AirPods Pro 3 Review: The GOAT.
Duration
10:55
Captions
1
Language
EN
Published
Sep 20, 2025
Description
I've thought the AirPods Pro 2 were the best wireless earbuds on the market for the last year, and the AirPods Pro 3 bring improvements like longer battery life, much better mics, and slightly better ANC! (yeah, Apple's claims of "2X better ANC", I don't agree... I'd say it's like 10% better ANC). If you're on the market for a new set of wireless buds and $250 is not too much money, this is the one you should get. Even if you use an Android phone, the AirPods Pro 3's best-in-class ANC, transparency mode, and eight-hour battery life will still be useful. If you use the iPhone, then the ability to track heartrate is also a game-changer.
Captions (1)
Hey everybody, hope you guys are healthy
and safe. So, Apple's AirPods Pro 2,
they have been in my daily bag every
single day for the past year and a half.
I use it everywhere I go. And I say this
as someone who is not fully immersed in
Apple's ecosystem, meaning I don't only
use Apple products. If you follow my
work, you would know that I daily drive
an Android phone most of the year. And
for wireless earbuds, I definitely try
every single pair. Like every brand
sends me the newest earbuds to test.
Whether it's Sony, Bose, Nothing,
Samsung, Vivo, Huawei, I test every
single one. I am not someone who's loyal
to one brand or one platform. I use the
best product possible. And for me, none
of the earbuds I've tested, other than
maybe the Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra Buds,
have come close to Apple's AirPods Pro 2
in terms of active noise cancellation
and transparency mode. Active noise
cancellation. matters a lot to me
because I am often in very loud and busy
cities like Hong Kong or Bangkok. So,
the AirPods Pro 2 have already been, in
my opinion, the best wireless earbuds.
And so, when Apple announced the AirPods
Pro 3 with supposedly twice as good,
better microphones, longer battery life,
better water resistance, and ability to
track your heart rate, and also do live
translation. I was blown away and I'm
happy to report that the AirPods Pro 3
live up to the hype. Now, I don't know
if the ANC is like legitimately twice as
good as last generation, but it is
noticeably better. Elsewhere, the
battery life is noticeably longer. The
microphones are significantly better,
and you can indeed track your heart rate
like in real time. So, you don't need to
wear an Apple Watch anymore if you want
to have go for a run or go work out and
still have some of your um basic crucial
vital stats show on your Apple Health
app. So, considering all that and the
fact that Apple did not increase the
price of the AirPods Pro, this guy is
still $250, I think this is clearly
hands down the best wireless earbuds on
the market right now. And unless $250
it's like too high of an amount for you,
like you know, your budget is only
around $100, you should just get these
over any other set of wireless earbuds
on the market. I want to back up to say
I am not one of those guys who's just
all in on every Apple product because I
think it matters because increasingly
I'm seeing a lot of lifestyle
influencers review Apple stuff and then
I'm watching them and I'm thinking but
all you've ever used is iPhones and
Apple stuff like so when you say the
iPhone 17 Pros cameras are great you're
comparing to what the iPhone 16 Pro like
you've never even touched an Android
phone so I think it matters for someone
who actually uses all the products to
say this is the best. So, let's take a
look at the hardware. So, the case of
the AirPods Pro 3 and the AirPods Pro 2,
they're almost exact same size and
dimensions, and they look mostly the
same. Even when you open up and take out
the the buds themselves, at first
glance, you're not going to see a big
difference between the AirPods Pro 3 and
the AirPods Pro 2. like they look almost
identical at first glance, but then you
look closely, you'll see that the ear
tip of the AirPods Pro 3 points in a
slightly more angled direction than the
AirPods Pro 2. And then if you take out
the tip, you actually see that this
part, the I guess the part that's
playing music, protrudes a little bit
more than the AirPods Pro 2. That's
because Apple says it has redesigned the
AirPods Pro 3 from the inside out, from
the ground up. So, from the inside, it's
a completely new design, even though
from the outside, it looks very similar.
And then you look closely, you see that
there's also one extra sensor right here
on the AirPods Pro 3 that's not an
AirPods Pro 2. This is the heart rate
sensor. This sensor will shoot out
invisible IR beams at 256 times a second
to scan your blood vessels right here,
which along with Apple's algorithm will
be able to determine your heart rate.
I'll talk about the heart rate stuff a
little bit more later, but the fit is
comfortable. And the tip here, it's not
the same silicon tip from last
generation. It is a foam induced tip
that Apple says is better at sealing off
your ear canal. And I'm also a fan of
Apple giving you four different sizes
for the ear tip because most earbuds
that I test, and I test a lot of them,
they usually just give you three sizes.
So with AirPods, you get four sizes from
extra small all the way to large. I
thought the AirPods Pro 2 already had
the absolute bestin-class active noise
cancellation. I wear these when I'm on
the airplane, even when I'm not
listening to anything, because they help
drown out the airplane engine noise so I
can sleep. And AirPods Pro 3 does bring
better ANC. Like when I wear them side
by side, I notice that I can drown out
the outside world even a little bit
more. I want to say 10 to 20% more than
the previous generation. And I tried
this in a very loud city like Hong Kong.
