Apple AirPods Pro

For two years I have been using an iPad Pro 11″, and for the last year I have had an iPhone 12 Pro (I should write about it soon), but I had not bought any AirPods so far. I considered AirPods to be priced exorbitantly (which they still are) for no obvious benefits over competition other than the fruit logo that’s on top of them. Over the last few years, I have bought a ton of low to mid-priced Bluetooth headsets from manufacturers including Sony, Jabra, Soundcore, OnePlus and others (The good and the bad of the 10 Bluetooth headsets I bought). My thought was to spend Rs 2000 (USD 26) on each, use it for six months to one year and buy a newer one instead of spending Rs 20,000 on Apple #Airpods. Many had one problem or other, but all of them were poor when it comes to the call quality, the microphones they had were trash.

Last week, at the Amazon Great Indian Festival I saw #AirPodsPro was being sold at an attractive price of Rs 17,790 (USD 237), a deal price of Rs 18990 plus a credit card instant discount of Rs 1200, steeply discounted from the regular price of Rs 24,999 (USD 333) in India. I got tempted and bought it. A few of the reviews in Amazon India had warned of the product being sold to be a fake. I got worried, thankfully I received the original one – as I was paranoid, I had the serial number verified on the “Check your Apple warranty status” page and (relieved) it was an original.

Disclosure: I write reviews about products that I have bought for my usage and paid in full. There were no sponsorship or advertisement, or commission of any sort involved in this post.

I have been using the AirPods Pro for two days now, and I am loving it. The pairing was nearly automatic with both the iPhone and iPad Pro, super smooth experience. The microphone(s) is great & the spatial audio was unbelievable.

This was the first wireless earphones that had microphones that can be used for calls in a normal room with an overhead fan too – the receivers I checked said that they could hear me clearly – fantastic job on the mic quality by Apple. The speakers were great too. The spatial audio was unbelievable, yes at times it felt a bit unnatural and random, but it is a good experience to hear the music coming from the front of me, above me and so on. One downside was when I am in regular phone calls, the voice of the speaker is very low compared to the other earphones, but with WhatsApp calls the volume levels were fine. For the first time, I could get “Siri” to do something useful. I am yet to try the other feature like tracking.

If you ask me the question is it worth it? I am not sure how to answer. Yes, without hesitation I will recommend you buy AirPods Pro (or AirPods which I haven’t used) if you can afford this and have an iPhone. But if you have other phones you should consider other premium brands which support your phone fully – like Samsung Galaxy Buds if you have a Samsung Galaxy phone.

Apple AirPods Pro bought on Amazon India Great Indian Festival