AirPods

So… you’ve got that gorgeous iPhone and- if you followed the
previous fight
– a shiny new pair of AirPods 2 (unless you, like me, couldn’t decide and got both AirPods and BeatsX).
But… that colleague sitting besides you just went in on a pair of AirPods Pro… and you now have AirPod envy.
Are her Pro-labeled Pods better than your second-generation ear-toothbrushes?
In this article, I’m comparing the
AirPods 2
and the
AirPods Pro
because… well, just because. It’s up to the contest to determine which are the better choice. Set?
3… 2… 1… Fight!

Price

As with my comparison of AirPods 2 Vs. BeatsX, we need to talk about how much these toys are going to cost you. And, like with my comparison of AirPods 2 Vs. BeatsX, I feel obliged to remind you that your gorgeous iPhone came with a beautiful , perfectly usable pair of wired EarPods, EarPods that I personally misplaced within a week of getting the new iPhone. EarPods which cost $29.99 to replace, should you choose to.

Right. Let’s tear the band-aid. AirPods Pro will set you back the “premium” price of $249.99. Yowza. For that amount, you could have bought both pairs of headphones from the previous fight. We’ll discuss what that sum of cash gets you in a moment.

The AirPods 2 comes in two price tags: $159 for the regular pair, and $199 if you want the wireless charger case.

In case you haven’t bought AirPods 2, the Pro model will cost you an additional $90 over the standard 2’s, and $50 over the wireless charging Pods. Or, if you, like me, have already bought AirPods 2, you will have to fork out additional $249.99, which, admittedly, is a tough pill to swallow.

Winner: Too soon to tell.

Battery Life and Connection

One good thing about battery life is that both the AirPods 2 and the AirPods Pro have more or less the same battery life.

Both sets will get you around 5 hours on a charge, and both charging cases carry a max of 24 hours of recharge when you put the Pods away.
That does not mean everything is the same; if you choose to use the AirPods Pro’s Transparency or Noise Cancelling features, you’ll shorten the battery life by about 30 minutes per charge.
Having said that, Apple estimates that in the case with both pairs, you will get about an hour of use after five minutes of charging.

As far as the connection is concern, both are bundled with the same H1 chip and therefore will pair instantly and seamlessly with your Apple devices, and can quickly switch between devices associated with your Apple ID.

Winner: The AirPods 2 have a half-an-hour lead over the AirPods Pro if you utilize the more advanced features (which honestly, you are, because why else would you purchase the AirPods Pro?), but with the similarly quick charge time in the case, I personally don’t think 30 minutes is enough to claim victory here. So, tie.

Sound and Features

Finally. This is where the differences start to emerge. Because I talked a lot about the features of the AirPods 2 in my last fight, I’ll mostly discuss what the Pro’s offers in comparison.

I’ll discuss fit in another category, but the first and most clear difference between the two sets of Pods is the Pods themselves. Not only do the Pro Pods come with a wireless charging case without having to fork out a few extra bucks, but the Pro’s have a complete different form factor. Of course you still have the stem that makes them appear like EarPods with the wires chopped off, but what you’ll notice is the way they go into your ear. While the traditional AirPods have maintained the same design of the EarPods, the AirPods Pro have adopted in-ear design complete with removable silicone tips.

Personally, , I’m not a fan of silicone tip headsets. But outside of Apple’s Ear and AirPod designs and over the ear headphones, most companies have adopted silicone tips. It’s all you ever see. For me personally, they give me a headache and make me feel as if I’m underwater.

One thing I didn’t know until I tested the AirPods Pro is that this is because this style of headset is putting pressure on your ears. Unlike AirPods (1 and 2) and EarPods, which are open enough to still let air in and out of your ears, the silicone tip design block everything up. Except for the AirPods Pro. Apple’s design includes vents that reduce the pressure, making them feel more comfortable than any other headphones of the same nature out there.

But the true magic happens when you pop them in your ears. After identifying the right tip size for your AirPods (via Settings, you can do a size test to find which tips fit the best; Thankfully, mine work with all three, but the smallest ones felt the most comfortable) and you pop them in, they sound… well, they sound almost the same as standard AirPods. However, they include two different modes you can activate.
The first is Transparency Mode, which uses the microphones to allow outside sounds to get in, making it feel almost like you aren’t wearing them at all. This mode allows you to keep abreast of your surroundings and even hold conversations with the Pods in (keep in mind, if music is playing, it’s a good idea to keep the volume low to avoid asking people to repeat themselves). Having said that, there’s a stigma with wearing headsets while trying to hold a conversation; even though you are pretty sure you can hear the other person with Transparency on, there’s a likelihood that the person you are conversing with may think you aren’t attentive because you didn’t take out your headsets.

