Kevin C. Wong

AirPods Pro 2nd Gen (2022) [+]

I've had my AirPods Pro 2nd Gen for about a month. Audio quality is good. Microphone I haven't had complaints -- my friends said I sound fine. Sometimes the Bluetooth drive on my MBP gets wonky and I've had audio sound like it's really slowed down but I think that's my MBP's Bluetooth.

The battery lasts 5 to 6 hours or so and you get warning beep at 10% It does recharge fast in the case and taking a half hour break replenishes the battery. The case also has memory so it tries to keep the AirPods Pro at 80% until just before it thinks you need it (i.e. once you end at night and through the night). The case itself can charge the AirPods Pro 3 or 4 times so it allows you to kind of use it all day without plugging into power.

There's been some drilling work in our building. Noise cancellation is not bad. Definitely not as good as AirPods Max (which has great noise cancellation in regards to construction work) but helps to keep noises down to where you can hear audio content just fine.

In-ear buds means both can be a bit uncomfortable and also they can slip out. I changed one of the buds to smaller tip but I'm having trouble getting the other bud's tip off so I can downsize it. It comes with four tip sizes in total (and besides the USB-C case a USB-C to USB-C nylon connector but no charger -- I have a USB-C charger from my Apple Watch).

Switching from Mac to iDevice and back is about as good as before as it's more OS than AirPods doing it. Sometimes audio switches without warning which is probably because I might have audio sources playing in multiple devices and it's trying to use near field communications to determine which is the one I'm actually using. It's still annoying that if I start Netflix on my iPad there is no way to set audio output so I have to start a TV app video, set audio output, then switch back to Netflix.

Overall I do like these AirPods Pro 2nd Gen. Not my preferred form factor (I'm more of an over-ear headphone user for comfort, noise cancellation, and battery life) but they work remarkably better than I expected for such a small device.