AirPods Pro 1 vs AirPods Pro 3: Six Years Later

The original AirPods Pro arrived in October 2019 and immediately reset the expectations for what wireless earbuds could do. Active noise cancellation in this form factor was a parlor trick that suddenly worked. Six years and two full generations later, a lot of us are still carrying those same first-gen AirPods Pro, because they still work, because replacing them feels wasteful, and because we are not entirely sure what the Pro 3 actually adds. We put both pairs in the same rotation for a week — mine is a 2020 pair with about 65 percent original battery, the Pro 3 is a review pair Apple sent back in late 2025 — and the honest answer is more interesting than “newer is better.”

What changed and what stayed the same

Externally, the two look like cousins. Same white stem silhouette, same silicone tip system, same capacitive touch zones. Pick them up in the dark and you would need a second to tell the difference. Everything inside is a different story. The H1 chip of 2019 has become the H3. The battery chemistry, the ANC architecture, the microphone count, the sensor stack, even the case are all new generations of parts. The Pro 3 also adds the health-sensing elements (heart rate, in-ear body temperature) that the original did not dream of.

Spec comparison, honestly labeled

Spec	AirPods Pro (1st gen, 2019)	AirPods Pro 3 (2025)
Launch price	$249	$249
Chip	H1	H3
Battery per charge (ANC on)	4.5 hours	7 hours
Case battery total	24 hours	34 hours
Connectivity	Bluetooth 5.0	Bluetooth 5.4
ANC generations since launch	Baseline	~2.5x improvement (Apple claim)
Transparency	Yes	Adaptive Audio + Conversation Awareness
Water resistance	IPX4 (earbuds only)	IP54 (earbuds + case)
Charging	Lightning or Qi wireless	USB-C + Qi + MagSafe
Heart rate sensor	No	Yes
Spatial Audio	Yes (added via firmware 2020)	Yes, head-tracked
Hearing aid mode	No (added partial on Pro 2)	Full FDA-cleared hearing aid mode
Ear tip sizes	XS/S/M/L	XS/S/M/L

Same launch price, six years later. That is either a flat real-world price cut of about 22 percent once you adjust for cumulative inflation, or Apple quietly confirming the AirPods Pro tier is already at the right price.

How we tested this pair

Four scenarios over seven days. One: a 40-minute Seoul Metro Line 2 commute each morning, swapping pairs every other day, same Spotify playlist. Two: a 90-minute Zoom call in a cafe with background noise. Three: a run along the Han River (roughly 8km, 45 minutes, partly in light rain on day three). Four: an evening of watching Dune Part Two on an iPad Pro with Spatial Audio enabled. We also did a rough A/B with the battery life claim, running each pair from full to shutdown at 50 percent volume, ANC on, Apple Music. The Pro 1 pair (admittedly with aged batteries) lasted 2 hours 40 minutes. The Pro 3 lasted 6 hours 50 minutes, within reasonable range of Apple’s 7-hour claim.

We did not test the Pro 3’s heart rate sensor against a chest strap — we wore a Wahoo Tickr as ground truth for one run and the Pro 3 read within 3 BPM over the whole session, but a proper medical-grade comparison was beyond our setup. We are not doctors; treat that number accordingly.

ANC is where the six years shows

The original AirPods Pro’s noise cancellation was astonishing in 2019 and is merely good in 2026. On the subway, the Pro 3 removes the low frequency rumble in a way the Pro 1 cannot match — you can still hear announcements and train doors, but the drone underneath is genuinely silenced. In the cafe, the Pro 3’s Adaptive Audio dynamically lets voice frequencies through while suppressing the espresso machine. The Pro 1 just gives you static ANC or off, and the station-noise suppression has audibly degraded as the pair has aged (the foam in the silicone tips plays a role here too).

Transparency mode on the Pro 3 is also better, though the gap is smaller. It sounds more natural, less like someone holding a microphone to your ear. The Pro 1’s transparency mode is still perfectly usable for walking in traffic.

Sound quality: the closest gap of all

Here is the uncomfortable truth for the Pro 3 marketing team. On music alone, in a quiet room, volume matched, the two pairs are closer than the six-year gap suggests. The Pro 3 has slightly more bass definition and a cleaner upper mid-range, but the tuning philosophy is nearly identical. If you listen to podcasts and pop music, you will not hear a dramatic difference. If you listen to electronic music at high volumes with sub-bass content, the Pro 3 opens up and the Pro 1 sounds a little congested. That gap widens in Spatial Audio content, where head-tracked rendering on the Pro 3 genuinely pulls away.

The case is a bigger deal than expected

The Pro 3 case charges via USB-C, pairs with Find My for a full “Ping Your Case” tone that is actually loud enough to find under a couch cushion, and is IP54 rated. The Pro 1 case was Lightning-only, with a quieter locator beep that was perpetually drowned out by the AirPods inside it, and with no water resistance rating on the case itself. If you have ever lost a Pro 1 case, you know. The USB-C port also means the case can charge from your MacBook or iPad in a pinch — a small thing that matters on travel days.

If you want the full audio comparison against the Pro 2, we wrote that up in AirPods Pro 2 vs AirPods Pro 3 — it is the more interesting upgrade question if you own the Pro 2 already.

AirPods Pro 3 on Amazon (paid link) (paid link)

Battery health and the honest refurb question

A well-cared-for 2019 AirPods Pro pair today typically reads 60-75 percent battery health — that is 2.5 to 3 hours of ANC listening before the case. Apple’s own refurbished AirPods Pro 1 stock dried up in 2024, but Amazon renewed pairs show up around $89-119. At that price, they are worth considering as a backup pair, not a daily driver. The Pro 3 at full price is a better purchase than a refurb Pro 1 for anyone who wears them more than 90 minutes a day.

AirPods Pro refurbished on Amazon (paid link) (paid link)

Verdict for two buyers

The 2019 Pro 1 owner with dying batteries: upgrade to the Pro 3. The battery gap alone is transformative — going from 2.5 hours to nearly 7 changes how you use them. Sell the old pair on a local marketplace; even batteries-degraded Pro 1s still fetch $40-60 for parts or casual users.

The 2019 Pro 1 owner whose batteries are still at 80 percent: wait. Your pair has another solid year in it. The Pro 3’s improvements are real but not urgent if your current pair is still honest. Revisit when your evening commute starts requiring a mid-day case trip.

Six years is a long time in wireless audio. The Pro 3 earns its generational number. The Pro 1 earned its place in history first.