Disclaimer: I am neither an audiophile nor did I purchase the Airpods Pro for music listening. It was more of a practical device for video conferences, teleconference calls, long phone calls and occasional video watching on my iPad. Hence my views will solely come from an average office worker.
If you are in the Apple Ecosystem and are looking for a small set of in-ear buds with noise cancelling, it really doesn’t get any better than the Airpods Pro. As an owner of the first generation Airpods as well as the Sony WF-1000XM3 earbuds, I took a big leap and purchased the Apple Airpods Pro.
Why would I do that? Personally, one of my Airpods stopped functioning and after speaking with the Apple service center here, they told me that it would be better for me to purchase a new set as the cost would be roughly the same as trying to fix the unit. Of course at the time I decided to try out the Sony and in truth, the Sony’s were great. Great for noice cancellation but thanks to the shape of my ear, it felt uncomfortable after a prolonged period.
I brought the Sony’s on many trips and used it on the planes and all but the case was huge and getting it to fit into my pocket was an issue.
And then Apple released the Airpods Pro. A small package with a small case that offers excellent sound quality and noise cancellation. To me, that was the best overall compromise.
Fast forward to many months of usage, I would say that the Airpods Pro has served me well as a video conference tool where I use it for audio and microphone. Sound quality over video conferences were good and it has decent battery life that I could be in back-to-back video conference calls and still have enough battery.
I have also used the Airpods Pro when I was exercising which seemed to fit better in my ear over the original Airpods and when I perform my rowing exercises on the rowing machine, I wasn’t worried that the Airpods might fall out of my ear, a worry I constantly had with the first gen Airpods.
In short, the reason why I chose to stick within the Apple ecosystem was because as I use an iPhone, iPad and a Macbook Pro at work, having the ability to easily switch between devices as well as autoswitch between a video conference on a Macbook and then automatically switching to my iPhone when I receive a call, makes it all worth it.
Recently I noticed that places such as Lazada or Shopee have started offering discounted Airpods Pro at RM800+, a good 20% discount over the more than RM1000 MSRP of the Airpods Pro. Go and grab yours now and believe me, you won’t regret it.
My top uses of the Airpods Pro
- Using it for video conferences at work
- Using it to listen to “focus” playlist on Spotify when I need to concentrate at work
- Using it to listen to the audio whilst I am watching on my iPad in bed next to my son who is sleeping
- Watching TV series or movies on my iPad on the plane
My tips for future owners
- Make sure you get a case for the Airpods Pro case
- Make sure that the case is a smooth case, don’t get those rubber ones because trying to slide them in your pants takes a bit of an effort especially if you use those rubber cases
- If you put them in your pocket often, rubber cases would attract a lot of lint, get a hard case or a leather ones.
- Don’t forget to charge the case regularly, there are plenty of times where I just use the Airpods and stuff them in the case. Only to find out after a week that the case, and Airpods have run out of battery.
- Bluetooth connectivity to the Macbook isn’t that great at the initial stage. Especially when you have all your devices next to you (e.g. iPhone, iPad and Macbook). So just pay attention to where the Airpods will automatically connect to.
- I think that Apple might released a refreshed version but in truth, the current generation is already pretty good if you ask me.