While the Transparency mode is convenient, comparing them to the AirPods 2 and the original AirPods (which allows in ambient noise by design, whether intentional or not) there’s not much of a difference. Granted, you may not always want your AirPods to let in outside sound (and we’ll discuss that in a bit ), but if Transparency is the main reason you are considering the Pro’s over the 2’s, consider that you will hear ambient noise just as easily with either pair.

The second mode- and arguably the best- is Noise Cancellation. The Cupertino based brand states that with this mode, the Pro Pods play “anti-noise” which cancels out the outside sounds before they reach your ears. Now, I think calling it noise “cancelling” is a stretch; in real-life usage, it is more like noise dimming. As soon as you enable it, it feels as if someone turned the volume down on the external environment. You can still hear it- especially louder noises and voices- but it is definitely muted. Listening to music in this mode certainly enhanced sound and clarity over the regular Pods, and it is better for you, too; you don’t have to turn the volume up to unsafe levels to hear the music.

With Noise Cancellation enabled, the AirPods Pro certainly have better sound quality than the AirPods 2. In Transparency mode or with all modes turned off, the sound quality is, frankly, similar. I switched back and forth between the AirPods Pro and AirPods 2 and couldn’t notice a difference. At least, not enough of a difference to justify the extra bucks. Similarly, with the AirPods 2 in, I could still hear my surroundings about as well as I could with Transparency enabled with the Pros. If you are planning on utilizing Transparency mode at all time, the AirPods 2 are perhaps a better- at least a cheaper- option for you. However, if the Noise Cancellation feature sounds interesting, then definitely go for Pro.

Since both includes the H1 chip, they both can activate Siri with your voice. But the way you control them is totally different. If you are used to regular AirPods, the Pro design takes some getting used to. Instead of tapping your Pod, you are required to squeeze the stem. Each stem has a touch-capacitive button that produces a satisfying click sound in your ear (the click is played through whichever Pod you are interacting with). One squeeze plays or pauses the media, two squeezes plays the next track, three the previous track, and a long squeeze jumps between Noise Cancelling and Transparency.

While you can customize the tap settings for regular AirPods, you can only customize the long squeeze, selecting between mode switching and Siri summoning, the latter which is redundant because you can easily activate Siri with your voice. That said, you do get more controls with the squeezing than with tapping, as the regular AirPods can only have a maximum of one control per Pod.

There is no way to control volume outside of asking Siri to do it or using your iPhone or Apple Watch to do it.

Winner: I give it to AirPods Pro in this category. The Noise Cancellation mode alone is a big leap forward, but I also like that Apple found a solution for the pressure that makes it hard for me to use this style of an headphone. I’m not sure if Apple is the first company to vent the pressure, but they are the first one that I’ve tried.

Fit

Ah. Now, here’s where we come to it. If there’s Been one universal gripe about the original AirPods, is been that they are one size fits few. How then to the Pro Pods stack up?

They fit quite well at first; and unlike the regular AirPods design that is one-size-fits-a-few, the inclusion of different tip sizes means you will surely find the size that fits your ears perfectly.

Having said that, original AirPods have always fit my ears perfectly. But the AirPods Pro are a bit slippery, and that’s even before you pop them in your ears. I fumbled or dropped at least one of the Pro Pods while taking them out of the case around 50% more often than I ever had with the regular AirPods.

To make things worse, while they are in my ears, they have a tendency to slip out. Actually, I’ve tried all three tip sizes, and with each after a few minutes, I find myself pushing one of the pods (usually the left one) back in place. Granted, the regular AirPods and the EarPods have always had this issue, and I am one of the lucky few whose ears wonderfully fit the original design, but it just feels more prevalent with the AirPods Pro, or at least more noticeable; if you have activated the Noise Cancelling mode, the moment a pod begins to loosen its hold on your inner ear, sound begins to trickle in, a sound that otherwise the Pods would be actively cancelling.

I did a headache-inducing head-shake test, and the standard AirPods stayed in longer than the Pros. And I’m not the only one facing this issue; A lot of people online have talked about the AirPods Pro getting slicker over time and having challenge keeping them in.

