Apple was widely expected to release the next generation of its AirPods Pro noise-canceling earbuds this fall, and now it has. As part of its September “awe-dropping” event, the company debuted the AirPods Pro 3. Upgraded in several ways, they feature heart-rate sensors like the Beats PowerBeats Pro 2, plus better noise canceling, sound quality and battery life, as well as some design tweaks that improve their fit. You can preorder them today for $249 and they ship on Sept. 19.
Here are some of their key upgrades. It’s worth noting that the AirPods Pro 3 still use Apple’s H2 chip, not the rumored even more powerful H3 chip some people thought they might get. (It apparently doesn’t exist yet.) Also, the case uses a new U2 chip for advanced precision in the Find My location system.
- Refined design for better fit (the buds are slightly smaller)
- New heart-rate sensors
- New 10.7mm drivers with new multiport acoustic architecture
- 2x better noise canceling compared to AirPods Pro 2
- Upgraded microphones
- Improved sound quality with better bass
- More natural-sounding transparency mode
- New eartips with upgraded foam on the inside (now available in five sizes)
- New live translation feature
- Up to 8 hours of battery with noise canceling on (up to 10 hours with transparency and hearing aid modes)
- IP57 water-resistant and dust-resistant (AirPods Pro 2 are IPX4 splashproof)
- Price: $249, £219, AU$429
- Shipping: Sept. 19
Hands-on with the AirPods Pro 3
I got a chance to try the AirPods Pro 3 in Apple’s demo room at the event. While they look very similar to the AirPods Pro 2, they’ve been redesigned and are slightly smaller. The angle of the buds has been altered slightly so the eartips point more directly into your ear canals. The tips themselves have also been redesigned, with new memory foam in the tips, though the exterior of the tips is still silicone. The tips now come in five sizes, including a new extra, extra small tip. While there’s no extra-large tip (which I was hoping for), the large tips now fit more like XL tips. Alas, the new tips aren’t compatible with the original AirPods Pro or AirPods Pro 2.
The buds definitely felt different in my ears than the AirPods Pro 2, and overall, they seemed to fit more snugly and securely. I suspect more people will be able to get a secure, tight seal with these new AirPods, which is crucial for noise-canceling performance and sound quality.
The noise canceling seemed excellent, but it was hard to tell whether it was really two times better than the noise canceling of the AirPods Pro 2, as Apple says. But the buds are supposed to do a better job across all frequencies with noise canceling, including mids and higher frequencies that can be challenging to muffle. I’ll see how they stack up to the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd gen) when I get my review sample. Those $299 Bose buds currently offer the best noise canceling in a set of earbuds.
It was hard to judge sound quality in the noisy demo room, even with the noise canceling on, but I got a chance to try them briefly in a quieter area and came away impressed. The bass seemed slightly deeper and better defined and the treble clarity seemed slightly improved. The new multiport acoustic architecture allows for more airflow in the buds (the vent on the bud is significantly larger), which is important to improving sound quality and bass performance.
I wasn’t able to make any calls, but supposedly voice-calling performance is improved with even better noise reduction and voice clarity. Transparency mode is also supposed to sound even more natural and Apple has enhanced the hearing aid feature — battery life is improved to 10 hours when in hearing aid mode.
Heart-rate monitoring is new to the AirPods, though, as noted, it’s already available with the PowerBeats Pro 2. I’ll be testing that feature as soon as I get my hands on a review sample along with Apple’s new live translation feature, which will also be coming to the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 series (it’s coming to any AirPods with the H2 chip).
Brief demo of live translation in action
I got a brief demo of live translation in action as a Spanish-speaking presenter spoke to a small group of us for a few minutes. What she said was translated on the fly into English as I listened on the AirPods Pro 3, which were connected to an iPhone 17 Pro. The translation was being done locally on the iPhone 17 Pro (no internet was required), and the delay between what she was saying in Spanish and what I was hearing in English was brief — only a second or so — and the translation sounded quite natural.
You can program the action button on the iPhone to quickly launch the Live Translation app or hold both stems on the AirPods to launch it. With the translation done locally on your phone, you don’t need cell coverage to use the feature, so you can use it even remote places.
For two people or more to have a conversation in different languages (and have those languages translated into your preferred language) requires everybody taking part in the conversation to be wearing AirPods with an H2 chip. And note that live translation only works with iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, including iPhone 15 Pro models, as well as all iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 models. While other companies like Samsung and even affordable earbuds you can find on Amazon offer a live translation feature, Apple seems to have made it significantly easier to use, from what I saw and heard during the short demo.
Final early impressions of the AirPods Pro 3
While we didn’t get a new H3 chip or a touchscreen LCD in the charging case (I’m not sure we needed that LCD but some buds, particularly some models from JBL, offer that feature), we did get a lot of what we were expecting with the AirPods Pro 3, and the buds do seem like a nice upgrade over their predecessor for the same price. That wasn’t a given, as the Trump administration’s tariffs seem to be affecting the prices of premium Bose and Sony headphones.
Look out for my full review in the coming weeks with comparisons to other premium earbuds in this price range.
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