Howdy friends,
So after almost exactly 2 years of using the same bluetooth headphones as my daily driver, it has come time to buy a new pair. I had a lot of Amazon credits to use so I knew where I would buy them from but which ones to buy. I had generally heard good things about Beats brand headphones so I decided to check out their lineup. I ended up with the Powerbeats Pro because the form factor is one that I like and works best with my ears vs the in-ear style that is most headsphones. I have a pair of Skullcandy over-the-head headphones but they make me feel like I'm in a vacuum after about 30-60 minutes but I needed something that would last the entire workday plus an hour or two for a daily hike.
That being said, the package comes with, of course, the headphones and charging case, but no wall power brick. I happened to have an extra one so charging wasn't a problem but it would be if one didn't have it. [Side note: When upgrading your phone or headphones and if you happen to have the wall charging bring, don't toss is, especially if your phone comes with a new one, because you never know when you'll need it. Don't worry about the wattage as a slow charger is better than no charger.]
Once I got through all of that, pairing the headphones was super easy via the Beats app for Android. It was literally a step-by-step setup process and I was ready to go in under 2 minutes or so.
As of this review, I've been using them for about 2 days. Regarding the battery life, they last about 3/4 of the workday which isn't bad as I can charge them over lunch and then i can use them another 3/4 of the day which covers the rest of the workday plus my hike. While this could be annoying since I can't just keep listening to stuff all day, I also don't wear them during lunch so charging them for an hour isn't a hassle. In terms of audio quality, it is very balanced or does a good job or switching between what could be considered music and talk radio profiles. While listening to music, they seem to do a good job on the fly of making sure songs with more bass sound deep and rich (think rap and hip-hop) while less bass heavy tracks sound full ranged (think rock and orchestral). As far as talk radio and podcasts go, there seems to be a good focus on the talking with a nice balance of making sure whoever is talking it not too out of proportion to their co-host and background music. Audio variances like male and female tones are also well balanced. Part of this could be tied to the podcast client I use and the audio quality of the podcast itself but I have also noticed other headphones not do as good a job of balancing all the different tones as these Beats have.
So if I was to grade them after 2 days of use, I would give them a solid A- mostly because of the good audio quality but their comfort level is still a bit lacking. Time will tell to see if I get used to the comfort or it gets more annoying...
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