Hands down Powerbeats Pro are best running headphones or workout buds that you can buy. The Powerbeats Pro is set to officially launch on June 8th this year.
POWERBEATS PRO: DESIGN
Check out the Beats Powerbeats Pro from various angles in all 4 colors.
While it seems to bear a striking resemblance to its predecessor at first glance, it neither remained fixed in ears nor did it interact as expected with the spectacles. Powerbeats Pro, on the other hand, does not shift around in the ears, and the over-ear hooks are comfortably placed next to glasses.
In terms of design, the main body of the device looks like a pared down version of the previous Powerbeats.
The eye-catching “b” logo looks simple. The in-ear design with ear hooks looks still the same but its body has undergone a radical overhaul. The product is now housed in smaller and lighter body. In fact, the official figures claim they are 13% smaller and 17% smaller. Now, that’s what I call a noteworthy change!
The weight reduction isn’t noticeable when you hold it in hand, but it is quite evident once you place it in the ears.
Both, the hook of the ear, as well as the cavity have been revamped in a bid to enhance the overall wearing experience.
Let’s take a look at the charging box first. It looks like Beats has invested very little time in designing the box, given how hard it is to open the box with one hand. This can be effortlessly done with the box the Airpods come in.
Luke Wood, CEO of Beats attributed the bigger size of the box to better endurance performance as it can be plugged into the larger battery.
Aside from that, the bigger box ensures the memory metal material ear hooks are not damaged due to the squeezing of the box.
This is a well-planned and intentionally done move by the Beats.
Keeping comfort in mind, it is not really recommended that you put the charging box into your pocket especially when you are wearing a pair of jeans or sweatpants.
The earphone case is not plugged in completely and the weight is actually good. Its weight ensures that it does not fall down your pants, but on the downside, it might prove to be a bit inconvenient to carry in your trouser pocket.
WEARING
Given that your left and right ears aren’t mirror-symmetrical, it is quite hard to differentiate between the good and the bad. Keeping in line with that, even well-received headphone such as AirPods might feel uncomfortable to wear for some people.
I asked some of my colleagues to try to wear this earphone. Few of them have large ears and some of have small ears. In some ears it fitted well and the ears look fleshier. On the other hand, it looks delicate and a little weaker.
While the evaluation has various courses, the overall trend remains popular. Additionally, I also analyzed the earphones after wearing them for quite a long time and here’s what I found out:
You cannot discount the fact that the Powerbeats Pro offers a firm wearing experience, and it doesn’t feel like its licking ears. Regrettably, it doesn’t match the comfortability offered by the AirPods, which do not seem to bother you in the ear when you stop playing music. Powerbeats Pro fails to achieve the same level of convenience.
Along with the shape, the material used to make the car hook has been improved. It is relatively comfortable to wear it for 30-60 minutes; however, continually wearing it is likely to cause discomfort as the wearer begins to feel a earhook-induced pressure on the ear. In other words, this headset is recommended to be worn for about two hours tops.
There is no problem with the unbalance ear pressure because of the air vent design. Before giving it to my colleagues to wear for trying, I intentionally did not tell them the right way to wear it.
Some people tried to open the ear and then put the earphone directly or let the ear hook hang then smash the earphone inside the ear.
There are no prizes for guess that the first reaction from the colleagues was “How can it be so uncomfortable to wear”?
In fact, I was in Hong Kong recently for an experience and one of the Beats staff members showed how to wear it correctly. You can see the correct method of wearing it in the image below. It need to be screwed into the ear rather than been directly plugged in.
This is relatively easier to do, and more importantly, it allows you to put the headset on the right spot. After showing the right way to wear it, my colleague found them more convenient to use. Those planning to get their hands on the earphones need to learn the right way of wearing them.
Glasses users are advised to take their glasses off before wearing it. This way they can find a lot of improvement in comfort.
These can be only used as a reference because even if this pair of earphones can fit 10,000+ shaped ear, you may be the first one, especially for the ear that is touch sensitive. I would suggest if you have the conditions, please go to the Apple Store and try it on.
Activities with Earphone
Be it singing, jumping, raping or playing basketball. If you talk about any of these activities two years ago, you may find the earphones to fall easily.
Although, you still have bunch of AirPods on your treasure to prevent the earphones from hanging. The headphone changes back to the wired headphone.
Imagine asking the same question today. I am sure your answer will be completely different. Indeed, it is not easy to lose AirPods but it will never give you a sense of security.
You need to pay attention to it whether the earphones will fall out when you enter a crowded subway. But for Powerbeats Pro, it will not only give you sense of security but also a confidence.
The confidence will support you to perform bolder and stretched movements during your workouts. The biggest different between AirPods and Powerbeats Pro is the confidence it gives you after wearing.
Having said that, you do not have to worry about it falling off your earphones even when you are running, playing basketball, football or flipping on a trampoline of 360 degrees.
Waterproof Performance
Waterproof performance is another vital feature for a pair of sports headphones. Carrying a waterproof rating of IPX4, the Powerbeats Pro can withstand splashing from various angles. This pair of headphones underwent waterproof experiments that were carried out by the foreign media MacRumors.
Despite being dunked in water for up to 20 minutes, the results showed that the Powerbeats Pro remained completely unaffected.
It is worth mentioning here that we don’t encourage users to rinse the headphone. This shred of information is for regrettable accidents such as outdoor puddles or when it falls into the toilet. To keep your earphones, clean after an intense workout session, all you need to do is to wipe the sweat with a wet towel.
