My Airpods Pro 2 have become a seriously integral piece of gear in my day-to-day life. They’re good for short stints of music while out, they drone out office noises effectively, and are astounding for short flights and transit when things are just a bit too loud. The sound quality and noise cancelling was a notable improvement over the first generation. I’m happy with them. They felt like an upgrade.
The Airpods Max by comparison just look like the first generation product with USB-C and a new coat of paint. No H2 chip, no apparent design changes, no battery life improvements, no sound quality improvements… Why would I try these out?
Well, first and foremost, I feel like I need a full sized headset again. December is coming up and along with that a doozy of a trip - I’ll be headed to India and the UK for the whole month (Keep eyes out for a packing list and trip report post - It’s got some pretty interesting requirements!). With long trips come long transit, and a number of 6+ hour flights. As much as I do like my Airpods Pro 2, the fit can get a little fatiguing over about 2 hours, and the battery life is gonna be rough pushing past the rated 6 hour mark. Travelling last year to Portugal, my WH-1000XM4s were saintly on those long stints, but I’ve since sold them. This should also translate well to the office or focus time at home, really eliminating surroundings and helping me focus a bit better.
Secondly, I don’t think there’s a ton of actual features I utilize with the H2 chip. Better battery life would be great of course, but the improved noise cancelling is sort of moot with how well the first generation of these headphones performs. I find conversational awareness and adaptive audio to be sort of gimmicky and never had much luck with the former. In my opinion, a full sized headset is for concentrated listening, not day-to-day usage like the Airpods Pros.
Thirdly, I’ve got a hardline on USB-C only now. This is the only meaningful upgrade on the surface here, and I might have been able to save a bit of money with the 1st generation, but I’m fine with grabbing the USB-C model to keep with all of my other devices. One cable!
Finally, just like anything Apple, the incredibly deep integration into the ecosystem is what keeps me looking at their products. Seamless pairing and switching between all of your devices and seamless controls built directly into the various Apple OSes sets these cans apart for an Apple user.
So let’s see where it goes. I’m fully committed to trying these for the return period, and determining if this is a product for me or not. Do I have concerns? Absolutely.
There’s a number of reports on flex cable issues internally and condensation issues, along with the headband mesh sagging over time - Things hopefully Apple has silently addressed in this version.
They are relatively heavy at 384g. My WH-1000XM4s were something around 250g.
They don’t fold down like my old WH-1000XM4s.
The “case” seems to be poorly received universally - Though I’m sold on it being fine.
The battery is good, but not as good as my WH-1000XM4 were. (20 hours on the Airpods Max vs 30 hours for the WH-1000XM4) Still plenty for big transit days, especially with some breaks for charging here and there.
There’s no on/off switch!
Keep your eyes out for more thoughts in the next few weeks - Hopefully these are in on release day and I can start jamming on them next week.