While Beats has been paring back its selection of on-ear headphones in the last year or so, over in the land of wireless earbuds, things have been expanding at a breakneck speed. Hot off the heels of the launch of the Beats studio buds over the summer are the fitness-focused Beats fit pro, the latest pair of earphones to join the family.
The brand’s sporty pair make their way to the UK on 28 January, having initially been released in the US and China late last year. They essentially put a workout-friendly spin on the much-loved AirPods pro from parent brand Apple, thanks to some new wingtips, but they’re also more affordable.
They also improve upon the cheaper studio buds in one significant way – the H1 chip for seamless switching between devices and audio sharing. Add on top active noise cancellation, a transparency mode and support for spatial audio and you’ve got all the ingredients needed to output a stellar pair of earbuds.
But will they knock the Beats powebeats pro or the AirPods pro off their perch? Are these the new go-to earbuds for running? We decided to find out.
We’re no Olympic runner here or half-marathon extraordinaire but the most sensible way to test these headphones were to plug them in and take them on a run and a trip to the gym, seeing as they’re aimed at fitness fans and are designed specifically for that purpose.
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As well as their design and comfort, we also carefully considered their overall sound quality – because nobody likes to listen to a murky mix or a podcast with lots of distortion while on a run. We also wanted to see how much charge each bud held. Of course, we had to compare these to the rest of the Beats and AirPods family as well to see how they stacked up against their older siblings.
The first thing you’ll notice when you yank the buds out of its packaging, is the case. It’s fairly similar to the Beats powerbeats pro in looks (£219, Amazon.co.uk). While they’re both fairly bulky cases, the fit pros are significantly smaller and thinner than the powerbeats pro, so it’s easier to put in your pocket without much struggle. Thankfully these slide in pretty easily and are far more portable than the Powerbeats pro – something you really need from a pair of fitness earbuds made to be worn on the go.
They come in four different colour variants: black, white, sage grey and stone purple, and have an IPX4 rating, making them both sweat and water resistant. Open up the ring box-like case and you’ll find a pair of comma-shaped buds sitting inside their charging slots, and thanks to the magic of one-touch pairing, it’s easy to connect. You’ve also got automatic ear detection here, so music pauses and restarts itself when you take a bud out of your ear and put it back in.
What’s neat about the Beats fit pro buds is that they have both wingtips and in-ear rubber silicon tips, with three different sizes in the box. The wingtips point upward in the ear and stop the buds from slipping out during activity. The best part? They work.
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We weren’t afraid of these falling out of our ears on runs, even when a gust of wind caught us by surprise. That’s totally different to the AirPods pro, which have us holding them in when we’re being battered by the elements.
That does come with one downside though, at least for us. This is probably one of those your mileage may vary instances but our poor lugholes never have a great time when wing tips come out to play and that was the same with the fit pros. Though they had the remarkable skill of staying in our ear when working out, our little fossa felt a little sore after a couple of hours of wear.
That said, people used to say the same thing about AirPods when they were first released, and we found them as comfortable as an old shoe, so there you go. For short one or two hour bursts of exercise, these were great to wear, but perhaps not for eight hours at a desk.
Instead of controlling them like you would on the AirPods Pro with a squeeze of the stem, you have a physical button on the buds’s exterior. It feels more secure skipping tracks and pausing your music this way because, well, you’re essentially pushing the bud into place whenever you’re adjusting your music, rather than almost pulling them out of your ear with the trademark stem squeeze. We like that the button is more tactile as well, so you know when a click has been registered.
You control them in pretty much the same way as any AirPods, clicking once to switch between active noise cancellation mode or transparency mode and clicking once, twice or thrice to pause, skip forward or go to the previous track.
As always, you can answer and end a phone call straight from either bud as well. Whether you’ll want to, though, is another story. The dual beam-forming mics make you sound a bit like you’re trapped in an oven. They aren’t great at reproducing sound.
