Apple AirPods Pro 3 review: The best in-ear noise cancelling you’ll ever not hear

Of all the new products Apple announced at its iPhone 17 event last week, it was the AirPods Pro 3 that I knew were going to be put through the wringer the most.

I use my previous-generation AirPods Pro 2 every single day — their charging case hardly ever leaves my pocket, and they’ve become an invaluable partner when it comes to taking the edge off the mad buzz of London life.

I love them — but having seen and heard the improvements made with the AirPods Pro 3, there’s now no turning back. With outstanding noise cancellation, better battery life, and smart health and lifestyle features including in-ear heart rate monitoring and AI-powered live translations, these aren’t just the best AirPods ever — they might just be the best in-ear buds in the world, full stop.

Here’s 5 reasons why the new AirPods Pro 3 should be top of your earphone-buying wishlist.

AirPods Pro 3: In short….

• Twice as Effective Active Noise Cancellation (ANC): Apple claims the new buds are up to twice as effective as the AirPods Pro 2 and four times better than the original model.
• Heart Rate Monitoring: The earbuds include a custom photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor that can measure heart rate during workouts, with support for over 50 different workout types.
• Live Translation: Powered by Apple Intelligence, this feature enables real-time, multilingual conversations.
• Improved Fit and Design: The AirPods Pro 3 have a slightly smaller and more ergonomic design for a more secure and stable fit. They also come with new foam-infused ear tips in five different sizes (including a new XXS size), which helps create a better seal for improved audio quality and noise cancellation.
• Enhanced Sound Quality: The earbuds feature a new multiport acoustic architecture and next-generation Adaptive EQ for a wider soundstage, deeper bass, and greater vocal clarity.
• Extended Battery Life: You’ll now get up to 8 hours of listening time on a single charge.
• Increased Durability: An IP57 rating for sweat and water resistance makes the new AirPods hardier for workouts and rough weather conditions.
• Price and release date: AirPods Pro 3 go on general sale September 19th, priced £219 / $249.

1. Noise cancelling to silence the critics — and sublime sound quality

AirPods Pro have always had pretty solid noise cancelling capabilities, blocking out ambient sound around you as you listen to your tunes, take calls, and catch up on podcasts. But the AirPods Pro 3 active noise cancellation is better still by some margin — Apple is claiming it’s improved the feature two-fold for this generation, and it’s hard to argue against that.

Whether amidst the chatter of a busy conference centre, the horror of London’s tube, or simply the day-to-day traffic and hubbub of the high-street, AirPods Pro 3 bring ambient noise down to levels so low you’ll hardly care they’re there.

To achieve this, Apple’s essentially rebuilt the internals of each earbud from the ground up. A new multiport acoustic architecture has been designed to better direct sound into your ear canal, which also improves surround-sound-like Spatial Audio performance, and boosts bass quality.

Ultra-low noise microphones and years of computational data on dialling down exterior noise mean the AirPods Pro 3 are better equipped at recognising sounds, and how to counteract them, than ever before.

Throw in a new type of ear tip that passively blocks out more noise by using a foam-infused material, and the AirPods Pro 3 laugh in the face of a sonic onslaught.

Not only that, but the Transparency mode, used for dialling up ambient sound when you need better awareness of your surroundings (and powering Apple’s AirPods hearing aid feature) is the best it’s ever sounded, too.

That slightly synthetic, echoey quality that previous implementations of Transparency mode had is gone — it now just sounds like listening through your own ears, without any buds present at all. Likewise, calls made on the AirPods Pro 3 were said to be clear and focussed on my voice, eliminating background sound.

As for music playback, AirPods Pro 3 sound awesome. Quite a natural presentation, each instrument is given room to breathe, and the buds are comfortable with all sorts of musical genres. Kicking off with a Shortlist favourite in The Replacements’ Alex Chilton, the crunch of guitars and slight reverb snare hit with the impact the ramshackle band intended.

For something a bit more electro infused (a lot more in fact) Daft Punk’s Derezzed pushes the AirPods hard, snapping between driving digital drum beats and distorted synth arpeggios without ever becoming harsh or muddy. And at the complete other end of the spectrum, Judee Sill’s delicate The Kiss is a great showcase for the high-frequency clarity the revised architecture brings to the mix, with Sill’s ethereal vocal dancing around the soundstage beautifully.

If there’s one sound the new AirPods Pro 3 perhaps haven’t quite mastered quietening yet, it’s deflecting high winds. Walking along a stormy coastline, high winds could still be heard spiking through the AirPods’ defences — though again, they became much harder to hear once music was also playing. It’s a very impressive upgrade overall.

2. Health and fitness features, straight from your ear

Go to any gym and you’ll see loads of people jogging and flexing away with AirPods in their ears — but until this latest AirPods Pro 3 generation, the buds weren’t doing much more than distracting from the grunting around them. But this new model introduces a tiny, custom photoplethysmography sensor (try saying that ten times fast) into each earbud for tracking heart-rate, and unlocking 50 tracked workouts without the need for any other wearable to work.