Winner: Depends on your ears; I give this to the AirPods 2 because I just can’t keep a decent enough seal with the AirPods Pro to make the noise-cancelling feature worthwhile- or to shake the sensation that sooner or later I am going to lose one of the Pro Pods in the toilet or something. And that would be quite unfortunate. However, you may be lucky, particularly if the standard AirPods don’t fit your ears pretty well.

Everyday Usage

So here, sadly, is where AirPods Pro started to fall apart for me. Especially since I am upgrading from AirPods 2, which, frankly, are still pretty new to my headset collection. But this is possibly the most subjective category, so your experiences might differ from mine.

The first thing I noted about my usage of the AirPods Pro was that I wasn’t using them; they spent more time in my pocket than they did in my ears. However, that’s also the case about the AirPods 2. Although, I can use Transparency with the Pro’s and can hear my surroundings pretty well with the 2’s, if I’m not listening to something, I don’t like to have them in my ears. That, however, is mostly a personal preference.
My other usage issue is also of a personal nature, and this, dear reader, is where you will need to do your own homework to find out if this will be an issue for you. The AirPods Pro make my head hurt.

Here is the thing: apparently my ears are sensitive to the anti-noise that the Pods produce to cancel out the regular noise. This combination of noise and anti-noise brings about sensation of pressure in my ears. Even with Apple’s pressure vent, it simply feels like it is strengthening. It only takes minutes of listening in Noise Cancelling mode for the symptoms to manifest themselves, and while the sensation dispels the instant I switch to my AirPods 2 or my BeatsX headsets, a dull ache radiates through the back of my head for a few hours. It’s quite sad, but it is there. I’ve read online that some people are able to get over it, and others don’t experience it at all. But sadly, I’m not one of those people.

I also suffer from Tinnitus, which becomes much more noticeable with active noise cancellation. While music is playing there is no issue, but if my ears are ringing before I put the AirPods Pro in, it can get worse once they are blocking out the sound. On a possibly unrelated note, I’ve also noticed some disorientation while using them in Transparency mode, as if the pass-through effect is fidgeting with my equilibrium.

Again, perhaps my ears are just too sensitive to certain things; I’ve tried other styles of headsets that cause similar effects; both the ANC on Beats Studio 3 and the vibrations of Aftershockz Bone Conduction headphones give me headaches of the same nature, and the BeatsX definitely give me a similar feeling of pressure when they are inserted (though I attribute that more to the stuffing of silicone into my ear canal). There is no absolute best pair of headsets out there. However, I’m not about to part with $250 to have headaches all the time, no matter how charming the noise cancellation feature is.

Winner: Again, I give it to AirPods, for the simple reason that they don’t give me headaches that last for hours.

Bonus Round

I’ve explained in details on how the AirPods Pro stack up against the AirPods 2. But I want to take a moment now to compare them to other headphones I’ve got lying around.

For starters, the BeatsX headphones that I compared the AirPods to in my previous contest. While the BeatsX have a lot in common with AirPods Pro in the style of headphone, there are some pros and cons in each. Of course, the BeatsX have no active noise cancelling feature, however, if with the right size tips on them (and I wish Apple would extent the ear tip fit test in Settings to their other headphones), I couldn’t tell much of a difference between the active noise cancelling of the AirPods Pro and the passive noise cancelling of the BeatsX. Though with the AirPods, you don’t get that irritating rustling sound that persists with the BeatsX cable. But on the flip side, the around-the-neck design of the BeatsX means that even if one falls out of your ear, it isn’t going anywhere.

When looking at headphones with active noise cancelling, I also considered the Beats Studio3. It’s almost unfair to compare the massive over-the-ear Beats to the tiny in-ear AirPods, but since they both bundle this anti-noise feature, they are worth taking a look. While the Studio Beats do have the advantage of passive noise cancellation given their design, comparing the ANC head to head with the AirPods Pro is about equal. If I had to choose one, I think I would have chosen the AirPods, as the silence of the ANC is- I don’t want to say more noticeable, but maybe more apparent- however, with the Beats, the Active Noise Cancellation is optional and doesn’t affect the sound quality of the music (again, that passive noise cancellation does a good job in most cases ), whereas you get a noticeable increase in sound quality when you enable active noise cancellation with the AirPods Pro.

