Beats Fit Pro review: better than the AirPods Pro. The challenge is in the air now: are the Beats Fit Pro really likely to steal the public from the AirPods Pro?
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The Beats Fit Pro earphones are true-wireless earphones designed to be worn throughout the day and to deliver an enveloping and deep sound, typical of Beats products. Compared to the simpler Beats Studio Buds (review here) the Beats Fit Pro also include advanced features that make them very similar to the AirPods Pro (review). Therefore the question arises: is it worth investing in them or in the Apple alternative?
Beats Fit Pro – More than an evolution
The first step into Beats’ true-wireless earbuds was the Beats Studio Buds. Really very simple and essential earphones that the company has been able to offer at a really advantageous price. Currently they are on Amazon for around 110 €, ie at a lower price than the now obsolete AirPods 2. The Beats Fit Pro, however, have practically nothing to do with these headphones.
Here we are faced with headphones designed down to the smallest detail to offer, first of all, excellent comfort during prolonged use. The Beats Fit Pro are designed to offer unrivaled stability for direct competitors (yes, even for the AirPods Pro) thanks to a “wing” design that allows, together with the rubber, to balance the headset in the ear. This benefit will be appreciated both in terms of pure comfort, with ears that will thank you, and during physical activity, when the Beats Fit Pro will remain firmly anchored to your ears, avoiding you having to constantly reposition them. This successful fit is also made possible thanks to the three rubber pads of variable size that you will find in the Beats Fit Pro package and the low weight (only 5.6grams) of each cap.
Beats Fit Pro – The Features
The structure of the headphones remains compact, light and flexible but inside there are a series of sensors that guarantee just as many functions. First, the Bits Fit Pro offer three different listening modes. In fact, we find the active noise cancellation, ideal for suppressing background sounds that prevent optimal listening (for example in public transport), the transparency mode, which instead allows you to recover ambient sound through the microphones of the headphones to return it to your ears (thus overcoming the passive isolation of the in-ear rubbers) and finally the Adaptive EQ mode which replaces the classic “off” mode of the AirPods Pro: in this case we will not have interventions on the external noise, amplify it or reduce it, but the headset will work to adapt in an intelligent way to equalize according to the shape of our ear.
In addition to the three listening modes, for the first time on a Beats headset, support for Dynamic Spatial Audio, a feature inherited from those AirPods Pro with which the Fit Pro compete. With the Beats Fit Pro you can in fact listen to songs in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music and other supported services. In addition to this we also find the possibility of reproducing sounds at 360 degrees, immersing ourselves even more in watching movies or TV series and during gaming sessions.
Beats Fit Pro – The Controls
The Beats Fit Pro entrust the management of playback to three types of controls: the classic voice control, which on these headphones is managed by Siri on iOS and by Google Assistant on Android, the single press and prolonged pressure of the physical button implemented on each bonnet. To this last action we can entrust both the call of the voice assistant and the “forward” or “backward” actions (not the skip but just the management of the listening flow). Alternatively, you can also choose to adjust the volume by pressing and holding on one headset or the other. The headphones are also equipped with a proximity sensor that allows you to instantly stop playback on both headphones when we remove them from the ears, and then resume it as soon as we put them back on.
In terms of autonomy, the Beats Fit Pro can guarantee up to 6 hours of listening for each headset using active noise cancellation or transparency mode. Without listening correction mode you can reach approximately 9 hours of autonomy, while by inserting the earphones in their case you can add a further 21 hours of listening. Charging is fairly quick and takes place via the USB-C connector: 5 minutes of charging will be enough to have more than an hour of listening available.
Better than the AirPods Pro?
The differences with the AirPods Pro are not so many, but there are. The design clearly changes, as we have seen, and in my ear I found the Beats Fit Pro much more comfortable and firm, especially during physical activity. At the same time, AirPods have a generally superior audio quality: although the bass is deeper on the Beats Fit Pro, these headphones lack mids and highs that the AirPods Pro are able to reproduce with better quality. Another point in favor of the AirPods Pro lies in the surround effect: although, as mentioned, both are equipped with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos, on the AirPods Pro the immersion in listening is certainly more profound and credible than the Beats counterpart.
Beats returns to score a point when we talk about operation: the AirPods Pro are designed practically exclusively for iPhone users. On Android, it is not possible to take full advantage of them and any customization is precluded since, in fact, there is no specific app to manage them. Different speech, however, for the Beats Fit Pro which receive a dedicated app also on Android and which as soon as they are removed from the box can be combined with a single tap both on iOS and on Android (for the AirPods it is necessary to perform the traditional Bluetooth pairing on Android, while on the iPhone there is quick pairing).
Common to both headphones is the H1 chip which allows instant pairing and automatic switching between multiple iOS devices, useful for example when you are listening to a podcast on the iPhone and start playing a movie on the Mac. This chip, only on the Apple platform, it also allows listening sharing when using multiple Apple headphones, tracking headphones with the Where’s app and voice activation of Ehy Siri.
The most serious flaw we found in the Beats Fit Pro in comparison with the AirPods Pro is undoubtedly the absence not only of a case with wireless charging, but also of the lack of MagSafe support. These two features are both available on the “updated” AirPods Pro (on the first edition we find only the wireless case without magnet). Charging on Beats is much more traditional, but no less efficient. However, if you’ve gotten used to the iPhone and AirPods MagSafe charger, going back is tough.
Conclusions and price
The Beats Fit Pro are now available for purchase at a price of € 229.95 in Beats black and white, sage gray and amethyst purple. A figure that places them exactly in the middle of the list between the third generation AirPods (199 € – here the review) and the AirPods Pro (279 €). These are the headphones with which the Beats Fit Pro enter into internal competition. If the choice of an AirPods is based solely on the features offered by the model, the world of Beats, in particular with the Fit Pro, winks at sportsmen and those looking for a true-wireless to be used for several hours a day. Also included is a package of functions that make them perfectly stackable with the AirPods Pro. Some waivers must be made (for example in the wireless case) but you also gain more extensive compatibility with Android devices.
