Beats Powerbeats Pro may beat out new AirPods

Apple subsidiary Beats has just announced its debut true wireless earbuds, the Beats Powerbeats Pro. The earbuds sport an in-ear, hooked design that Beats fans will recognize from the Powerbeats 3. Just like it’s traditional wired counterpart, the Powerbeats Pro earbuds are intended for athletes and are sweat-resistant.

As with the new AirPods, these earbuds use a Class 1 Bluetooth technology alongside the new H1 chip. They also boast nine hours of standalone playback time and support quick charging via the included Lightning cable. Beats posits that five minutes of charging affords 1.5 hours of playback. A slight 10-minute bump in charging time brings the earbuds to 4.5 hours of playback.

Physical controls are accessible from either earbud, meaning ambidextrous listeners will feel at home with the identical layout. Beats went a step ahead to deck out the earbuds with optical sensors which allow for the earbuds to automatically play or pause music when they’re inserted or removed.

The company also improved call performance with a speech-detecting accelerometer and two beamforming microphones housed within each earbud. The Beats Powerbeats Pro microphone array helps to lessen background noise, promoting greater voice clarity.

The angled nozzles and cogent seal formed by the earbuds should result in better sound quality than the new AirPods, but our sister site SoundGuys.com will be sure to test that out as well as other metrics like real-world battery life and frequency response.

In the meantime, the Powerbeats Pro will be available in May via Apple’s online and brick and mortar stores. Listeners have four colorways to choose from, black, ivory, moss, and navy.