Although, it is worth noting that the headphone box isn’t waterproof. Hence, if the headphones are splashed with water, make sure to wait until it fully dry before placing it back into the box otherwise it might cause short circuit.
While the Powerbeats Pro boasts the same wireless benefits as the AirPods, its physical buttons which are placed on both sides retain the classic audio controls just like wired EarPods. For the sake of an instance, you can skip the current track by double-clicking the “b” button on either earphone or play the previous track by triple-clicking the “b” button.
The sound of plus and minus button on the top of the Powerbeats Pro body and the Logo of “b” helps you to play and pause buttons give you water or sweat on your hands. You can flawlessly and efficiently control the music or podcast at the same time.
The the Powerbeats Pro packs the same H1 chip that powers the AirPod 2. It gives smart in-ear detection, convenient connection with iOS, and better power management. Unlike the previous W1 chip, the newfangled H1 offers “Hey Siri” support.
In my opinion, the use of “Hey Siri” is greater than daily commuting because in sports, you need to put down your smartphone but still need to change the songs, set timers, reply to calls or read unread text messages and “Hey Siri” helps you to do that.
This enables you to stay updated with all sorts of information even when you are lifting the iron.
Taking about H1, I can recall Weibo fans asking this headset to be made compatible with Andorid phones. If you use Android, all you will lose is iCloud’s ultra-convenient connection and “Hey Siri”. Other features will remain same. But aren’t these two functions the selling point of the product?
Let’s take a gander at the connection stability. If it is a commuter earphone, I would not pay much attention to its connection stability given that mobile phones aren’t going to be high frequency for quite a lot of people; however, it is not the same case for sports headphones. The sports headphones are different as during the sports, you mostly put your mobile phone a side of the court or in the locker room.
As a result, the performance of the connection stability will be tested. We have analyzed both the above scenarios. Without a barrier, the earphone connection range can be around 30 meters and if placed in a locker room then the range reduces to just 15 meters (about half).
This leads us to ask an important question, what is the best way to use it? Of course, the best way to use it is by downloading the music on Apple Watch with Apple Music and then connect it to the headphones directly.
By adopting this method, no matter where your phone is placed and how far you go from it, you can be rest assured that the music is never interrupted by any connectivity issues.
Battery Life
According to the official data, Powerbeats Pro is capable of offering a music playback time of up to 9 hours without charging the box. Moreover, it delivers up to 24 hours with the charging box.
Much to our delight, in our battery test we found out that the gap is not that big and the earphone can actually last for about 8 hours which is a great achievement in the real wireless earphone.
This is a significant achievement for a real wireless headset, giving quite an advantage for the earphone.
Compared to the previous version of Beats, Powerbeats Pro sounds very similar to the Beats X. It delivers an overall well-balanced performance in terms of sound quality and has ample resolution, coupled with crystal-clear listening experience.
The Powerbeats Pro did not do low-frequency dive, and the full environment offered an insignificant amount of parcels, while the sound gave an impression of being thin and not full.
The Powerbeats Pro has more outstanding bass performance compared to new AirPods. Powerbeats Pro’s drums are accurate and compact, plus they don’t feel loose in ears. Although, the vocals aren’t exception, but the clarity and the detail reduction performance is quite good. Some can still hear the vocal details as “Squeky Sound” when the singers sing.
The Powerbeats Pro adopts a clarity-based sound style. The public now prefer this style over the style used by previously released model of “moving times.”
The adaption of the music is much stronger than the former Beats. Moreover, the Powerbeats Pro merge its advantage in low-frequency processing on the clear basis and making the performance of the earphones more personal.
If the AirPods sound like boiled water then the Powerbeats Pro is like Lemonade with soda. Soda water taste different from boiled water but the difference isn’t a significant one.
The quality of the Powerbeats previous generation can be bluntly describe as bad. In his last interview with ifanr, Luke Wood mentioned that they left no stone unturned in order to improve the new Powerbeats.
In the terms of actual experience, the performance of Powerbeats Pro has really improved, but is not the best. Although, it can be used.
If there is a slight noisy environment on the street, it is still be normal sound with little some noise but if you go to a very noisy environment like a subway then other party will still sound a little more.
Comparison with Hesheng Powerbeats?
Before writing this review, I asked my colleague if we should compare it with the AirPods. It is worth noting that the two headphones are quite different from each other. While one is for daily commuting, the other is designed for sports.
During the evaluation, we realized that there are quite a few similarities between them.
While we sum up, you will realize that even though this is a Powerbeats Pro review, we have unintentionally taken it and AirPods in design, comfort, stability, waterproof, connection, storage, and sound quality. Even the featured image is made as a comparison.
While the AirPods has a better appearance, offer superior wearing experience and larger storage, the Powerbeats Pro offers a slew of more advantages including waterproof, battery life, and stability.
Earphones have actually been through a long 130 years of development. As part of this development, the functions of the earphones have come a long way and the sound quality is not the only aspect you need to consider before deciding to buy an earphone.
You may not only need an expensive Hi-Fi headset to sit on a sofa and enjoy your favorite music after work but you may also need active noise reduction to counter the external noise in the subway.
Additionally, you may also need a pair that can be worn in rain and is unaffected by wind. When you are tired, you can use the powerful drums to give you the power to keep it up.
Hence, Apple wants to introduce a pair of wireless headphones that are close to AirPods.
Final Verdict
So which one to choose between these two? I believe the answer is very clear. If you have no needs for sports, no doubt AirPods is better for you. It would be best to have both of them when you have needs for sports, but if your pocket doesn’t allow you to do so, Powerbeats Pro may cover a wider range.
Source: ifanr
