So the beats studio buds plus have some very important upgrades over the originals like a much longer lasting battery life, a better preforming microphone for phone calls, a better sounding ambient mode and slightly better ANC… but today we’re going to see how the beats studio buds plus compare to the AirPods Pro 2… cause yeah, the Studio Buds plus are meant for android users… but therye still a great option for an iPhone user that doesn’t want to pay AirPods Pro 2 prices.
Regarding pricing, the Beats Studio buds plus retail for $170… but they like to go on sale for $130… where as the AirPods Pro 2 have a retail price of $250… but they like to go on sale for $200. Overall yes, you get some very big upgrades on the AirPods Pro 2 over the Beats Studio Buds plus… nonetheless, if you want to pick either of these two earbuds up they’ll be linked down below.
Now first lets talk about these cases… now AirPods in general have always been the gold standard when it comes to cases cause they’re small. And they pack a lot of battery life in them. So they’re super convieinte for every day carry. Now both the AirPods 3’s and AirPods Pro 2’s cases are very small… but then there’s the beats studio buds plus case… technically I would say that this case is still doable for every day carry… but this case is thicker and has a larger foot print than the AirPods Pro 2’s case… but also, when it comes to charging these cases the Studio Buds Pus case charges via a USB C port making them more convinente if you’re an android user, where as the AirPods Pro 2’s case charges via a lighting port which is more convinante if you’re an iPhone user. But also, there’s wireless charging, with the AirPods Pro 2, this case has wireless chargning, and you can also charge it with your apple watch’s wireless chargning… which is super convinente. Where as with the Studio Buds Plus… this case doesn’t have wireless chargning what so ever… which is a real shame just given this case’s size… and also their price point… cause there are plenty of mid teir or entry level ANC earbuds that have wireless charging… but not the studio buds plus…
But also, there’s the U1 chip and built in speaker that you’ll find on the AirPods Pro 2’s case. With this case… you can very easily track it down through the find my app and you can also get the speaker to play a sound for when you’re looking for it… and honestly, this is a feature that has saved me multiple times. Where as with the Studio buds plus… yeah you can track them down using the find my app… but they’ll only tell you the last time where they were connected to your phone… which isn’t as useful… so overall, just the case on the AirPods Pro 2 is a big enough reason to go with the AirPods Pro 2 over the Beats Beats Studio Buds plus.
But then there’s they’re battery lives. The AirPods Pro 2 have an advertised combined battery life of 30 hours with their active noise cancellation turned on, the earbuds themselves can go for 6 straight hours and the case can supply 4 additional charges… but if you were to use these ear buds with ANC turned off then you can extend their battery life that way.
Where as with the Beats Studio Buds Plus… these have an advertised combined battery life of 36 hours with their active noise cancellation turned off, the earbuds themselves can go for 9 straight hours and the case can supply 3 additional charges… but again, if you were to use these earbuds with their ANC turned ON… that is going to drain their battery life faster.
Overall, both of these earbuds have very impressive battery life… but the AirPods Pro 2 do have the best battery life performance here cause they have a much better battery life to case size ratio… plus their case has wireless charging, and you can more easily track this case down for when you eventually can’t find your earbuds.
But now lets talk about the earbuds themselves, now first I want to quickly address the sculpt of these earbuds… now some people have always hated the stems on AirPods…. But I actually like them cause it makes it much easier to handle these earbuds… where as with the Studio buds, all you have are these nubs so sometimes taking these earbuds out of their case is a little difficult. But when it comes to fit… both of these earbuds are shallow fitting in ear earbuds… as in they dont go in too deep into your ear canals like a standard pair of in ear earbuds like lets say the Galaxy Buds 2 or linkbuds S. Now the good thing about shallow fitting in ear earbuds is that is that they feel more comfortable cause they aren’t as intrusive… the draw back is they can wiggle out a little more than standard in ear earbuds. Overall both of these earbuds are comfortable… but I would mainly recommend them for causal use.
But when it comes to connectivity, with both of these eabruds, each ear bud establishes a connection with your phone, so if you just want to use one earbud at a time, you can use either one, it doesn’t matter. And this is the connection set up that we expect to see on all of our earbuds nowadays.
Now even though the Beats Studio Buds Plus aren’t using apple’s H2 chip like what’s found in the AirPods Pro 2… both of these earbuds are great options is you’re an apple power user cause you can easily switch between all of your apple devices associated to your iCloud account… however, with AirPods, hot swapping between devices is much faster than the Beats Studio Buds Plus.
But when it comes to overall performance, both of these earbuds have zero latency across the board when watching movies or videos on your phone whether you’re using an iPhone or an android device… and where it comes to audio codecs, both of these earbuds only have support for SBC and AAC which is perfectly fine especially if you’re an iPhone user cause iPhones top out at AAC.
