speaking English is similar to having a superpower, because a lot of people speak English in foreign countries.

There is one feature I wasn't able to test very successfully — heart rate tracking during exercise. I am on the wrong side of 40 years old and 250 pounds, so I don't really exercise. In fairness, I can tell you that the feature is there, but I can't honestly say it works, though I do not doubt that it does.

Are the AirPods Pro 3 worth it?

Overall, the AirPods Pro 3 are a remarkable upgrade, even over the AirPods Pro 2, which were already very good. What absolutely takes my breath away is the noise cancellation. I thought I knew what great ANC was, and it turns out I was not shooting high enough.

When you add up all that these buds bring to the table, including how easy they are to use, the long-term comfort, the excellent battery life, and how easily they connect to an iPhone, this is truly a premium package well worth the $249.99 retail price. They are the very definition of premium, but they come with a surprisingly low cost considering the price of other buds on the market. It wouldn't be a bit of hyperbole to say that these earbuds are a steal.