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There’s no way to adjust the volume on the buds, which isn’t all that surprising – there isn’t a way to do so on the AirPods pro either, but you can say “Hey Siri” (thanks to the H1) or toggle Siri on with a long press. We mainly adjusted it from our iPhone directly, because we’re still not ready to start shouting at Siri in public when it tells us that it found something on the web for “Turn up the boardroom”.
If all these features sound vaguely familiar, it’s because they’re all found on the AirPods pro. The only thing missing is the wireless charging case, but at least you can charge it up with a USB-C cable instead of a lightning cord.
Speaking of battery life, how does it fare? You get around six hours of battery per charge, that’s actually more than the 4.5 ours on the AirPods pro, but a lot less than the 9 hours on the powerbeats pro, which these are technically replacing. Still enough to get through multiple burpees, and not too bad if you want to give your ears a rest after two hours anyway.
Although there are a few comfort niggles, sound is one area where the Beats fit pro perform exceedingly well. While Beats has moved away from its bass-heavy moniker in recent years and has dialled back its kick in favour of a more balanced audio experience, it can’t rip itself out of its roots. That means that there is still some bass flares for those who come to Beats specifically for a more sculpted sound. And for fitness-focused buds, that’s not a terrible thing.
Take tracks with some serious sub-bass like Massive Attack’s Angel for example. The bass sounds powerful, and you can hear the lovely bit of boom bubbling under the surface of the mix. More pop-friendly tunes like Clean Bandit and Jess Glynne’s Rather Be benefit most from this scuplted sound signature. The mids and high-mids sound particularly sparkly, with Glynne’s vocals coming across rich and clear, and the violins soaring and weaving neatly through the track. It’s a hand-crafted sound, but one that we ultimately enjoy.
Any tracks with even an ounce of bass will enjoy the thump given to the lower frequencies, making these buds a top choice for any bass hunters out there. These also work with Apple’s spatial audio tech, so instead of hearing music in basic stereo, our favourite tunes feel fuller and broader, with a more three-dimensional soundstage. We’re big fans of spatial audio in general, and the Beats fit pro sound great because they’re perfectly optimised for it.
Read more: We review Beats studio buds – sophisticated sound in a stylish package
Active noise cancellation is pretty impressive on these buds as well, especially for their price tag. It cut out the majority of the rumbling cargo trains rocketing down the tracks to the right of us when we went for a walk, as well as most of the boomy music in the gym. It did struggle against the higher frequencies when we weren’t playing our own music, like laughter or honking cars. It’s something we tend to find on most active noise cancelling earbuds though.
While decent enough, we found that the transparency mode, a feature which basically lets sound wash in from the outside world as your music plays, wasn’t as good as it is on the AirPods pro in our tests. External sound felt a little more muffled and conversational chitter chatter seemed a little less intelligible. There was a low hiss in the background with the mode turned on as well. That hiss is present on most earbuds with a transparency mode – including the AirPods pro, but it felt a touch more noticeable on the Beats fit pro than it did on its more expensive cousin.
The Beats fit pro are cheaper than the AirPods pro, costing just £199.99, and essentially deliver the exact same set of features and the same audio experience, too. The case is less bulky than the powerbeats pro, so it’s easier to fit into a pocket and they last longer than the AirPods pro when it comes to battery life.
Because they’re aimed at fitness freaks, they fit in the ear a little differently, which can get uncomfortable over long periods of time, but if you find the AirPods slipping out of your ears, then you’ll appreciate the more secure fit, and the controls are just a joy to use.
With active noise cancellation, decent sound and a sweat-proof design, we’ll be leaving our AirPods pros at home and taking the Beats fit pro to the gym instead, but probably won’t be replacing them for general office wear. While these do work well with Android users, Apple fans will get more out of these, thanks in part to the H1 chip that is missing on the studio buds, making them a solid go-to pair of Apple earbuds for working out.
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