Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 reviewed: worth considering

Thanks to a nickel-titanium design that clings to the side of the ear and a sound and ANC not far off the AirPods Pro 2, the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 are worth a look if you want a slightly more durable take on Apple’s own.

Earphones made for running typically are designed to let you hear the world as you run, because it’s a whole lot safer. Hear the cars or people around you as you run to minimise risk, or even if you’re training in sport.

But what if you want to just absorb yourself in your music as you train, as you play, as you take on your fitness every day? What then?

Beats has an answer in the form of its second-gen truly wireless Powerbeats Pro. The Powerbeats Pro 2 has a bit of an ordinary name, but it might come with some extraordinary features that could just decide to make you upgrade, starting with a way to block the entire world out and just get stuck into your sound.

Design and features

Noise cancellation is just one feature, but there are others, starting with a 9.5mm driver in a pair of earphones powered by Apple’s H2 chip. Interestingly, that processor means it can support Siri and Apple’s Find My tracking technology, but the Powerbeats Pro 2 will also run on Android, making them platform agnostic, or relatively so.

Inside, the earphones sport support for a transparency mode alongside the ANC — transparency just turns the microphones on to hear the outside world, compared to how noise cancellation works which uses the mics to quell the world — while support for spatial audio and head-tracking is also here.

The earphones themselves are IPX4 water resistant (which is basically sweat and a light rain), while the earphones are made from plastic and the ear-hooks to hold onto the ear made from a combination of nickel and titanium to give them strength and durability.

There’s one other feature you may not expect: a heart-rate sensor. Yes, these earphones come with one, and more interestingly, it’s the same sensor from an Apple Watch. Basically, the earphones can be linked to select fitness apps to record heart-rate as you run or workout.

The Powerbeats Pro 2 come in a large case with both USB-C and Qi wireless charging, providing several recharges for the earbuds when charged over an hour or two, while a simple five-minute charge provides a little over an hour. Handy if you need power in a jiffy.

Five sizes of earbud tips are included in the box (XS, S, M, L, XL), and there’s a fit test on your phone waiting for you to test each tip size to find the perfect fit.

In-use

From a feature set, the similarities are pretty clear between the Powerbeats Pro 2 and the AirPods Pro 2, but the controls are totally different.

For starters, like all other Beats headphones, these are designed to work on both Android and iOS. On the iPhone, the settings are baked into the iPhone operating system, while on Android, you need an app. The good news is they work on Android with the features able to be controlled, something you can’t say the same about with the AirPods.

The controls are also much easier to get your head around, and even your fingers, too.

Regardless of the ear you’re using, there’s a main button in the “b” logo, a circular button you can push for pause and play, or double and triple tap for going back or forward a track. The volume control is actually one of the better features, with both earpieces (left and right) sporting a volume rocker to send the volume up or down with ease.

On most earphones, volume is either a swipe gesture or not there at all. On the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2, volume is a button that’s easy to work. It’s one of those little design touches Beats has left around from the previous generation which works so, so well.

Heart rate sensor

A bit of an extra, the Powerbeats Pro 2 comes with a sensor straight from the design of the Apple Watch, using the optical heart rate sensor from the wrist, but sitting it at your ears.

It’s a clever inclusion, and one that can feed information to your health app, though won’t override your Apple Watch if you already have one of those.

The inclusion is neat, even though Beats is hardly the first: both Jabra and Sennheiser have dabbled in the idea of heart rate monitoring in the ears prior, but neither used tech from a smartwatch that we know about.

An obvious upside here is the heart rate tech on the Apple Watch is pretty solid, so you know you’re getting a great read on your vitals with the Powerbeats Pro 2. Of particular note is what this means for Android owners, because this is the closest they’re going to get to running an Apple Watch on their OS.

Performance

Heart rate technology aside, a pair of earphones isn’t worth much if they don’t sound good enough to leave in your ears as often as possible, so we clearly need to get stuck into that.

Testing with the Pickr Sound Test (which you can listen to for yourself), we found a nice balance in the electronic sounds of Tycho and Daft Punk, with a decent bass hit in the drop, but in a way that wasn’t overpowering.

Pop and R&B was much the same: Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Cut To The Feeling” offered a vibrant sound with excellent dynamics, while Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” was tight and snappy, with a clear difference between lows, mids, and highs. And interestingly, while Beats may well be known for that low-end delivery, like other Beats pairs we’ve reviewed in recent years, these seemed fairly balanced.

They are reminiscent of Apple’s AirPods Pro, a comparison we’ve made a few times already, and which needs to be said upon listening.

The AirPods Pro 2nd-gen are still one of this reviewer’s favourite pairs to grab, thanks in part to the excellent sound, which the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 clearly shares.

It was this vibe no matter what style we ran through the earphones — pop, rock, jazz, and classical, the earphones just delivered.

Noise cancellation

Tuning out the world is a part of what these earbuds can do, thanks to active noise cancellation technology provided by Apple’s AirPods Pro. The sound is similar, and so is the ANC, it seems, as Beats wraps the tech from a pair into another one.

Like the AirPods Pro, you have two options for ANC: noise cancellation and transparency, switching between them or simply turning the whole thing off.

The ANC is similar what’s in the AirPods Pro, but there is one difference we found: the fit.

Thanks to that hooked design, the Powerbeats Pro 2 fit comfortably and maintain a secure fit while you walk and run. Unfortunately, we could never quite get the ear fit as tight compared to the AirPods Pro 2. So when we moved our jaw or decided to chew something, the noise cancellation would slip slightly as the fit became a touch loose.

It may be minor, and depending on how tight your earbud fit is, you also mightn’t experience what we did. But it is worth being aware of, because it means noise cancellation can slip slightly.