So the ANC here, if I were to give a
percentage, I would say it's like 10 to
20% better than last generation. And
last generation was already the absolute
best. The transparency mode, it's also
the best because it is the most natural
sounding. With other earbuds like the
Huawei, you know, Huawei hardware is
usually very, very damn good. But even
Huawei's flagship earbuds right now,
these are the Freebuts 6, I believe,
that I tested 6 months ago. The
transparency mode here, it's pretty
good, but when humans are talking to me,
their voice sounds a little bit
digitalized, like it's a little bit
processed. Likewise with the Bose
Earbuds Ultra, but the AirPods Pro 3,
when you have transparency mode on,
they're so good and so natural that they
sound like you're not wearing anything.
The outside world is just coming to your
ears naturally. But then again, both of
these strengths are not new because
they're they're already here in the two.
So, the new features of the AirPods Pro
3, like I said earlier, you can track
your heart rate. So, you just have to
wear these on your ear connected to your
iPhone and these can track your heart
rate in real time. So, if you're going
for a run, for example, you just have to
bring your iPhone. You you don't have to
bring your Apple Watch. The AirPods Pro
3 will track your heart rate and then
along with the iPhone will be able to
keep track of your run. Even if you're
not exercising, as long as you have the
earbuds in your ear, you can ask Siri,
"Hey, what's my heart rate?" and Siri
will give you a real-time reading right
then and there. The other thing that's
much improved, it's the microphones. It
is significantly better than the
microphone of the AirPods Pro 2. Now,
this is great if you're someone who like
to take phone calls with AirPods in your
ear because now the other end can hear
you better. I don't do that because I
don't really take phone calls period.
But then these still have some major use
for me because you can pair the AirPods
Pro 3 to an iPhone and use as a
Bluetooth wireless mic. And I believe
you can also pair an AirPods to a Insta
360 camera to use as a wireless mic. And
the quality is now much better. I mean,
listen for yourself right here. Okay, so
the AirPods Pro to me are connected to
the iPhone 17 Pro Max right now. So it's
acting as a Bluetooth microphone. How do
I sound? There's some air conditioning
noise right here. I'm going to go
somewhere louder to test this too. But
how do I sound right now? So I'm, you
know, audio just coming from the AirPods
Pro 3. Testing, testing, testing.
So this is audio coming from.
>> Okay. Now audio is coming from the
AirPods Pro. It should be canceling the
background noise. And I do sound that is
very good quality audio considering it
is coming from earbuds in my ear. That's
still like 6 in from my mouth. Battery
life is also better. These earbuds can
now go 8 hours on a single charge. So
yesterday I flew back from Hong Kong to
Thailand. It was a 3-hour flight. So I
wore these an hour before I got on the
plane. And I wore it for the entire
ride. And then I wore it on the way back
here, too. So I wore it continuously for
about 5 hours, I want to say. And when I
came back and from I came back, the
earbuds still had like 33 35% battery.
So that means the 8 hour on a single
charge is legit. And then finally,
there's also live translation, but I
want to say don't go out of your way to
buy it for the live translation feature
because it is only in beta mode right
now. So it's not finalized. And right
now it only supports five languages:
English, Spanish, French, German, and
Portuguese. So any other language, it's
not going to work. And also personally,
I'm not gonna use it because I I just
feel awkward putting on earbuds and
asking someone to, "Hey, now speak to me
slower so the the AirPods can pick up
what you say and translate back to me."
Like if I go to Paris for example and
I'm at a shop and the shop worker
doesn't speak English, I would rather
just take out my phone, open up Google
Translate, and just like converse with
that person um with the translate app on
the screen. Like they can read and then
they can type and I can read instead of
needing to put on AirPods and then say,
"Okay, now speak slower and then pause
for 5 seconds while I listen to the
translation." Like that's just not a
natural way to do translation. I know
every earbud maker is trying to build
this feature, but I just don't think it
works. Like even if the translation is
real time, then it's weird to hear
someone talking and while AirPods is
also speaking into my ear, you know? So
maybe it's just me, but I'm not going to
use the feature. And it's in beta mode
right now anyway. Like ultimately you
should get the AirPods Pro 3 if you want
the best active noise cancellation
because they drown out the outside world
so well that it's it's uncanny. So if
you're in a very loud city like Hong
Kong, these will be very beneficial and
literally save your ear because AirPods
Pro also have um like hearing protection
feature. Like if it detects the the
decibel outside is too loud, it'll tone
down the volume a little bit to kind of
protect your ear. Although I always feel
like if you use this in Hong Kong,
that's like every single minute. Like
every single minute in Hong Kong, the
noise level it's above what is
considered a safe level for your ears.
So yeah, that's about it for this review
of the AirPods Pro 3. Definitely the
best wireless earbuds I have tested and
something that I fully recommend anyone
if if $250 is not too much money to get
if you're looking for a pair of wireless
earbuds. That's it for this review. If
you're interested in more content like
this, please consider subscribing to my
channel. It will help me a lot. I have a
lot more coming. Um, iPhone 17 Pro Max,
I'm going to review that and a bunch of
Android phones to Xiaomi phones, Huawei
phones, Vivo phones, DJI cameras, like a
bunch of stuff. It's a very busy month.
So, stay tuned. That's it for now.
Thanks for watching.