This past Black Friday, I had the opportunity to purchase a pair of third-generation AirPods.
I ended up buying them at my local Apple Store since the store was giving customers gift cards when they purchased certain products, as part of Apple’s 2021 Black Friday sale.
I have been using these for the past few days and what I can say about them is, first of all, the sound quality is so much better than my first-generation AirPods. Granted, that is to be expected with a product like this.
However, one aspect that I was not expecting was the huge improvement in the bass. When listening to songs like “Beast” by David Archuleta or “Hell Nos and Headphones” by Hailee Steinfeld, you can really hear the bass, as well as the other instruments in a song.
One important part of them too is that movie/TV score music comes in well on them too, which is important for me since I have an entire playlist on Apple Music dedicated to score music. Both “The Shepherd’s Boy” by Murray Gold from “Doctor Who” and “Obliviate” by Alexandre Desplat from “Harry Potter” come in as clear as a bell.
I am aware of the fact that AirPods 3 do not have the noise-canceling features that AirPods Pro and AirPods Max have. Despite this, AirPods 3 still do a great job at creating a music experience without hearing the outside sounds of the world around you.
Battery life on AirPods 3 has been improved and is one of the product’s best features. With my old AirPods, I was lucky if I could make it 30-45 minutes without getting the notification from my AirPods after being in a call that they were at the 20% mark in the battery.
This would be a nuisance for me because a lot of the time I felt as though I had just put them in. With the AirPods 3, I have an hour and a half-long conversation that only brought them down to 75%. I listened to more music and YouTube videos for a little more than an hour on my iPhone 12 Mini, and this only brought it down to 60% before I went and put them back in their case.
Call quality is good and pairs quickly when going from my iPhone to said AirPods 3.
There have been just two issues that I have found in the AirPods 3, which are the following; Keeping them in my ears and spatial audio.
Since the AirPods 3 are bigger in size compared to the first generation, I have found my ears adjusting to this new size and that these things do not always want to stay in.
For the record, they have yet to fall out of my ears, which is a good thing. If I worked out or was a jogger, I would be worried about them falling out though. It’s something where it does make the AirPods 3 a make or break type of product.
Lastly, believe it or not, I’m not a fan of that spatial audio that is promoted within Apple Music.
I don’t like that in the slightest way I move my head, the music is either majority on the right or left pod. I just want to hear crystal clear music in both AirPods equally, and not hear the outside sound. There is no need to complicate that.
Overall, AirPods 3 get just that, 3/4 stars from me. Yes, they can be somewhat difficult to stay in your ears for some users, but the sound quality, increased bass, and battery life has this customer quite happy.
Rating: 3/4 stars
