Let's get one thing out of the way right up front; I am not an audiophile when it comes to earbuds. I can't tell the difference between a pedestrian-quality MP3 and a lossless FLAC file. And when it comes to AirPods, I cannot tell you the difference in audio quality between the AirPods Pro and the normal AirPods. It all sounds the same to me.

That said, I'm also someone who called the AirPods Pro 2 the greatest product Apple has made in the past decade on my podcast. I've had mine for several years, and I truly adore them. They're absolutely perfect, they always work exactly how I want to, and I really just love them. They're more than enough when it comes to audio quality, and their noise cancellation is good enough that I have completely stopped bringing over-the-ear headphones on trips because an airplane is quiet enough when I have my AirPods Pro 2 in. I've even had a couple times where they cancelled out the plain engines so well that I took them out of my ears for a second to make sure the engines were actually still running.

So, when the AirPods 3 were announced, I was interested, but there didn't seem to be anything killer for me. As I said, I was already so happy with my Pro 2s that I didn't feel an immediate need to upgrade. I preordered a lot of things right after the Apple event, but AirPods Pro 3 weren't one of them.

But then the reviews started coming in, and to put it mildly, they were over the fucking moon. It was more than just the sound quality, it was the fit, and the noise cancellation, and the overall experience, all of which just sounded incredible. So I ended up ordering them as well. I've been using them for the past 2 weeks and change, and I think I have enough experience to give them a fair review.

I regret to say, not only do I think the AirPods Pro 3 are a disappointing update for me, I think they're actually a downgrade over the AirPods Pro 2. I'm finishing this review at the airport gate, waiting for my flight to board, and the AirPods Pro 2 are currently in my ears.

The fit just ain't right

The main downgrade for me is that for the first time in literally the entire history of Apple making earbuds, I lost the ear lottery this time, and these simply do not feel good in my ears. To be clear, they stay in there quite nicely, even over several hours, but if I wear them for more than 30 minutes, they become actively painful. I've tried every single tip size that comes in the box, and all of them have this issue.

I hold out some hope that the third-party market will come out with some custom ear tips that work for me, but those don't really seem to exist yet in any meaningful way, so I haven't found a good fit yet. I'm past my return window, so I'm hoping these come, but as of right now, I only wear these for short walks or runs, and anything longer like travel, working from home, or doing yard work, I'm sticking with the older model.

Noise cancellation

I'll keep this short and sweet, but I honestly don't hear much of a difference in noise cancellation compared to the Pro 2's. It's very good, don't get me wrong, but the difference doesn't blow me away. I think this aspect is impacted a bit by the above comfort issue, which colors the whole experience for me.

As I said at the top of this post, I'm not an audiophile, so maybe people more locked in on hearing the differences between headphones will notice it more. The best I can say is that the jump in noise cancellation from the original Pros to the second generation ones was clear to me, but this upgrade wasn't.

Heart rate sensing

This is pretty cool, and it's the one clear win for me in this earbuds. The bugs have a heart rate sensor in them, which means you can start a workout from the Fitness app on your iPhone, no Apple Watch is sight, and get live heart rate data for the workout. I recently got a chance to use this in a real world situation as my watch had just gone on the charger, but my dog really wanted a walk. No problem, I popped in the AirPods Pro 3, started a workout from my phone, and got to walking. The whole workout can be monitored either in full screen from the Fitness app or as a live activity (for what it's worth, this live activity also kicks in when you have a Watch paired, which is something I've wanted for years, and am super happy to see it come in iOS 26). I also left my watch at home for a 5K run and it worked smoothly there as well.

I don't have any hard data on how accurate this is, but as someone who has a pretty good feel for how elevated his heart rate is during a workout, it was giving me numbers aligned with what I'd expect. I have to think this is less precise than the Watch, but who knows.

Battery life

This is an interesting case of an upgrade/downgrade. If you value being able to wear your AirPods all day long, then this is a solid upgrade for you. The buds are advertised as getting 8 hours of use when using noise cancellation, which is more than the 6 hours the Pro 2's would get in the same situation. However, while the case got marginally larger, the battery it provides is actually less than the old case. Apple advertises "Up to 24 hours of listening time with charging case and Active Noise Cancellation" with the new case, and "Up to 30 hours of listening time with charging case and Active Noise Cancellation" with the Pro 2 case.

As stated above, due to the comfort issues, I tend to wear these for shorter periods of time, meaning that for me the battery life I care about is how rarely I can recharge the case, not how long the buds last in a single session. From that perspective, I'm going to need to charge the case 20% more often than I'm used to, which I don't love.

iFixit's teardowns confirm the battery change, with the new case sporting a 344 mAh battery with the Pro 2 case having a 398 mAh capacity.

This change is very strange to me and I'm really curious what's going on in this case that has reduced the extra juice it can provide the buds.

The other stuff

There's not much more to say about the AirPods Pro 3. The live translation feature looks cool, but is also on the Pro 2 so it's not really a reason to upgrade on its own.

The water and dust resistance gets an upgrade from IP54 to IP57, which means these will survive more than just splashes of water, they can actually be fully submerged in up to one meter of water for 30 minutes. I have not tested this, but it makes me feel better about running in the rain with these.

Apparently the case uses an updated ultra wideband chip, which Apple says is an upgrade over the U1 in the previous case, but I'm not sure how this directly makes my experience better.

And it still sports the H2 chip that handles most wireless functions of the product, which is the same as the Pro 2 and normal AirPods 4. It is somehow still an upgrade over the AirPods Max, which are still rocking the H1.

Final thoughts

Needless to say, I'm not thrilled about this upgrade, and in fact see it more as a downgrade on the whole. The fit is the dealbreaker for me, and the reduced battery life is a surprise pain point I somehow didn't notice in the pre-release marketing (why would you shout this out, I guess?). The heart rate sensor is a nice to have feature that will help me out in a pinch, or if I ever decide to wear a traditional watch regularly again, and the enhanced water resistance is a lovely little update as well.

Anyway, my flight is about to take off and I am ready to enjoy a couple hours using the AirPods Pro 2, which remain my earbuds G.O.A.T.