Spatial audio

And like pretty much every other major headphone that Apple and Beats makes, there’s also support for spatial audio, provided you’re on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

If you do live with Apple devices and use Netflix or other video services, you’ll get surround sound with head-tracking, while Apple Music on those devices provides head-tracked sound in music, as well.

Over on the Android side of things — which Beats clearly supports via an app — there is actually no spatial audio, missing out on this part of the package, even if other earphones have nailed that.

With an iPhone, however, the treat on Apple Music is clear: surround sound and tracks (or even soundtracks) that move with you dynamically. We’ve been big fans of head-tracked spatial since Apple turned it into a thing back in 2021, and a few years later, we’re still fans here, getting in great remasters of albums all the time.

Battery

It’s not just the sound, noise cancellation, and spatial audio that wins high marks from this reviewer. It’s also the battery life.

There are roughly 8 hours of battery life when ANC is switched on, meaning you have roughly an eight hours spot of activity to get through, or failing that, 5 to 6 hours with an hour on either side to get there and back before you need to make your way to the case.

An extra three-ish charges are in the box, account for a 36 hour battery life when you use noise cancellation. Mind you, if you don’t mind forgoing active noise cancellation, the battery life in the case goes up to 45 hours all up.

Value

While $399 isn’t an unfair price to pay for all of this, they’re also the same price as Apple’s AirPods Pro 2nd-gen which come with a few extra features.

In many ways, the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 are just a new packaging of the AirPods Pro 2, but made for fitness. It’s a similar sound, similar noise cancellation, and similar feature set, except with an emphasis on fitness thanks to the hook style and heart-rate monitor.

That’s not a terrible price, but with the AirPods Pro 2nd-gen likely being updated this year (because the 2nd gen arrived three years ago), it can feel a little overpriced all the same. Just a little.

What needs work?

There’s a lot going for the Beats PowerBeats Pro, and the fact that they’re an Android-compatible variant of the AirPods Pro is definitely one of them.

But there are also things missing, such as support for spatial audio on Android. Spatial works on iPhone and it’s great, and it works on macOS and it’s great there, too. But it doesn’t work on Android, even though spatial on Android works via the Technics AZ100 and the LG T90.

We’re guessing the reason has to do with Apple’s implementation: to date, earphones with spatial on Android don’t support spatial on iOS, and that is always the case. There doesn’t seem to be any crossover, likely because of how iOS works, and the same is true here. Spatial audio will work on Apple Music on iOS, but not Apple Music on Android, or even Spotify on iOS. Like the AirPods and AirPods Pro, it’s a pretty specific use-case.

And even though the PowerBeats Pro are definitely very similar to the AirPods Pro, there’s also no hearing test support, even though the AirPods Pro has that feature.

They’re similar, but not the same.

The vibe can be a little weird carrying the Powerbeats Pro 2, especially if you carry the case, which takes up a decent chunk in your pocket. It’s not compact or svelte like the AirPods Pro, and feels more like carrying a chunky pocket mirror of sorts.

It’s a good thing the battery life is so solid that you can go for a run and not think about the charger at all. Carrying this thing during a workout would just be a pain in the proverbial, literally if you decided to sit down with it in your back pocket. We know: we tried.

What we love

While the size is on the large size overall, especially on the case, we absolutely love the fit and the sound.

Make no mistake, the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 are essentially the AirPods Pro with a more secure fit, and that’s saying something!

The AirPods Pro 2nd-gen were already fairly secure, but an errant hand waving past them can send the pair flying to the ground, something kids have shown us previously… and repeatedly. By comparison, the Powerbeats Pro 2 hang on the ear, looping nicely and fitting in place so they actually can’t fall off your ear.

These are the most secure AirPods around.

Powerbeats Pro 2 vs the competition

It’s worth pointing out that while the Powerbeats Pro 2 are technically the AirPods Pro 2nd-gen, they also aren’t the AirPods Pro in real life. There are subtle differences, namely missing the hearing test and hearing aid features, which are specific to Apple’s model, and yet cost the same: $399.

Compare the Powerbeats Pro 2 to the AirPods Pro 2, and there’s a noticeable size difference between both the case and the earphones themselves. And that’s not the only comparison.

Even the Beats Fit Pro — which are basically a Beats version of the first-gen AirPods Pro — manage to be smaller than the Powerbeats equivalent.

The new Powerbeats Pro 2 are smaller than the original Powerbeats Pro from back in 2019, sure, but they’re still bigger than the Fit Pro, and that’s saying something.

These earbuds are not small at all, and are easily bigger than most of what’s out there in the earphone and earbuds category.

The only exception to this might be with other fitness-style earphones and earbuds that wrap around the ear with an earhook. The Shokz equivalents are all a similar size with a similar case size, but miss out on spatial audio and a heart-rate sensor.

Beats has a reasonable amount going for it in its pair, and that could make them worth their $399 cost, at least by comparison.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

For a couple of years now, we’ve turned to the AirPods Pro 2nd-gen when we needed a quick, easy, and great pair of earphones in a hurry. The fact that we love spatial audio helped things along, because they handled that on the iPhone beautifully, particularly when we were using the iPhone in our day to day.

But now, we have another pair we can turn to that’s almost the same, but holds even better in our ears.

While not the same, the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 are still a compelling set of earphones because of what they offer. With a fantastic sound and a way to stay in your ears, the Powerbeats Pro 2 win on comfort and design, and even controls. There’s a lot to like here.

There are still minor tweaks that could make the experience better overall, such as if Beats could support the entire Apple AirPods feature set, or even spatial audio on Android. Parity would have been brilliant.

And yet we still like what’s been provided.

While the AirPods Pro 2nd-gen are still right now among the best for iPhone owners using Apple Music, the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 are a second best with some solid staying power.

They’re a great pair worth considering, that’s for sure. Recommended.