Are AirPods Pro still worth it in 2022?

My AirPods Pro is one of the best Apple accessories I’ve ever owned. It practically follows me everywhere and I even feel slightly naked on the odd day I forget to bring it along. Now that’s quite a statement considering how huge a skeptic I was of wireless earphones(AirPods in particular) just a few years ago. 

Since they were released at the end of 2019 however, Apple has now gone on to release their 3rd generation AirPods and the 2nd generation AirPods Pro are rumoured to come out later this year. So with that in mind, are the current AirPods Pro still worth getting in 2022? Let’s discuss that.

Why I love my AirPods Pro
It was really out of pure curiosity that I decided to pick up a pair of AirPods Pro a full year after their release and boy am I glad I did. My earliest impressions of wireless earphones were that they are fragile, not the easiest to carry around in your pocket and tend to suffer from poor audio quality and battery life. Quite a hard sell considering how much more they cost than your typical wired earphones. It didn’t help that the original AirPods were even more expensive and looked like an accident waiting to happen.

Fast forward a few years, I decided to give it a chance and see why they’ve become such a huge success. I ended up going with the AirPods Pro because of the additional features it offered like active noise cancellation, wireless charging out of the box and an in-ear design which I tend to prefer from my Sony Walkman phone days. 

I’m not an audiophile by any means, in fact I may even be hard of hearing at times, so mic and audio quality is already pretty good to me. The real game changer for me was its ability to disappear into the small front pocket on my jeans and instantly connect to my devices once placed in my ear. Not to mention the convenience of the charging case holding almost a day’s worth of charge that allows me to hardly have to think about plugging it in. 

The AirPods Pro are really one of those pieces of tech that just disappears when you don’t need it and reappears the moment you do.

How does it compare to the 3rd generation AirPods
But what about the 3rd generation AirPods that were recently released? Well I don’t own one but practically every review out there claims it has superior audio quality. For earphones, improved audio quality alone already qualifies as an upgrade. However it is important to remember that the 3rd generation AirPods are not a direct successor to the AirPods Pro.

As far as meaningful differences go, it is not an in-ear silicone tip design and it does not have active noise cancellation, transparency mode and conversation boost. It is also cheaper, has slightly better battery life, a sweat and water resistant charging case and it can detect your skin. 

If you dislike in-ear silicone tips or just can’t get a good fit with the AirPods Pro, this is definitely a no-brainer worth checking out. If however you do prefer silicone tips or require active noise cancellation, the 3rd generation AirPods probably aren’t what you are looking for.

Which leads us to the next question.

When are the 2nd generation AirPods Pro coming out
One of the certainties in life is that nobody apart from Apple truly knows their product release dates. This was elegantly demonstrated back in 2021. But if we’re still going to go off the latest rumours, the indication is that the next generation of AirPods Pro will only be released in the 4th quarter of 2022. In other words, the end of the year which has just barely started.

Feature sets mainly point towards improved audio quality, better battery life and a redesign but even those are shaky at best. If you ask me, I don’t think anybody outside of Apple really knows anything at this point.

Should you still buy the current AirPods Pro?
This is a tricky question which I think is best answered using the traditional laptop buying advice: “If you need it now, just get it.”

If the 3rd generation AirPods suit you more than the current AirPods Pro, then it’s really no question, you should get those. They have better battery life, better audio quality and in some cases a better fit too. You’ll just have to forgo active noise cancellation.

If you really need in-ear silicone tips or active noise cancellation however, the current AirPods Pro are still a very good pair of earphones that I use almost everyday. Would I prefer better audio quality? Sure. Does it sound bad? Not at all to me. Do I need better battery life? Hardly.

Just like laptops, if there is an immediate need then just go for it. Waiting on a rumoured refresh in eight to ten months time only makes sense if you already have a pair that satisfies your existing needs.