Beats Fit Pro are the sports AirPods you've always wanted

Speaker 1: Hey there. So we got the AirPods third generation last week, but it turns out apple wasn't done for this year. It owns beats and these are the new beats fit pro noise, canceling earbuds. They're $200 come in four color options, and they might just be better than the AirPods pro and the sports AirPods you've always wanted. Let's talk about that. Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Now, the concept behind the Fitz pro is pretty simple. Take beats, iconic power beats pros, sports buds with its big ear hook and shrink it the hell down. I can't say I ever love the power beats pros design, but a lot of people do because the ear hook gives you a feeling of security that your buds aren't gonna fall off your head. I personally prefer my sports buds to have a wingtip that fits into the inside of ear, not around the outside [00:01:00] of it. And that's what we, you have here. Most of the time, those wingtip or sports fins as they're sometimes called are removable and sometimes come in different sizes. But what's interesting with the fit pro is that the wingtip has been integrated into design. It's one size fits all. You can't replace it as far as I can tell, but it does seem durable and it's made of firm, but pliable, silicone rubber, it's soft to the touch. Speaker 1: The buds fit comfortably and securely in my ears. I much prefer this design to the power beats pros beats [00:01:30] ear buds have always had a physical control button, which I do like, and the fit pros also have one. What's nice about it is that because it's an extension of the sport. Finn is a soft to the touch finish and a little bit of a grip to it. Use it to a control music, playback answer, end calls, and a long press switches between noise canceling and transparency modes. You can also program the long press to be volume controls on the buzz themselves. That's a feature. A lot of people have been asking for on the AirPods and I do suspect it is coming very soon to the new AirPods three and AirPods pro. [00:02:00] These also have always on Hey series. So you can and lower volume by just asking Apple's voice assistant to do it and issuing other voice commands without touching a button. Speaker 1: Anyway, they're lightweight weighing 5.6 grams each, and they fit my ears really well. As I said, they come in four colors and you'll see everything. But the white version of this video, I wore the lavender one around more because it shows up better in shots, but it personally probably go with the gray color because I'm not a flashy guy and it kind of blends with your ears. The best. I'm a little surprised beats. Didn't go with red for launch, but [00:02:30] I'm sure you'll see more colors next year, before I get into features and performance. I just have a few more comments about the design. The one big complaint about the power beats pro is their huge case. The case for the fit pro isn't as small as the AirPod pro case, or even the beats studio buds case, but it's still pretty compact and much smaller in the power beats pros case in a bit of a nod to Android users, the case charges via USBC, not lightning. However it's missing the wireless charging found in [00:03:00] the AirPods pro and AirPods three cases. Speaker 1: Battery life is rated at up to six hours with noise canceling on and seven hours with it off at moderate volume levels. That's compared to around 4.5 hours for the AirPods pro with noise canceling on and five hours with it off, you can get an extra 21 hours of juice when the case is fully charged aside from the lack of wireless charging in all other respects, the fit pro have the same features as [00:03:30] the AirPods pro. One of the big downsides of the beat studio buds is that they don't have apples H one chip. So they're missing things like adaptive each you that detects how the earbuds are sitting in your ears and optimizes sound on the fly. Along with those extra features for apple users like spatial audio and auto switching between devices on your iCloud account, but these have the H one chip. Speaker 1: So you're getting an AirPods pro like experience with better sound and noise handling than the beats studio buds, as well as a top notch transparency mode that lets [00:04:00] you hear the outside world in a natural way. As far as I can tell the noise canceling and transparency are at the same level as the AirPods pro noise canceling. Isn't quite as good as Sony's or bows, but it's pretty close and quite effective at muffling external noise. I will say this, these actually sound slightly better in the airs pro beat says they have custom 9.5 millimeter drivers, and I think they have a touch, more clarity and the base packs a little more punch and goes a little deeper. They have a pretty wide sound stage, but [00:04:30] they don't offer quite as expansive or refined sound as the more expensive Sony WF, 1000 X mark, four buds. Speaker 1: I'm not talking about a big difference in sound quality. Sony just sounds slow, lightly more natural has a touch more detail that can bring out a little bit more nuance in music tracks. But I think the beats sound will impress you a lot. It's good. And these avoid distorting at higher volumes, which probably has as much to do with the adaptive EQ as the drivers themselves. Of course, just how good [00:05:00] a noise Ising earbud sounds is depending on how good a fit you get. I'll just point out that I got a decent seal with the largest size of the included tips, but I ended up switching them out for my go-to sanitizer tips that tend to fit my heres best with a lot of earbuds, including the SOS. Now start to get a Le won here, but some