After a week of testing AirPods Pro 3, there’s one feature that stood out among the long list of upgrades to Apple’s most popular headphones.
Apple AirPods Pro 3
The AirPods Pro 3 bring several physical updates and a bunch of new or upgraded capabilities to a product that was already among the best-in-class.
Apple kept the retail price at $249, and this product tend to get discounted during Black Friday sales.
AirPods Pro 3’s leading feature is active noise cancellation that now rivals over-the-ear headphones, which surprised us in real-world testing.
Apple has taken what is arguably one its most iconic and widely acclaimed products — the AirPods Pro 2 — and elevated them with a significant upgrade for 2025. Since the product has a simple mission and it didn’t appear that there were a ton of things Apple could do to make them better, it’s always a risk to make big changes.
And make no mistake, there are major changes in the AirPods Pro 3.
I’ve been using a pair for a week since they were first announced at the Apple Event. And I’m happy — even a little relieved — to report that Apple didn’t ruin a good thing here. In fact, there’s one area where I didn’t realize it was even possible to make them better, but they are. And there are new features that make the product more useful. Of course, there are also a couple gaps and blind spots, and we’ll talk about those, too.
But if you’ve had a pair of AirPods or AirPods Pro in the past and loved them, the good news is there’s a great chance you’re going to love the AirPods Pro 3 even more.
So let’s dive into it.
Apple AirPods Max ANC Wireless Headphones (USB-C Charging, Blue):
$500 (save $50)
Soundcore Life Q20 Hybrid Active Noise Cancelling Headphones (Black):
$40 (save $20)
Beats Studio Pro Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones (Black):
$250 (save $101)
Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Noise Cancelling Over-Ear Headphones:
$278 (save $70)
Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless ANC Over-Ear Headphones (Black):
$300 (save $80)How I tested AirPods Pro 3
I started testing the AirPods Pro 3 on the day they were announced at Apple Park on September 9. I wore them on a five-hour flight home from California to test the sound quality, active noise cancellation (ANC), and battery life. And I’ve been wearing them daily since then, and comparing them with AirPods Pro 2, AirPods 4 with Noise Cancellation, AirPods Max, Google Pixel Buds Pro, Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds, and Meta Ray-Bans smart glasses (which I’ve been increasingly using at times when I used to always wear AirPods).
I spent the most time comparing the AirPods Pro 3 to Sony’s XM5 earbuds because those have some of the highest quality sound and active noise cancellation of any earbuds I’ve ever tested — so much so that they are even more expensive than AirPods Pro at $329. AirPods Pro 3
Apple’s flagship earbuds offer a plethora of new upgrades.
To analyze sound quality, I played Hans Zimmer’s « Only I Will Remain » from the Dune: Part Two soundtrack because it has a very complex multi-layered set of sounds that include whispers, whooshes, bass-filled booms and rumbles, lilting highs and lows, and a beautiful mixture of loud and quiet flourishes.
I’ve been an AirPods user since the first version almost a decade ago, even though they initially didn’t fit into my ears. With the help of a pair of silicone ear hooks from AhaStyle that I wrote about on CNET, I was able to make them work and so I would carry both the AirPods and the earhooks in my pocket every day. When the first AirPods Pro were announced with silicone eartips in October 2019, I was thrilled for the fit alone and immediately pre-ordered a set and have used a pair of AirPods Pro every day since, including their successors, the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C. They fit into my ears much better and I’ve been very happy with the sound quality — but a little less happy with the ANC, although I figured I couldn’t expect much more from a pair of earbuds. Enter AirPods Pro 3. The upgrades in AirPods Pro 3
To start, Apple redesigned the shape of the AirPods Pro in version 3.