But now lets talk about actually listening to music with these earbuds. Now first off you can’t directly adjust the EQ on these earbuds to your liking how you can with a lot of other earbuds out there. But overall I really like how both of these earbuds sound. Now both of these earbuds have very impressive bass that both resonates an impressive amount and it also has a nice kick to it. But even though these earbuds have a lot of bass to them… they dont sound warm or muddy cause the vocals are still very prominent. Peronsally, i love how the AirPods Pro 2 sound and I think these are my favorite sounding earbuds right now cause they just sound very balanced. Where as with the Beats… they also sound good… but I just feel that their treble is a little too high. Nonetheless, both of these earbuds sound great. However, with the AirPods Pro 2, these also have better instrument separation than the beats studio buds plus… especially when you turn on their spatial audio. But personally, I just use their spatial audio set to fixed cause I think the whole head tracking thing is just a gimmick… but spatial audio really does help make these earbuds sound more open.
But then when it comes to the media controls on these earbuds… there’s a big difference. With the Beats we have physical buttons, and you can either skip through your music and adjust your ANC setting or skip through your music and adjust your volume. But you can’t do all three. Where as with the AirPods Pro 2… you can skip through your music by pressing these stems, you can adjust your ANC setting by pressing and holding these stems, and you can raise or lower the volume of your music by swiping up or down on either stem. So overall, your media controls on the AirPods Pro 2’s is just way better.
But then there’s also the proximity sensors on these earbuds. With the AirPods Pro 2 they will automatically play and pause your music when you take them out of your ears or put them back in, where as with the Beats… they dont have proximity sensors… so they won’t do this. And I do feel that this is a major inconvinance, especially for a pair of earbuds of this price range.
But now lets talk about the active noise cancellation on these earbuds… now the ANC on the AirPods Pro 2 is very impressive where as the ANC on the Beats is decent. But nonetheless, I do want to taper expectations here… dont expect these earbuds to block out as much noise as a pair of premium ANC headphones like lets say the Sony 1000XM5’s, Bose QC45’s, AirPods Max or Sennheiser Momentum 4’s.
Now when it comes to overall ranking, for me, the AirPods Pro 2 and Sony WF-1000XM5 are neck and neck for first place, closely followed by the Bose QC earbuds 2, below them are the Sennheiser momentum 3, below them are the linkbuds S, below them are the Jabra Elite 85T’s, below them are the Galaxy Buds 2 pro, below them are the pixel buds pro and below them are the beats studio buds plus.
Now below the beats studio buds plus are the Jabra Elite 4’s, below them are the original beats studio buds, below them are the galaxy buds 2 and below them are the sennheiser CX plus. So overall, the active noise cancelation on the Beats Studio buds Plus has been improved over the originals… but dont expect their ANC to keep up with more premium ANC earbuds. But in general, the ANC on the beats studio buds plus is going to be useful on your bus ride commute or slightly chatty office.
And then the reason why I say the AirPods Pro 2 are neck and neck with the Sony WF-1000XM5’s is cause the AirPods block out a little more road noise where as the Sony’s block out a little more chatter. Nonetheless, the ANC On the AirPods Pro 2 is very impressive and its a very big upgrade over the Beats Studio Buds Plus.
But like I have mentioned in the past, I only use the ANC On my earbuds when I have to and what’s really important to me is the quality of their ambient mode. Now both of these earbuds have really good sounding ambient modes… however the ambient mode on the AirPods just sounds a little more natural and this microphone array does a better job of blocking out wind noise when walking out doors.
But also, both of these ambient modes are the active kind, meaning that they will actively block out sudden loud noises, so they aren’t going to blast your ears if a siren rolls by or if a dog starts barking. Which is good.
Beats Quite
But finally here’s the microphone test… now I feel that both of these microphones sound and perform great
AirPods quite
But I do think the AirPods Pro 2 do a slightly better job of focusing on my voice.
AirPods Road
But what’s really important is that both of these microphones do a really impressive job of blocking out noise pollution, cause right now, this microphone is doing a really good job of reducing all of this road noise. Case for comparison sake, if we were to switch over to my lapel microphone, you’re going to clearly hear all of this road noise, but if we were to switch over to the AirPods Pro 2… it is severely reduced.
Beats Road Noise
And the beats studio buds plus are also doing a really good job of reducing all of this road noise… and this is a big deal, cause the original beats studio buds dont do as good of a job.
Beats Chatter
And when it comes to blocking out chatter, the Beats Studio buds plus are also doing a good job of reducing all of this noise pollution.
AirPods Chatter
And so are the AirPods Pro 2… so overall both of these earbuds have really good sounding microphones on them for phone calls and they both do a really good job of reducing noise pollution.
But with all of that being said, the beats studio buds plus are a great pair of ANC earbuds… now these are really meant for android users cause of their USB C port… but the Beats Studio Buds plus are still a good option for an iPhone user that want ANC without having to pay for the AirPods Pro 2. However the AirPods Pro 2 do have some major performance advantages over the beats. The AirPods Pro 2 have far better active noise cancelation, they they also have much more robust media controls buttons, they have a much smaller case, and their case has wireless chargning, and their case is much easier to track down for when you eventually just can’t find your earbuds.