companies include tips with a slightly recessed tube. Speaker 1: That's the part that attaches to the earbuds, but Theen Heiser tube is flush with the outer rim of the tips. So once you put it on the post, the tip extends out from the bud, a few millimeters, more those [00:05:30] few millimeters and the shape of the Cener tips created a perfect seal in my ears with these ear buds, to be clear, the beats tips fit my ears well, and they should fit most people's ears well, but I'm looking for the perfect fit when I bud. So I can get the optimal performance for sound quality, as well as noise canceling, which can suffer. If you don't get a tight seal, I can't tell you how boring your tips are. They can make or break into your bud. And I just wanted to put in a video how a subtle design difference can make an impact, but it's nice that unlike with the AirPods pro, which have a custom tip design, [00:06:00] that you can basically swap in any tips with these, Speaker 1: Like the AirPods pro these beats have ear detection, sensors, and an enhanced by my feature with proximity of view that helps locate your buds in all those places they like to hide. I'm not, not gonna talk much about Apple's new spatial audio feature with head tracking. Other than to say that it's a nice bonus feature. It allows you to get virtual surround sound. When you're watching movies and TV shows on various apple devices. Like I said, in my AirPods three review, [00:06:30] it's a neat effect with video watching, but a bit more hit or miss with apple music tracks with Adobe Atmos. It also now works with group FaceTime calls, which is kind of cool. The beats fit pro will pair with most other Bluetooth audio devices, but you'll lose all the extra features like spatial audio and always on Hey Siri and audio sharing with other people who have AirPods. Speaker 1: However, unlike the AirPods beats has an app for Android devices that makes their buds slightly more friendly to Android. You users, at least it's making some effort [00:07:00] to appeal to Android users from an Android perspective. The good thing about the beat studio buds not having an H one chip was that except for always on, Hey Siri, it didn't have those extra apple only features. So you didn't feel like you were missing out on anything in this case. You are, but Android users still might consider these things to their design, strong sound, good noise, canceling and excellent transparency mode and also good voice calling performance. Speaker 2: All right, there's a wind. [00:07:30] So on how much, how you hearing, how much background you hear, Speaker 3: Can't really hear a whole lot of background noise, but seems like when you have a conversation or when you start to speak you're the microphones are not picking up your voice that well. So you kind of seem faint in the kind of your voice is very low. Speaker 1: [00:08:00] Yes, they are better than the studio buds and power beats pro for making calls, but not quite as good as the AirPods third generation or AirPods pro at least not right now. According to beats, they have six microphones up to five of which that are used during calls. There's a voice accelerometer that helps isolate your voice and a wind mitigation system. In my torture tests, in the streets of New York, they did a decent job reducing background noise, but there were some subtle differences between these and the AirPods pro and the AirPods third generation. [00:08:30] Some people said they heard slightly more background noise with the beats and didn't think my voice came across quite as clearly with the noise canceling on. I could hear everyone quite well. So no planes on my end. It's quite possible. We get some improvements with firmware upgrades, but for now, I'd have to say these are good for voice calling, but a slight step behind both the AirPods third generation and AirPods pro that said for me, the beats fit pro came out as the winner over the AirPods pro and are the sporty AirPods I've always wanted. Speaker 1: I like [00:09:00] the AirPods pro a lot and have no problem keeping them in my ears. I can also see how some people like the familiar pipe design of the AirPods pro with their now shorter stems and not everybody likes having the beats be splashed across their earbuds, but the fit pro really do lock in your ears. And if you get a tight seal, they sound slightly better and have equally good noise canceling their battery. Life is also a little better. It will be interesting to see how much these hurt sales of the beat studio buzz and AirPods pro. They're hard to compare to [00:09:30] the AirPod surge generation because if you're getting those, you're getting them for their open design, but do think you'll see the $150 studio buds on sale, more frequently selling for 20 to $30 off, and maybe even approaching a hundred dollars while the AirPods pro lists for $250, they sell for around 200 and sometimes less online. Speaker 1: So they're basically the same price as the beats fit pro I guess apple wins either way, if you buy one or the other, but it's funny to see two models from the same company competing directly with each other. [00:10:00] Maybe it will bring out the best in apple and the AirPods pro two will be that much better when they arrive, perhaps as soon as next year. But let me know what you guys think sound off in the comment section. And if you're interested in any of the products mentioned, check out the description below for links on where to find them. You can get even more details in my text review on CNET. Lastly, if you found this video informative at all, hit the like button and subscribe. If you haven't already, I'm David Conner for CNET. Thanks for watching.