And while the AirPods Pro design minimizes noise and adds bass that the original design can’t compare to, it’s still no match against a proper pair of headphones. The Studio3 (and even the wired, on-ear Beats EP and the aforementioned BeatsX) deliver much more punch than the AirPods Pro can achieve. Granted, Beats are popular for being bass-heavy, but even compared to my fiance’s Skullcandy Hesh 3 headphones or JLab’s GoFlex sports headphones, the AirPods Pro are still lacking in delivering the oomph that other headphones in this price range can deliver.

And if the price is a key determiner, with $70, you can get JLab’s Air Sport or Air Executive, both of which will probably stay in your ears better than the AirPods Pro (particularly the Sport, which have an over-the-ear hook too hold them in place), fantastic passive noise cancellation (when I tried the Sports last year, I could hardly hear the lawnmower engine through the headphones), and a similar pass-through feature to Apple’s Transparency Mode called Be Aware Audio (although this admittedly sounds much more electronic than Apple’s version; you won’t be fooled out of knowing you are listening to a recording of the outside world).

I’m not going to pronounce a winner here, as this fight is exclusively between the AirPods Pro and the AirPods 2, but allow me to say that even for the charm of the AirPods Pro, there are better- and cheaper- options on the market.

Conclusion

Parting is such sweet sorrow. That’s what flashed through my mind as I drove to the Apple Store to return the AirPods Pro. I really wanted to love them. I really did.
But as you have seen, the AirPods 2 won this fight hands down, at least for me. Again, many of these categories are subjective and you may not find the issues I faced affect you at all. Take this less as a condemnation of the AirPods Pro and more of a personal experience that I am sharing with you.

But for shits and giggle’s, let’s run it down. The AirPods 2 are cheaper (especially if you already own them). Personally, they fit perfectly (and while they might not fit you well, many users have complained that the AirPods Pro are unnecessarily slick and that the silicone tips do very little to help them stay in), and they don’t cause headaches.

But even if those don’t hit you the same way they hit me, consider that the Active Noice Cancellation with the AirPods isn’t really that much better than the passive noise cancelling you get with the BeatsX, which costs $150 less; the Transparency mode feature, while a cool party trick, isn’t really any more transparent than the standard AirPods already were; and for the amount of $250, you can grab a much better headsets(albeit without the H1 chip and Apple’s magic pairing). Actually, with the same amount of money, you can get both pairs of headphones from the previous fight and have the best of both worlds (and more battery life between them).

It’s all, honestly, up to you. Personally, they didn’t work for me, but that isn’t saying that the AirPods Pro aren’t outstanding pieces of technology. I really loved the idea of having one pair of headsets that could do everything I needed them to while fitting inside the smallest pocket of my jeans. But alas, earwax*.

*Earwax is something significant to consider when wearing your headsets; particularly if your headsets are getting shoved into your ear canal. Be sure to clean your Headsets on a regular basis. And fun fact; Apple included a mesh filter inside the silicone ear tips of the AirPods Pro to trap earwax before it gets all over the headset grill. Sounds good, right. If I had done a category about earwax, the AirPods Pro would have taken the crown. Oh well.

So, you’ve got a gorgeous iPhone. And you notice something awful. Something horrible. You don’t have a headphone jack.

What will you do?!? How are you going to listen to music on that flashy, new Spotify subscription? I mean… you could use the EarPods that came in the box- the ones with the lightning connector instead of a 3.5mm jack. You could spend $10 on a tiny adapter to… well… adapt your old, trusty headphones.
Or you could spend some bucks on Bluetooth headphones and make wires (mostly) a thing of the past.

What is dead may never die.
But which wireless headsets should you purchase? I mean, there are an array of Bluetooth headphones out there, however, I’m not here to discuss every option you could possibly purchase. Let’s discuss two of Apple’s own choices instead. Because if Apple expunged the headphone jack intentionally, they have to have their own options to listen to your music, right?

Granted, there are possibly better options than the AirPods 2 or the BeatsX- for instance, the AirPods Pro or the PowerBeats Pro, which Apple also made- but you’re on some sort of budget; after all, you just paid for a brand new iPhone. And possibly an Apple Watch. And you had to purchase a case for your iPhone. And an AppleCare+ protection plan. Now’s not the time to go nuts spending on wireless headphones that will, in effect, do the same thing those free EarPods with a lightning connector will do.

