- Great sound quality and noise cancellation
- Long battery life
- Will not fall out of your ears
- Chunky case
- Not as Android-friendly as other Beats products
- Missing some AirPods Pro 2 features
With the Powerbeats Pro 2, the hook is the hooks. They're ostensibly a sportier take on AirPods Pro 2, in a form-factor Beats describes as "built for athletes". It's not a complicated pitch, and the Powerbeats Pro 2 are similarly easy to recommend for their target audience. They're great-sounding earbuds with excellent noise-cancellation that will not fall out of your ears, even during the most vigorous workouts.
The Powerbeats Pro 2 are the first new Powerbeats model since 2019. Six years on, the fresh take is cleaner and lighter than the original wire-free Powerbeat Pros, but still not exactly a subtle choice thanks to the hooked design. On the athleisure scale, they're full-on activewear.
The hooked design is undeniably the defining feature, both aesthetically and practically. It makes the Powerbeats Pro 2 a lot more secure during workouts. Earbuds falling out during exercise hasn't been an issue for me - with the odd exception of a HIIT workout here and there - but it's something I'm constantly aware of. When I start to feel earbuds get slippery as sweat starts to build, I find myself making micro-adjustments and tweaking the fit.
This hasn't been an issue with the Powerbeats Pro 2. I've gone running, bouldering, done HIIT workouts, and more, and the stability has been perfect. They can feel a little weird when lying down on a weights bench, but they've not come loose.
While the Powerbeats Pro 2 are heavier than your average earbuds, the hooked design distributes weight better around your ear. I've worn them for hours at a time and not felt any discomfort. I've worn them with and without glasses (prescription and sunglasses) and haven't had any issues with fit.
On the design front, the Powerbeats Pro 2 have on-ear physical controls. Rather than using touch gestures, there's a volume rocker on each ear, as well as a button that can be used to toggle noise cancellation or pull up Siri. It's a welcome choice that means tasks like adjusting your volume isn't something that gets in the way of a workout.
The Powerbeats Pro 2 are built on the same foundation as the AirPods Pro 2: Apple's H2 chip. They're the only earbuds other than AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 to feature this secret sauce, and as such, most features you'll find on AirPods 2 Pro are available in the Powerbeats Pro 2.
This includes some of the best noise-cancellation we've seen in earbuds, an excellent transparency mode, personalised spatial audio support, and instant pairing with iOS devices.
There are some omissions, however. The Powerbeats Pro 2 don't feature the AirPods Pro 2's "adaptive audio" which will automatically increase or decrease the effect of noise cancellation based on your environment. They all miss out on the new (upcoming in Australia) feature that allows the AirPods Pro 2 to work as hearing aids.
The H2 also means the Powerbeats Pro 2 sound remarkably like AirPods Pro 2. When jumping back and forth between the two pairs, I struggled to spot any difference. This certainly isn't a bad thing, as the AirPods Pro 2 are still some of the best-sounding earbuds we've tested. They're clear, balanced, and have surprisingly thick sub-bass. There's very little to complain about here.
One novel inclusion is a heart rate monitor. The Powerbeats Pro 2 are far from the first earbuds to incorporate such a feature, but it's the first time we've seen it on an Apple-made product. This feature is ostensibly designed to measure your heart rate during workouts, and iPhone, several third-party apps that already support this with a custom integration. These include Nike Run Club, Slopes, Runna, and Peloton, for example. Heart rate monitoring starts automatically when you start a workout.
On Android, the process is a bit different. While the Powerbeats Pro 2 should work with any Android app that has heart rate monitoring capabilities, you need to manually enable heart rate monitoring via the Beats app on the earbuds before you start a workout. This feature will then turn off after you finish your workout. It's not quite as seamless.
While I can see the intent, heart rate monitoring on earbuds seems a little unnecessary. I'd imagine that most of the target audience for earbuds "built for athletes" already own some sort of smartwatch or fitness tracker. If one already has an Apple Watch, the heart rate monitor in the Powerbeats Pro 2 does nothing, for example. I could see this pitch being more exciting if the Powerbeats Pro 2 could genuinely replace a fitness tracker and provided you with other additional metrics. As it stands, it's just kinda there.
Another area where the Powerbeats Pro 2 excel is battery life. Beats says you'll get up to eight hours of listening time with noise cancelling on, but my testing suggests even longer is possible. Two hours of straight listening only ate 20% of the battery, suggesting as much as 10 hours could be doable. Around six hours per charge with noise cancelling on is a fairly standard figure for wireless earbuds this days, so getting between two and four hours more is excellent.
When you factor in the charging case, you're looking at 36 hours of total listening time. Switching noise cancelling off increases playback to at least 10 hours of time, as much as 45 hours of total listening time before you need to recharge the case. The Powerbeats Pro 2 also feature fast charging, and a five-minute top-up should give you around 1.5 hours of playback.
But you know what they say about big batteries - big cases. While Beats has shrunk the Powerbeats Pro 2 case by over 30% from the 2019 model, it is still a certified beast. That's kind of unavoidable given the size of the Powerbeats Pro 2, but you're still looking at something that’s almost three times as large as an AirPods case.
The size isn't great for pocketability, but given how long the Powerbeats Pro 2, you may not always need to take the case with you. I simply put the Powerbeats Pro 2 on when I leave for the gym, and don't bother taking the case.
Notably, the Powerbeats Pro 2 are the first Beats to feature wireless charging. You can’t use an Apple Watch charger to top them up, as with an Apple Watch. They also charge over USB-C, but there's no USB-C cable in the box.
Beats has made strides with Android compatibility over the last few years, with many of its earbuds supporting native features like Google Fast Pair and Find My Device. This isn't quite the case with the Powerbeats Pro 2. Operating system level fast pairing is missing, there's no multi-point, and you'll need the Beats app for device locating features. The Powerbeats Pro 2 still work well with Android devices, but it's not as smooth an experience as it could be. They're definitely better for those in the Apple ecosystem.
Powerbeats Pro 2 - Final Thoughts
The Powerbeats Pro 2 are easy to recommend if you're looking for sportier earbuds. They have the same great sound quality as the AirPods Pro 2 in a form factor that's better suited to the gym. They're priced in line at $399 (although you can find the AirPods Pro 2 closer to $300 these days), which isn't cheap, but also short of what some brands are charging for their top-tier models.
The larger carrying case can be an annoyance, but the excellent battery life makes up for it in my opinion. It may be annoying enough to stop the Powerbeats Pro 2 from being "everyday" headphones, for some, however, as it's the kind of thing that’s annoying to have in your pockets.
Otherwise, there's not too much else to complain about. The Powerbeats Pro 2 are hard to fault when it comes to sound, noise-cancellation, and battery. And they're not going to fall out mid-workout.
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