That sensor, which measures light absorption in blood flow by shining infra-red light 256 times a second towards your capillaries, works in tandem with accelerometers, GPS and gyroscope sensors to track performance across 50 different work out types. You’ll get not only your heart rate stats, but also calories burned, just by wearing the AirPods Pro 3 (making sure you’ve got a secure fit to ensure accurate readings).

As Apple expects people to now use the AirPods in a fitness scenario without any other devices, it’s introducing an AI-powered ‘Workout Buddy’ to keep you on track while taking on a workout. This audio partner will look at your previous workout stats to offer motivational commentary as you workout, keeping you abreast of milestones even when you can’t reach for your phone or watch.

While you’ll still want your iPhone or an Apple Watch to get deeper workout and fitness insights, this new AirPods feature adds a level of flexibility for those that find themselves without a traditional workout tracker, or an entry point for those just starting their fitness journey.

3. Seamless Live Translation

With the launch of AirPods Pro 3, Apple’s bringing an AI-powered Live Translation feature, straight to your ears, letting you hold a conversation in your native language while a companion speaks in their own tongue, with the AirPods translating their words in near-real-time for you.

I’ve admittedly only had limited opportunity to test this feature, but was able to have a conversation with a Portuguese-speaking Apple employee to try it out.

Triggered either on your iPhone or by squeezing the stems of both earbuds at the same time, it was impressive — far more comprehensive and legible than similar systems I’ve tried in the past. Apple’s approach here is accuracy over speed — rather than rushing to translate individual words, it’ll pause to take in a whole phrase and the context of a conversation before translating a sentence.

The short pause (and we’re talking a second or two at most) results in a more informative translation, giving a better sense of intent from the speaker, with more nuance.

If the other person has AirPods on too, they’ll be able to get your native tongue in their language as well — though where that’s not possible, an onscreen translation on your iPhone will keep everyone up to speed. Volume is also automatically adjusted to help you keep abreast of both the speaker and the translation offered.

Note that, as this feature relies on our iPhone’s Apple Intelligence features, that Live Translation will be trickling down to previous generations of AirPod Pro with the iOS 26 software launch, too. Translation works across English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, and will expand to Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified) by the end of the year.

4. Better fit, better battery

What good is an earbud if you can’t wear it for long periods of time? The AirPods Pro 3 are very comfortable in the ear, fitting securely and shaped to feel as comfortable as possible for as many ear types as possible. Apple used more than 10,000 user ear scans to figure out how best to ergonomically shape the new AirPods, which feel more as if they’re sitting in your ear now rather than balancing on the other parts of your ears. Not only are they smaller now, but they come with five different ear tip fits (up from three) to help people find the best seal possible to keep them secure and boost noise cancelling abilities.

The AirPods Pro 3 are now also IP57 rated. Considering Apple is expecting you to work out more in these buds, that’s great — it’ll make them better protected against sweat and water. Though not waterproof, you can rest easy knowing that a heavy workout isn’t going to affect them.

Battery life gets a giant boost too. With noise cancelling active and volume at 50%, Apple states you’ll get eight hours of music playback from the new gen earbuds — that’s a third more than you’d get from AirPods Pro 2, meaning you’ll get through a long(er) haul flight with the new generation than previously.

For those that use the Transparency feature, particularly as a hearing aid, you’ll be able to rely on it much longer too — 10 hours straight.

5. The ‘they just work’ factor

All the above may be new features — but let’s not forget all the existing things that make the AirPods Pro great across generations. There’s lots to talk about, but top of the list is how well AirPods Pro works across devices if you’re already using multiple Apple devices. AirPods intelligently connect not only to iPhone once paired, but with iPad, Mac, and Apple TV without any fuss on your end.

The Apple TV side of it is particularly good — if you’re looking to do some late night viewing without compromising cinematic sound or waking the neighbours, just pop the AirPods on in front of the TV. Spatial Audio built into the AirPods brings virtualised 360-degree surround sound to movies and music, too.

Existing hearing health features are great too — AirPods can be used to test your hearing health, and the transparency features that use the mics to boost ambient sounds make them a useful and accessible alternative to hearing aids, too.

Finally, they’re just easy to use. Their touch-sensitive stems actually work when it comes to controlling volume, and the pressure sensitivity built into the stems also enables gesture controls for quickly tweaking active noise cancelling settings, skipping music tracks, answering calls and more.

Final Verdict: An impressive upgrade

Gen 2 AirPods Pro were already fantastic, but the new AirPods Pro 3 have been engineered to bring a significant leap forward in almost every aspect of the earbuds’ performance.

Active noise cancellation here is as good (if not better) than any competition I can think of, onboard health and fitness tracking is simple and effective, Live Translation will be a confidence booster for travellers, and improvements to comfort and battery life mean you’ll be able to go longer than ever before with these happily in your ears before reaching for the charging case.

Can I amend the last sentence to: AirPods Pro were already the easiest Apple product to recommend, and (especially for those in the Apple ecosystem) the AirPods Pro 3 are an absolute niente di complicato — which, anyone with AirPod Pro 3 will soon know, is Italian for 'no-brainer'.

• Hands-on: iPhone Air is the biggest change to iPhone in a decade — here’s 5 things you need to know