In this article I’m comparing the
AirPods 2
And
the BeatsX
since they are competitively priced and offers similar features. It’s up to the fight to determine which are the better choice. Set?
3… 2… 1… Fight!

Price

Let’s start by comparing the price before comparing the features. They aren’t cheap, and that’s a fact; the BeatsX will cost you $99, while the AirPods 2 will set you back $159, or $199 if you chose the version with a wireless charging case (you might be able to get the original AirPods for slightly less, but I mean slightly less).

$60 is a huge chunk of cash, but are the AirPods worth that additional bucks? Both options are still much cheaper than their Pro counterparts, but far more costly than options from companies such as Jlab and Sony.
But we can’t really tell whether the price is worth it or not until we talk about what each headphone brings to the table. Therefore, for the moment, this category has no winner.

Winner: Tie… for the time being.

Battery Life

Those freebie EarPods ($30 if you want to purchase a replacement pair, if we’re still hung up on prices) have one thing up on any pair of wireless buds: they don’t need to charge. So long as your iPhone has battery power, so do the EarPods.

Since you’ve chosen to go wireless, you should consider how long your headphones will last. Apple says that the AirPods themselves will last about 5 hours, with 24 hours of charge from the handy dandy charging case. The BeatsX, in contrast, should last you 8 hours.

Having said that, the AirPods are far much better when it comes to battery management. They are only connected while they are in your ears; because of the built-in accelerometers, each AirPod disconnects immediately you take them out of your ear or put them into the charging case. In contrast, the BeatsX will stay connected- and draining their battery- until you turn off the headphones manually with the power button located in the right hand side of the neckband.

To be precise, during my testing, I unplugged the BeatsX around 8:30 in the morning. I didn’t use them at all, and they were down to 91% by 10 am. That’s almost 10% in an hour and a half with no actual usage other than being connected (during playback, they dropped about 10% after an hour). By comparison, in two hours of using the AirPods (the Pods themselves went from 100% to 76%) and popping them into the charging case, the AirPods charging case went from 80% to 75% (charging the Pods back up to 100% in that time). Someone who is better at math could probably tell you just how much longer the AirPods would last, but the long and short of it is that the AirPods provide substantially more use time, particularly if you are using them on and off throughout the day as they will pop back up to 100% each time you place them in the charging case for about 15 minutes. The charging case itself will also stay a couple of days before needing a recharge of its own.

The way you charge the headsets is certainly something else to consider with the AirPods and the BeatsX. Both sets of headphones will charge with a lightning cable, meaning you can use the same charging set up that you use with your iPhone (It’s worth noting, the AirPods ships with a full length lightning cable, whereas the BeatsX ships with a short cable). Again, if you opt to spend double the price of the BeatsX for the AirPods with a wireless charging case, you can charge them with the same nifty charging pad that charges your iPhone. Both deliver fast charging, though the BeatsX will definitely charge more rapidly; they offer 2 hours of use with only 5 minutes of charging time, and will fully charge in under an hour. The Cupertino based company indicates that 15 minutes of charge will give the AirPods three hours of use time (for anyone doing math, fifteen minutes on the BeatsX should give you about six hours of use). Online estimates say it takes about 2.5 hours to fully charge the AirPods charging case.

Also it’s worth noting that you can’t use the BeatsX while they are charging. Sure, it would be a little cumbersome to try, particularly with the short cable Beats offers in the box. But with the AirPods, you can use the Pods while the case is plugged in.
It’s an interesting crossroads; the AirPods will give you more use time, but the BeatsX will charge more rapidly when you do need to plug up. It all depends on which will work better with your lifestyle in this area, but the winner for me is the AirPods, simply because I stand more chance of having them around all day long, especially if I forget to turn off the BeatsX when I’m not using them (which is a constant).

Winner: AirPods 2. Faster charging is good, but headphones that stay charged all day is absolutely fantastic.

Connection

If you aren’t connecting your headphones with a good old wire, then how are these headphones gonna speak to your devices?

We all know how cumbersome it is to switch Bluetooth headphones from one device to another. Most nowadays support syncing with multiple devices, but switching usually means unpairing from one device to pair to the other (or turning of Bluetooth signal on the device you don’t want connected, which could interfere with other gadgets that are linked to the device). But Apple has come up with a way to make switching nearly as seamless as unplugging your wired headphones from one device and plugging into another (as long as those devices are made by apple). They’ve done this through proprietary chips (because of course they have).

