Apple AirPods 3 Review

The Apple AirPods 3 make some slight improvements over previous generations, but the overall package leaves a lot to be desired.

Performance Comparison

Sound Quality

We had a panel of experts spend dozens of hours listening to an extensive playlist with the Apple AirPods 3, scoring their experience. They described the listening experience as “…the audio equivalent of a mild astigmatism.” This means the sound coming out of the earbuds feels almost blurred, making it difficult to clearly hear individual instruments.

Though their sound signature isn't terrible, the music, especially vocals and bass, feels underwhelming. The audio quality also seemed to vary with volume level, with lower volumes sounding more enjoyable and clear while higher volumes became increasingly muddled.

It's challenging to find the ideal volume with these earbuds. For example, “Think I'm in Love With You” by Chris Stapleton sounds best at mid volumes. But, when it loses the power of its bassline at 1:54, increasing the volume doesn't add depth or richness to the lower frequencies. If anything, the buds sound more hollow as their volume increases.

At the same time, the treble frequencies can feel distant at lower volumes and increase in presence and clarity as you turn it up, while the other frequency ranges lose their depth.

Midrange-heavy songs, like “August” by Flipturn and “American Girl” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, sound more fleshed-out and enjoyable.

Soundstage

Earbuds create a perception of where music is located in three-dimensional space, a quality known as their soundstage. A broad, expansive soundstage is rare in earbuds, but as technology improves, it's becoming more common for music to sound like it's stemming from beyond your ears.

The AirPods 3rd Generation earbuds only partially achieve this effect. While the music doesn't feel entirely confined to your head, it doesn't extend outward enough to create a more natural listening experience.

We rounded out our sound quality testing by setting them up in our testing rig and checking their frequency response against our GearLab House Curve. The AirPods 3rd Gen struggled to closely follow our House Curve. While mids were spot on, bass and treble veered off course, resulting in a reduced score. Overall, the AirPods 3rd Gen very much have a Goldilocks quality to them, requiring just the right genre of music and song at just the right volume level to achieve an enjoyable listening experience. Outside of this sweet spot, these earbuds struggled to perform.

User Experience

The user experience was only slightly better than its previous version, but overall, it left much to be desired. To score the user experience of the Apple AirPods 3, we tested their fitment and comfort across a variety of ear shapes. We then put them through some stress tests to see how well they held up during physical activity. Finally, we scored their app based on its ease of use and customizability.

Comfort

We did not enjoy the fit of the AirPods 3rd Gen. Similar to their sound quality, if you do not have the perfect ear shape to accommodate the size and shape of the AirPods, then they feel uncomfortable and clunky. Because these buds lack a silicone tip, there is no size customization or passive seal of any kind. These buds are more like tiny speakers resting outside your ear canal, and as such, they won't work well if where they rest in your ears isn't perfect.

Stability

Because they lack any sort of seal or stabilization function, they aren't great for physical activity, being prone to falling out even under light stresses.

Customization

The app is simple and functional for iPhones, albeit lacking any sort of deep customizability. You can see things like the battery life of the buds and case, but that's about it. However, these are practically unusable on Android devices, losing all of their paid-for Apple functions beyond a simple Bluetooth connection.

Connectivity

To pinpoint connectivity issues, we thoroughly tested these earbuds and noted down any troubles we had, from pairing them to our phone to lags while watching videos. We also checked all 1-star Amazon User Reviews, searching for mentions of connectivity issues. We used that figure to find the percentage of reported issues among the total number of user reviews. Any Bluetooth device is bound to have connectivity snags at some point, so it is important to focus on the relative rate that these issues pop up. The AirPods 3 performed a bit better than average in this group of earbuds, with a connectivity issue rate of 1.06%. That said, we strongly recommend using these earbuds with an iPhone or other Apple products if you want the best chances of success.

Noise Cancellation

The Apple AirPods 3 do not have active noise cancellation (ANC), but we still tested their ability to remove noise from our surrounding environment using our testing rig.

Because these earbuds rest outside of the ear canal and do not have any sort of silicone or foam tip, there is no passive seal. Thus, they lost points in our testing, with a majority of the background noise bleeding through across the frequency spectrum.

Due to how these buds rest in the ears, they have a mechanical always-on transparency mode, meaning you will always be able to hear the background around you while wearing these.

Battery Life

We tested the Apple AirPods 3 battery life by setting them to a control volume (the same we set all other earbuds to in our testing) and letting them play until they died.

These buds had a measured 7 hours and 10 minutes of playback time, 1 hour and 10 minutes over manufacturer claims. You also get another four charges out of the case, allowing for a total of 28 hours and 40 minutes before needing to plug them in. A quick charge of 5 minutes will also net you another 1 hour of playback. It's worth noting that one nice upgrade here over previous generations is the ability to wirelessly charge.

Call Quality

To test the microphone and call quality of the Apple AirPods 3, we set them up in our testing rig and played various background noises while having our rig “speak” into them.

Under subway noise stress testing, the static is still present, and voices are harder to hear, with higher-pitched voices becoming particularly difficult to make out.

In our office testing sound, voices remain clear, but the background static is still present.

At baseline, in a quiet room, voices had a grainy and hollow sound with slight background static but were overall audible and clear.

Should You Buy the Apple AirPods 3?

The Apple AirPods 3 were pretty low on our list of tested earbuds. They don't do anything particularly well, and if your ears aren't just the right shape, they lack comfort and stability. At the same price (and cheaper), there are some better options; however, if you're locked into the Apple ecosystem and aren't willing to spend a bit more to get the more premium AirPod Pros, these are an ok option. Keep in mind, if you're highly active, or like bass-heavy music, we highly recommend considering other earbuds in our lineup.

What Other Earbuds Should You Consider?

If you need to have Apple earbuds, we recommend saving up for the Apple AirPods Pro 2. Though considerably more expensive, they fixed all of the glaring issues we note in this review. If you're open to venturing outside of Apple's walled garden, or you daily drive an Android device, there are many highly-scored options at this price point including the Google Pixel Buds Pro the Jabra Elite 8 Active. These are similar in cost but provide markedly improved functionality and overall performance. They also come with intuitive apps and fit much better in our ears.