Power Beats Fit or AirPods Pro 3? Which Would Be Better For You
These are the brand new Powerbeats Fit, essentially the AirPods for working out. These are the successor to the Beats Fit Pro, but they’re not quite as pro as the AirPods Pro 3, and I’ll explain why that is. But the Powerbeats Fit definitely have their advantages over the AirPods, and I’ll highlight that for you in this video as well.
Unboxing
Now, unlike the AirPods, there’s been a bit more effort to make these more compatible with Android devices. I’ll show you what I mean by that once we get these out of the box and set up. Let’s do a quick unboxing. So the entire packaging is cardboard, which means it’s all recyclable. And there we have the case; you can see it’s this kind of grey colour, which is very nice, with very smooth edges. So it’s going to slip into your pockets nicely and easily.
But it is quite a bit bigger than the AirPods case. They’re actually magnetised together. Here’s the first one up for the Powerbeats versus the AirPods. You do get a sticker with the Powerbeats, you get the basic quick-start information, and a QR code to the app. The medium tips are already installed on the earbuds, and here we have extra-small, small, and large, and they are just the classic-style silicone ear tips.
Design, Fit & Case
This is the case itself. You can see on the bottom there’s a little sticker here. For those of you who don’t know this already, Apple actually bought Beats by Dre, so they’re all produced by Apple now, and that’s why they share so much technology with the AirPods. But here is why they’re so different from the AirPods: the actual style of the earbuds themselves. They’ve got this soft, flexible wing here, which allows the earbuds to lock in place inside your ears. So if you are looking for earbuds for sports and things like that, they won’t fall out when you’re running and jumping or cycling or anything like that. These wingtips are designed to make sure that they fit securely in your ear. So let’s give these a little test in my funny-shaped ears so you can see how the wingtips kind of wedge up into this area of my ear.
That’s holding them really securely in my ear. The Powerbeats Fit do have an official IPX4 rating for splash, dust, and sweat resistance. Of course, the case itself is really quite nice. It’s well designed. It’s got that flat base—if you put it on a table, it’s not going to roll around. You’ve got a little LED light here, and a power port at the back. One thing these don’t have that the AirPods Pro 3 do have is wireless charging functionality. Also, there are no speakers built into the case, so you can’t use Find My in quite the same way as the AirPods. But the upside to this case, because it’s slightly larger, is that it’s a bit easier to find if you’re going to be throwing it into your gym bag and things like that.
Chip, Pairing & Ecosystem
Now, one thing I know some people might be a little bit disappointed with is they didn’t upgrade the chip to the H2 chip. It’s still using the H1, which is what the previous version of the AirPods Pro had, and this should instantly hook up with iPhones with minimum effort—just like that. So if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, this is going to make life so much easier for you.
It’s just going to integrate seamlessly, just like a pair of AirPods. So if you have iPads and Macs and the Watch and all this kind of stuff, the earbuds can hop around between those devices super seamlessly. That’s a big win for anyone who’s in the Apple ecosystem. Of course, you get all of these really nice animations any time you pop the lid and things like that.
iPhone Settings & Fit Test
Let’s see how this works once I actually put them in my ears. You get all of the battery levels and everything right there on display for the case and the earbuds. When you jump into the settings on an iPhone, you have an entire section right here just for the Powerbeats Fit. Now, if you are going to pair this to an Android device, there’s a dedicated app which will pretty much look the same. In here, you can toggle between the different modes, and you can also customise what the press-and-hold does on both sides. You’ve also got the ear tip fit test.
After that little jingle it just played into the earbuds, it turns out both ear tips are not the right size for my ears, which is interesting because they felt pretty comfortable. Some of the cool stuff you can do on the iPhone is actually create the personalized spatial audio setup. You’ve also got some other customisation tweaks you can make, and even accessibility tweaks, such as the ability to customize the spatial audio head tracking feature.
Battery Life
When it comes to battery life, you get up to six hours with ANC on and 30 hours with the case combined. Given the fact that these have been designed for sports and activities, it would have been nice if they added the heart-rate tracking sensor in the earbuds like they did on the AirPods Pro 3. Something tells me that they’re saving that for maybe a Pro model, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see if they do that.
ANC & Transparency
The Powerbeats Fit do have noise cancelling, and they use the same chip as the previous AirPods. It’s actually very good at blocking out those kind of rumbling noises—fan noises, airplane noises, train noises, that kind of stuff. I’m going to do a real quick comparison. This is kind of a first impression of the noise cancelling versus the AirPods. Okay, so I’m just playing some airplane noise right now. The earbuds are in transparency mode; when I switch them into noise-cancelling mode—hopefully you can hear that noise—I’m just going to activate the noise cancelling on the AirPods. Watch the video for the noise-cancelling test
I can now hear it very, very faintly. I’d say I can hear about 10% of what I could before when in transparency mode. I have to tell you, the transparency mode is very, very close to the AirPods Pro 3. Let’s see how the noise cancelling handles. In comparison to the AirPods Pro 3, the ANC isn’t quite as strong. I’d say it’s blocking out about 70 to 80% of the noise, whereas the AirPods actually did up to around 90. But they’re not bad at all as far as earbuds go.
Android Pairing & App
Let’s see how this works with an Android phone—if there are any downsides to this. Here we go. Open the case, and there’s a little pairing button right there. Now onto pairing… and there we go. Now we get a little walkthrough of how to put them in your ears. This actually gives you more instructions about how to use these than the iPhone. Maybe there is a dedicated app on the iPhone to download that will give you all this stuff.
You’ve got your modes here—ambient mode off, transparency on, and noise cancelling. You can name the earbuds, you can change the tone, which is kind of nice. And the press-and-hold—just like on the iPhone—plus the ear tip fit test. This app is actually very nice. There’s a cool feature: on the iPhone you can use the Find My feature to find the Powerbeats; on the Android phone, you also have the option to locate the Beats as well. You do need to make sure your permissions are enabled and all that kind of stuff.
Sound Quality & Final Thoughts
I just did a quick little sound test with the Powerbeats on an Android device, and they do sound pretty nice. They’ve got a good amount of bass. They provide some really nice clarity and good detail. They do have an adaptive EQ. So the H2 will actually change depending on the noise around you. And they do support spatial audio. So if you have a streaming service that has spatial audio tracks, they will sound phenomenal on the Powerbeats Fit.
My first impressions of the Powerbeats Fit are that these are fantastic for working out and for the gym, and that kind of stuff. If you don’t do those kinds of things and you just want one set of buds for everything—and you do work out from time to time—and you have Apple computers and tablets, then these are actually a fantastic all-rounder. The noise cancelling is decent. When it comes to the audio quality on these, the standout aspect is definitely the bass. That’s how they were, and Dr Dre on them, and Apple have kept that sound going with their ownership of the brand. They still sound like Beats by Dre.