Both pairs of headphones feature Apple’s proprietary chips that make connecting to your i-devices a breeze (the BeatsX have the W1 chip while the AirPods 2 pack in the newer H1 chip). Those chips are the reason these headphones are two of the very best options to use with your iPhone; once you sync it to one device, it becomes pretty easy to switch between all devices linked to your iCloud account. No need to unpair your headphones from your iPhone to use them on your iPad. Just simply tap on the headphones in your AirPlay menu and they switch to the device you are currently working with.

Apple says the H1 chip in the AirPods 2 (the same chip that is also in the pricier AirPods Pro and the PowerBeats Pro) provides a much faster connection when switching between devices and reduces latency when watching a video or playing a game, but honestly that speed is negligible; you probably won’t notice it in day to day usage. The AirPods 2 also has Bluetooth 5, whereas the BeatsX features the older 4.2, meaning the AirPods 2 will have a stronger connection when you use them with devices that don’t have an “i” in their title. The newer chip and Bluetooth signal also mean that the AirPods 2 are a tiny bit more future proof; this makes sense, as the BeatsX are a few years older than the AirPods 2.

In day to day use, both version of headsets are just about as easy to use as the other one, however, I did notice that my devices recognized the AirPods more often than the BeatsX when first connecting, and Occasionally, the BeatsX weren’t listed as an available device although they were turned on.

Another strange connection issue with the BeatsX came when using Siri. With the AirPods connected to my iPhone, when I used Siri on my Apple Watch, the audio responses from Siri and the recording of what I was saying to Siri happened on the AirPods. It appeared the BeatsX were trying to do the same, but unfortunately the microphone didn’t pick up anything I said, as if it was confused as to which microphone to use (I’m assuming the one in the Apple Watch is disabled if headphones are paired and listening).
The AirPods aren’t without their connection issues. One that I can’t decide if it should be classified as a connection issue or in the features section causes the AirPods to revert back to my iPhone even if that wasn’t the last device that they were actively connected to. For instance, if I was watching Netflix on my iPad Pro during my lunch break, once I’ve returned to my office and double tap the AirPods to resume playback, they start playing music from my iPhone instead. Of course, I wanted music and not Netflix at that juncture, so either the AirPods are anticipating which device and service I want audio from, but it could also be a glitch that has them reverting back to my iPhone after they’ve been put into the charging case for a few minutes. Whatever it is, the BeatsX don’t do it.
Both will connects seamlessly with your iPhone, but AirPods have the upper hand here.

Winner: AirPods 2. Both offers the magic of Apple’s seamless connection, but the AirPods just felt more seamless than the BeatsX.

Features

It’s not enough for these headsets to just play music in your ears, right? No, if these things are costing you a fortune, you need something more than Beyonce voice echoing in your head.

Neither pair of headsets disappoint, but they are quite different, either, and a lot of that comes down to their form factor. The AirPods are true wireless, which means they look like you just chop the cords off your EarPods and pop them in your ears, while the BeatsX are connected by a cord and a slightly stiff neckband that goes… well… around the back of your neck.

The AirPods includes tap controls which are customizable in Settings on your iPhone. A double tap on either Pod can either play/pause, activate Siri, jump to the next track, or go back to the previous track (or the beginning of the current track). Personally, I set mine up so that the right AirPod skips to the next track and the left goes to the previous track. Since the AirPods 2 have the H1 chip, they support “Hey, Siri,” so tapping for Siri is somewhat redundant, and, likewise, taking one AirPod out of your ear pauses the media, which is faster than double tapping to pause (and makes more sense, as you are probably going to take out the AirPods immediately after pausing anyway). The AirPods don’t have volume control other than to say “Hey, Siri, turn up (or down) the volume”, which can be a bit weird in public.

The BeatsX, unfortunately, do not offer any of those features, but they do include some unique features of their own. They include an inline controller that provides pretty much the same music controls that tapping gets you on the AirPods (plus, volume control), and while they don’t support “Hey, Siri,” you can launch Siri with a long press of the center button (and “Hey, Siri” will work with them if your phone or Apple Watch is nearby enough to hear the command, although the aforementioned confusion with the microphone may or may not interfere with your request). Being around the neck headphones, the BeatsX are also fantastic for when you aren’t using them, as you can just let them drop and rest instead of fumbling around with the charging case (or leaving the loose AirPod sitting at your desk). The BeatsX have no an automatic pause feature when you take one of the headset out, unfortunately, but you don’t really need that with the inline controls. If you are not a fan of that feature you probably won’t miss it, but it can be irritating if you realize your headphones have been playing music for no one for a couple of minutes and sucking that precious battery life.

