Beats has bounced into the world of wireless listening with its first set of truly cable-free earbuds. As the successor to its popular Powerbeats earphones, the Powerbeats Pro drop the tether for a standalone ear-hook design and a stellar battery life, with baked-in Apple functionality for good measure.
Launched today, the Powerbeats Pro from Apple-owned Beats were built in-house with Apple's engineers, meaning they sport the company's H1 chip and therefore "Hey Siri" voice activation and seamless synching with iPhones. However, the earbuds are also compatible with Android devices.
We'll need to test them for ourselves to see how they sound, but Beats is promising a "incredibly low distortion and great dynamic range across the entire frequency curve," thanks to an upgraded linear piston driver. The Powerbeats Pro are also 23 percent smaller and 17 percent lighter than their predecessor.
In the interests of symmetry and the ambidextrously minded, identical physical controls for volume, phone calls and track selection can be found on both earbuds.
But the flagship feature of the Powerbeats Pro is undoubtedly the nine hours of listening time before the battery runs dry, which is stretched to 24 hours with the magnetic charging case.
Available in black, navy blue, ivory and moss colors, the Powerbeats Pro are priced at US$250 and available from next month. Watchers of this space will note this is $50 more than the second-generation AirPods Apple launched two weeks ago, though those will only grant you five hours of listening time.
You can check out the promo video for the Powerbeats Pro below.
Source: Beats by Dre