Powerbeats Pro 2, the long-awaited sequel to 2019’s Powerbeats Pro, has finally arrived. Six years is a long time in tech but that’s how long Beats has taken to launch the second-generation Powerbeats Pro. Widely considered as the “AirPods Pro for athletes”, the Powerbeats Pro are high-end wireless earphones designed specifically for workouts. In a manner of speaking, they are a notch higher than the AirPods, especially the 2025 version which supersedes the AirPods Pro 2 by adding a bunch of quality-of-life upgrades including heart rate monitoring.
The big focus this time round is to make them smaller, which is a breather since the originals were often trolled for being extra-large, from every nook and cranny. Beats took the feedback, went back to the drawing board, and redesigned the whole thing. What’s impressive is that the overall design hasn’t changed by much. The pricing, too, is consistent with the PowerBeats Pro which given the bevy of features that have been thrown in, make for stupendous value. In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that the Powerbeats Pro 2 are the workout earphones to “beat”, in the current scheme of things. No pun intended.
Here are five things you absolutely must know about the new Powerbeats Pro 2:
- Design: The Powerbeats Pro 2 have the same base design as the Powerbeats Pro, only they are much smaller. Beats says that the case is now 33 percent smaller. The buds are 20 percent lighter. While still chonky in comparison to say, the AirPods Pro 2, the Powerbeats follow a different styling with earhooks, which need more space. But as we mentioned in the introduction, the Powerbeats Pro were borderline ridiculous in sizing. These are more compact. Some design tweaks have been made to make them more comfortable to wear. The air vents have been upgraded to minimise pressure and a fifth ear tip size has been added for more convenient fit. You can control them through voice and physical buttons. They are IPX4 rated and come in four colours: Jet Black, Quick Sand, Hyper Purple, and Electric Orange.
- Active Noise Cancellation with Transparency Mode: Beats has added ANC in this generation of the Powerbeats Pro which may seem like an obvious thing, but remember that the original didn’t have it. The earphones have a Transparency Mode for spatial awareness. Speaking of which, spatial audio with dynamic head tracking is also supported. So is Adaptive EQ, which uses computational audio to fine-tune the sound in real time based on how these buds fit in your ear. Each earphone has a voice accelerometre and three microphones.
- Heart rate monitor: The next AirPods Pro are widely speculated to feature a heart rate monitor. The Powerbeats Pro 2 are getting firts dibs at it, however, with Beats putting in LED optical sensors akin to the Apple Watch in each earbud (for better accuracy) that pulse over 100 times per second to measure blood flow. Beats has partnered with Runna, Nike Run Club, Open, Ladder, Slopes and YaoYao so, their apps will be compatible right out of the gate for more granular analysis of this data.
- Battery life: The Powerbeats Pro 2 have Apple’s H2 chip and are rated for up to 45 hours of use with the case. The earbuds themselves can deliver up to 10 hours of battery life with ANC off. This means, you will be able to charge them 3.5 times in total. Fast charging over USB Type-C is available with a 5-minute charge giving you 90 minutes of playback, per the company. The Powerbeats Pro 2 also have wireless charging which was missing on the previous model.
- Price, availability: The Powerbeats Pro 2 will be available for buying starting February 13 from Apple’s website at a price of Rs 29,900.
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