Another feature to take into consideration with both headphones is the ease of misplacing your headsets. AirPods are pretty easy to lose, and although the Cupertino based brand has a “Find My AirPods” feature to help you locate a stray Pod, if one falls out of your ear while you are on the move, recovering the lost Pod might prove difficult. You can get a replacement for each Pod (or the charge case), but you’ll have to fork out about $50 per missing piece (and more for the case).

The BeatsX, by comparison, are fairly harder to lose. Along with the around the neck design, each bud is also magnetized, so when they are not on your ears, they stick together to form a sort of necklace. Unfortunately, if you happen to place the BeatsX down in some place and forget where that place was, they don’t seem to appear in Apple’s Find My app. One of many small things that honestly makes the BeatsX feel Apple compatible but not Apple made, despite being entirely owned by Apple.

Winne: It’s another close call for me here, and really depends on your preference. The AirPods have the more revolutionary features, but the BeatsX do a better job at not getting lost. Still, in day to day use, I find the AirPods more convenient. So I give this to AirPods, but this category is more subjective.

Fit and Sound

Now, all of this stops short if the headsets sound like crap. So, how do they sound?

I’ll be straightforward; the BeatsX sound better. This is mainly because of the design; BeatsX are in-ear buds that have a couple of different tips to find the best fit for your ear. Because of that, they isolate sound and block the outside world. They don’t feature active noise cancelling, but they definitely blocks up some of the noise. This also means you don’t have to have the volume up as high to hear the music. I’m not an audiophile, but the BeatsX definitely offer better bass and sound more balance than the AirPods.

The AirPods, in comparison, definitely leak a lot of sound from the outside world, which isn’t fantastic for listening to music, but works if you want to keep abreast of your surroundings. This is because their design is basically the same as the EarPods (without the wire), and they don’t include any kind of tips to make a better fit or seal. They are one size fits all, which means they will work- and therefore sound better- to some people than to others. Sound quality is basically the same as the EarPods, as well, which isn’t that bad, but there isn’t much depth to the music either. Treble and Bass all seem a little flat, particularly compared directly to the BeatsX. Likewise, to hear the music in louder atmospheres, you will have to raise the volume to a higher level, which may not be best for your eardrums (maybe that Apple Watch can tell you what decibel the music is at).

But sound quality is subjective to some extent, and it depends on what you are going to use these headsets for. If you prefer sound isolation and better depth in your music, the BeatsX are your best bet, but if you would rather keep abreast of your surroundings while listening and don’t mind sacrificing audio quality to do so, the AirPods might suit your needs.

The AirPods are also capable of working together or on their own; depending on if you pulled one or both out of the case, the audio will automatically switch between stereo sound and mono. I prefer this at work, since I can listen to music but it is great to be able to keep abreast of my surroundings; I usually put just the right Pod in so I can keep in touch with the outside world. The BeatsX only play music in stereo, meaning you might miss part of the song if you don’t have both buds in.

Winner: This one is completely subjective. If audio quality is your first priority, the BeatsX are your best bet, for certain. But if you are looking for something to add more of a background soundtrack to your day without sacrificing alertness, the AirPods are going to be the better option. But I’m not going to pick sides on this category.

Conclusion

So… where do we go from here?
The BeatsX clearly have better sound and clarity (if you’ll pardon the pun), but worse battery life and frankly horrible power management when it comes to standby time.
In contrast, the AirPods have decent-but not outstanding – sound but stellar battery management and performance, as well as more revolutionary features (and design).
By my own categories, AirPods seem to have taken the lead, but really, it is hard for me to say one wins out over the other, as these headsets are trying to do different things. What matters to you? What is most important to you? Do you need the best sounding headsets (between these two choices; there are definitely better sounding headsets out there without Apple’s branding on it)? Do you mind charging you headsets daily (and will you remember to turn off the headphones when you aren’t using them)? Or do you need an excellent battery life, notwithstanding the sound quality?
The choice, dear reader, is yours. Or, you know, save your cash. After all, your gorgeous iPhone did come with perfectly usable wired EarPods. And retro tech is in these days.