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By now you are no stranger to Apple's AirPods Pro, their noise-cancelling "high end" AirPods upgrade that initially started with a $249 price tag back in October 2019. The AirPods Pro are down to $197 now, and if you haven't given them a try yet ... boy howdy, are you in for a ridiculous delight.
I should start this ode to my AirPods Pro by saying I resisted the idea of them for ages, and was resistant to even getting AirPods at first — I'm a runner, so I get nervous about them slipping out, and I always figured I'd be too lazy to remember to charge them. But these are honestly so well worth the money that I doubt any purchase I've made in my life has given me as much dollar-for-convenience value.
Here's the main thing you need to know: the noise cancellation on the AirPods Pro is genuinely, alarmingly effective. The first time I put these on and toggled them into noise cancelling mode it was like the whole world fell away. Like, walking down the street I felt like Anne Hathaway in an early 2010s rom-com because I genuinely could not hear one thing on a busy crowded New York City street except pop music in my ears.
And while it's a full mood that I appreciate while I'm out walking, it's gone from "wow, neat!" to "oh, cool, I can't exist without these" when it comes to working from home. I spent the first part of quarantine working in a house crowded with family and liked to be close to the living room where the fam was, but not be distracted. These pretty much blocked out *any* noise (including a very indignant Shih Tzu).
They're also super comfy and stay put — and I am saying that as someone who wears them pretty much all through my waking hours. I take them on long, absurdly sweaty runs and they don't budge. I have them in my ears all day at work and they never ache. I use them to go delve into Netflix blackholes at night, and even after a full human day, my ears feel fine.
Now let's talk about the absurd charging capabilities on the AirPods Pro. First of all, the wireless charging case on this is convenient as heck. Even during quarantine I'm on the move a lot — I spend as much time as I can on the weekends outside — so even if the AirPods Pro run out of their 4.5 hour battery life, you can snap them right back into the case and have them fully charged within a half hour (and like, half charged in 10 minutes, if you're impatient like me).
It's also just been really handy to have these during pandemic times. I can talk on the phone easily when I'm walking outside without wires getting tangled in my face mask's elastic, and the mic picks up my voice so well than I can talk through a mask. They've been great as a comfy option to take FaceTime calls, and I love taking long socially-distanced walks listening to podcasts now that I don't actually get to see real live humans as much.
Plus if you don't want to be in noise-cancelling mode, you can toggle to two other modes: one is "Off," where the headphones aren't doing anything in your ears, and one is "Transparency," when you can still hear the world around you and your music at the same time.
These come with other convenient, intuitive features, too — if your phone or the device you're listening on is out of reach, you can tap one of the AirPods Pro to pause your music. You can say "Hey Siri" and talk to her the way you normally would. You can also force the AirPods Pro into transparency mode without your phone by squeezing one of them.
And while these are Bluetooth and absolutely work on non-Apple devices, can I just say, the *immediate* syncing to your phone from the moment the AirPods Pro are charged is such a relief. I am very bad at technology. These were absurdly easy to set up.
And I am not alone in my aggressive stanning of AirPods Pro — on Amazon alone, they've amassed over 160,000 5-star reviews from people who love them for everything from the stay-put, personalized fit to their noise cancellation to the ever-hand Transparency Mode.
All this said, primary reason I have come here today to yell about these perfect headphones is that they were a rare case for me where a product delivered on its price tag and then some — especially considering that they've performed at this level of quality for a year and a half. The noise cancellation and durability are just that good — and considering they're now only $48 dollars more than the original AirPods, it's more than worth it to take the extra leap.
You can get the AirPods Pro from Amazon for $197 — just remember to poke your head out to say hi to the real world every now and then after you take the leap.
