Soundpeats AirPro 3 wireless earbuds (Hardware)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
Though the trend of wireless earbuds is far from something new, it feels like they’re an industry that’s been ever growing. These days just about every major headphone manufacturer has their own line of wireless earbuds on offer, with each one trying to push them further by adding better battery life or different listening features. But with those extra features, often comes a higher price tag. Enter the Soundpeats Air3 Pro, a modestly priced pair of earbuds that, while not outrageously inexpensive, offer many of the same quality of life features that the more expensive, “higher end” earbuds offer at a fraction of the price. But does this lower price tag come at the cost of the listening experience? Let’s dig in, and find out.
Tech Specs
Core Specs
Bluetooth: Bluetooth®5.2
Profiles: HSP, HFP, A2DP, AVRCP
Chipset: Qualcomm® QCC3046
Supported Bluetooth® Codec: SBC, aptX, aptX-Adaptive
Wireless Range: 33 ft
Battery
Battery Capacity: 280 mAH (Case)
Battery Capacity: 40*2 mAH(Earbuds)
Earbuds Charging Time: 1.5 hours
Charging Case Charging Time: 2 hours
Charging Port: USB-C
Playtime Time: 24 hours
Package
Single Earbud Weight: 4.5g
Charging Case with Earbuds: 36.8g
Control Type: Touch Control
Waterproof Rating: IPX4
What's in the Box
SOUNDPEATS Air3 Pro True Wireless Earbuds
USB-C Charging Cable
Charging case
- User Manual
As with most earbuds I’ve reviewed for GBAtemp, the Air3 Pro earbuds come in a nicely designed package that takes a no-frills approach to the contents; all that’s included are the earbuds in their charging case, a small USB-C charging cable, some spare silicon eartips and a small manual of instructions. The case and earbuds themselves look nice with their matching, sleek black finish while the earbuds have the Soundpeats logo emblazoned on the back in a nice, contrasting silver. The eartips included with the buds fit my ear perfectly, though the included spares are of different sizes for those that need them either bigger or smaller. Pairing the earbuds is as simple as opening the case while having bluetooth on your desired device searching for new pairings. The standard touch controls are available on the earbuds, with tap controls being used for volume changing, accessing your phones voice assistant, answering and hanging up calls, and playing/pausing/cycling through music. There’s also additional touch controls available via the left earbud for the Air3 Pro’s different modes; tapping three times on the left bud enters and exits the low-latency game mode, while holding a tap for 1.5 seconds cycles the pair through the different listening modes; normal mode, active noise canceling, and pass-through mode. Active noise canceling, or ANC, is nothing new, and neither is pass-through or transparency mode, with both offering different levels of immersion by either blocking out ambient noise, or letting more in so you can be aware of your surroundings. As I mentioned, nothing new but definitely nice to see on a pair of earbuds priced well below $100. The biggest issue I have here, however, is the fact that you can only change the listening and game modes via the left earbud, which makes things a bit annoying if you’re trying to use only one earbud, and it happens to be the right. Probably a niche issue/complaint, but one that I ran into on more than one occasion in my testing.
The quality of audio when listening is great, and definitely surpassed my expectations for a sub-$100 pair of wireless earbuds. The 12mm driver offered a superior listening experience to my previous daily use earbuds, balancing all aspects of the sound perfectly and bringing every piece of the sound together in a balanced, dynamic experience. The noise canceling feature especially worked well and offered an immersive experience, allowing me to completely lose myself in whatever album or podcast I was listening to without the distractions of the outside world to pull me away. It particularly helps, I’ve found, with focusing while working and doing some of my outdoor yard chores such as weed whipping and mowing the lawn, drowning out the drone of the motors and letting me focus on my music as opposed to just trying to hear it over the power equipment. I even got a chance to test these earbuds on a recent trip I took that had me in an airplane for a little under three hours, and the noise canceling definitely made that flight more bearable, helping me drown out the noise of the plane and ignore my obnoxious seat-neighbors. The pass through listening feature, while nice to have, I didn’t find myself utilizing all that much, and I personally couldn’t hear much of a difference between pass through and the normal mode. All told, there was no situation in which listening with these earbuds wasn’t a quality experience, but when combined with the ANC mode, it’s where they truly shined in my mind.
The battery life on the Air3 Pro, while not horrible, is nothing to brag about. The earbuds provide six hours of continuous playtime, while the charging case is able to provide an additional 24 hours of charging without needing to plug in. This is pretty standard for higher quality wireless earbuds, from what I can tell, and works just perfectly here. With my listening habits, I’ve been able to manage about three or four days before needing to plug in and recharge, which from what I’ve been able to discern only takes a couple hours to charge to full. The battery’s charging case also has an indicator light installed that gives you a heads up as far as the case’s battery level the second you open it; the light will flash green if there’s anywhere between 100-50% of the charge left, yellow for 40-10%, red at below 10%, and no indication if the case is dead (of course). The indicator gives the same levels when charging, in the form of flashing colors in the same values during the charge, and simply a solid green when the case is completely charged. The indicator light might not be some new concept, or anything proprietary to Soundpeats specifically, but it’s a welcome addition that hasn’t been available on other earbuds I’ve reviewed for the site.
At the end of the day, the Soundpeats Air3 Pro are exactly the earbuds I was hoping they’d be; they meet my expectations for wireless earbuds at their price point as far as build and audio quality, but include extra features to make for a better listening experience, and quality of life additions that made these an easy choice to become my daily driver headphones. Definitely something easy to recommend for anyone needing new, high quality wireless earbuds at an affordable price point.
Verdict
- Three listening modes
- Low latency game mode
- ANC offers superior, immersive experience
- Average battery life
- Convenient battery charge indicator built onto case
- Barely any noticeable difference between pass-through and normal listening mode
- Changing listening mode can only be done on the left earbud
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