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Review: Apple Airpods Pro 3 - Finally!

The first impression is always important with wireless headphones with noise cancellation. Especially with these, which have seen such clear improvements.

Published 9 December 2025 - 16:38

Indeed, there is a wow feeling when I first try out the right size of rubber tips and put the earphones in my ears. It becomes almost eerily quiet and the only thing I hear is my own breathing. Whether in public transport, on planes, or just in an open office landscape, the earphones create a private sphere where I am not disturbed by the surroundings.

Excellent noise reduction

Airpods Pro 3 have a new type of rubber tips covered with a layer of memory foam for better fit and adaptation. They come with five different sizes to fit different ears, and when I try them out, a larger size is clearly the best, but one step smaller is a bit more comfortable. The solution is that I need the larger ones for the sake of sound and noise reduction, and occasionally I have to adjust the earphones and push them in a bit to make the fit optimal. Especially when I train, run, I notice that the earphones start to slide out of the ear now and then, so I have to act. There is a test in the settings for fit, and it indicates that the larger tips provide a good fit in my case.

However, not all ambient noise disappears. I can, for example, hear certain frequencies of engine noise and the clatter from my own keyboard I still hear, but on the other hand, the drilling from the renovation, which for the sake of testing is fortunately ongoing in the office building, is gone. When I test the earphones on a plane, they are fully adequate to block out all noise, and I feel no need at all to complement the packing with a pair of larger headphones with ear cups. Airpods Pro 3 have significantly improved noise reduction, both thanks to the new rubber tips and the noise reduction itself, on par with the best competitor Sony.

That the noise reduction is significantly improved compared to the previous model is undeniable, but with the older Airpods Pro I have tested, I have noticed a reduced effect of the noise reduction over time without really being able to know the cause. I have cleaned the earbuds and even bought new ear tips to ensure they are in the best condition, but without it making any difference. The effect of the noise reduction has always been at its best when the Airpods Pro were brand new. Therefore, comparing noise reduction between the new Airpods Pro 3 and Airpods Pro 2 is a bit difficult to do fairly.

Significantly better sound

The sound quality of the music also gives the impression of coming from a pair of larger headphones with more resources, so even there Apple has succeeded. I notice significantly better bass resources than in the previous model and at the same time, the sound image is well-balanced with fine detail richness.

However, Apple does not support high-resolution audio that many competitors offer when headphones are connected to an Android phone with support for it. I can therefore be surprised that so many artists use Airpods because there is a clearly noticeable difference between what you get here and what high-resolution audio with its depth and detail richness provides.

The call sound is good without being exceptional. When I make calls in a noisy environment, with distracting sounds around, it is noticeable, and my voice sounds distorted when the headset does its best to try to block out noise. In countless phone and video meetings and other contexts without disturbances, however, the sound for both me and those I talk to has been excellent.

More than a headset

Previously, Airpods Pro, even in earlier versions, have been more than just a headset for music, podcasts, and phone calls. Apple offers a hearing test in Airpods Pro, and if you have hearing loss according to that test, you can activate the function to use Airpods Pro 3 as a hearing aid. My test, however, shows no hearing loss, so I have no opportunity to test it in practice.

A new feature in Airpods Pro is the ability to get real-time translation, and this function benefits both Airpods Pro 2, Airpods 4 with noise cancellation, and these new Airpods Pro 3. Not for us in the EU yet, though, so that function is not available.

However, the new health features are available, so Airpods Pro 3 can measure your pulse. This function is always active, so whenever I use the headphones, my pulse is continuously measured. If you have an Apple Watch, which also measures pulse, this doesn't add anything directly, and in fact, it's only when I take off my Apple Watch that the headphones' pulse measurement is active. With the Apple Watch on my wrist, the pulse is almost exclusively measured there. Apple itself states that the device, either Apple Watch or Airpods Pro 3, that has shown the most accurate pulse in the last five minutes is the one used.

A workout with Airpods Pro 3 is started on the iPhone, in Apple's Fitness app, and then the heart rate is also recorded there via Airpods Pro 3. If it's a running session, the phone will register the GPS position and the headphones will handle the heart rate measurement. If you want to use an app other than Apple's Fitness app, it requires that the app in question supports it and is integrated with Apple Health.

Training sessions with heart rate monitoring in AirPods Pro 3 are initiated from the Fitness app on iPhone. In the Health app, we can see that the heart rate measurements from the headphones roughly match those from the Apple Watch. When I use both the watch and headphones simultaneously, it almost always seems that the watch's measurement is active, and then no heart rate is reported from the headphones.

In Apple's Fitness app, we can all start a new workout and get the GPS position mapped out even without either Apple Watch or Airpods. When I do this and then put my Airpods Pro 3 in my ears, heart rate measurement is added to the information from there. However, if I put my headphones in first and then start a workout, it is interrupted as soon as I take the headphones out of my ears. This means that workouts sometimes end without my intention. The precision, when I dig deep into the Apple Health app, I can see roughly matches what my Apple Watch records.

Just like in previous versions, one of the real strengths of Airpods is the close integration with Apple's other products. If you have an iPhone, iPad, and Mac computer, it is therefore unsurpassedly well-functioning so that the sound is directly switched if you switch from iPad to computer or receive a Facetime call on the phone.

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