AirPods Pro 3 Review: Apple's Quiet Dominance
Better noise cancellation, real-time translation that almost works, and a battery that finally lasts. The category has, again, no obvious answer.
The third generation of the AirPods Pro is the kind of update that does not photograph well. The case is a hair smaller. The stems are slightly shorter. The grille pattern is different in a way you will not notice unless you put them next to the previous generation. If you are looking for a redesign, this is not that.
If you are looking for the buds to do their job better, this is absolutely that.
What’s actually new
The headline is the H3 chip and what it enables: noise cancellation that is now quantitatively better than the Pro 2 in a way I can demonstrate but not eloquently describe. Subway noise that used to leak through as a low rumble is gone. The HVAC hum in my office, which I had stopped noticing because it was always there, is also gone. Putting them in is genuinely a brief act of disorientation.
The first time I put them in at a coffee shop, I thought the espresso machine had broken. It had not. I had simply stopped being able to hear it.
The second new thing is real-time translation through Apple Intelligence. It works. It does not work as well as the demo, but it works. In a controlled conversation with a Spanish-speaking colleague, it kept up. In a noisier setting with a thicker dialect, it began missing nouns. This is a 90% solution to a problem that, eighteen months ago, was a 0% solution. That is not nothing.
The third is the battery. Six hours of listening with ANC on, in real-world conditions, not a marketing lab. The case still gets you to roughly thirty hours total. This is, finally, a non-issue.
What hasn’t changed
The fit is identical. The on-bud controls are identical. The transparency mode is the same — which is to say, the best in the category, but unchanged. The case still does not have a meaningful screen, will never have a meaningful screen, and is a better object for it.
The non-Apple ecosystem story remains a non-story. If you have an iPhone, these are the buds. If you have an Android, you are buying Sony or Bose, and that is fine.
Where they fall short
There is one thing I have to flag, because nobody else seems to be: the call quality is good, not great. In a quiet room, you sound fine. In wind, you sound like you are in a wind tunnel. The Pro 2 had this problem and the Pro 3 has it slightly less, but it is still there. If you take a lot of outdoor calls, this is not the upgrade for you.
The other thing is the price. They went up. Apple is not subtle about it. You are paying for the H3 silicon and you will feel it.
The verdict
If you are on Pro 2s and they are still working, hold. The upgrade is real but not dramatic. If you are on Gen 1 or older Pros, this is the time. If you are coming from Sony or Bose and you have an iPhone, the AirPods Pro 3 is the easiest recommendation in audio right now.
Apple did not reinvent the AirPod. They simply, quietly, made the best ones better. Two years of competition has not produced a real challenger. Until it does, this is the bud to beat.