Powerbeats Pro True Wireless Earbuds (Grade A Refurbished) (Open Box)
$104.49
$199.95
48% off
Reference Price
Condition: Grade A Refurbished; Open Box
Color: Black
Top positive review
1,236 people found this helpful
Almost perfect headphones.
By RowNut405 on Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2019
I have had my Powerbeats Pro for about a week now and after a bit of a rocky start and an adjustment period, I find them to be almost perfect headphones. When I first put them on, I was wildly disappointed. They were uncomfortable and sounded tinny with no bass at all. I genuinely believed I would be returning them and getting second gen Air Pods instead. But, given how excited I was for the Powerebeats Pro to come out and the cost, I decided to put in a little effort and give them a chance. It wasn't until about 3 or 4 days in that I decided to keep them. So, if you are like me and think your new Powerbeats Pro sound like garbage when you first put them on and you wonder if all the positive reviewers are high, experiment with all the tips before dismissing the headphones as crap. In-ear buds need a good seal to sound good. I have freakishly small ears so I always start with the smallest tip available when trying out new headphones which usually works for me. Not this time. It sounded awful and I was briefly outraged that I had paid $250 for garbage. It was counter-intuitive, but I finally tried the biggest tips instead which gave me a good seal and let me wear the headphones without having to go as deep into my ears which made them more comfortable too. Once I found the right fit with a good seal, I discovered that yes, in fact, these things do actually have some nice ear-thumping bass. I think the bass is better than original Air Pods but also not overwhelming as Beats products have a reputation for being. It's satisfyingly skull shaking without being distorted and is balanced out nicely by clear highs. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I won't listen to any old crap either. I like a little bass and good clarity and the Powerbeats Pro deliver. My biggest issue with these is comfort. As I mentioned, I have freakishly small ears and while I have been using Air Pods for a couple years, I was doing so with discomfort. I put up with a little paind because of the convenience of function. I love the automatic connection, the ability to use one bud at a time and charging on the go in the case. So, when I first read about the Powerbeats Pro, I was expecting something that would have the convenience of Air Pods with better comfort and something that wouldn't fall out of my ears all the time. Generally, I do okay with headphones that have different sizes of silicone tips so I was expecting the Powerbeats Pro to be a comfort upgrade. Initially, they actually hurt my ears more than Air Pods, especially my right ear. I fully blame this on my freakishly small ears. I'm one of those people who often finds "one size fits all" to be laughably ridiculous. Again, I was determined to love these things so I tinkered a bit to find an acceptable level of discomfort. The largest tip allows me to get a good seal without having to put them in so deep, relieving some pressure and cutting down on pain. When I first tried them, I could only last about 20 minutes before the pain forced me to take them out. After adjusting to find a good angle and replacing the silicone tips with Comply Sport tips, I'm a lot more comfortable and can last 2 or 3 hours before I feel discomfort. Even then, I would call it discomfort and not outright pain. It's discomfort I can live with and not any worse than what I experience with Air Pods. Also, my discomfort is only in my right ear instead of both like I get with Air Pods. Since I go with one bud a lot of the time, I'll just use the left one. No biggie. I can't blame the manufacturer for my tiny ears which is why I'm not taking away a star. On the plus side, the fit is very secure. I have worked out in them several times and they don't budge. I never could work out in Air Pods because they fell out all the time. I can also wear these while laying down which I couldn't do in Air Pods without them falling out periodically. Also, the connection is great. Original Air Pods used to randomly lose connection or not connect when they were supposed to. The chip upgrade in the Powerbeats Pro seems to have resolved this little annoyance. They connect faster and after a week, I haven't experienced a drop or glitch once. The Powerbeats Pro do come with a tradeoff when it comes to the size of the case. If you are used to carrying around Air Pods in your pocket in their tiny case, forget about it with Powerbeats Pro. The case is significantly larger. It goes in a bag or purse without taking up a ton of room but it's too big to fit comfortably in a pocket. The extra battery life for Powerbeats is nice though. I frequently use one bud at a time and used to drain an Air Pod and have to switch ears regularly. I'm using the Powerbeats Pro the same way and haven't drained a bud yet. I'm okay with the bigger case since the better battery life makes me feel secure about leaving the case at home when I need to go bagless. So in summary, these are the best sounding buds I have used. They are super convenient, easy to connect and won't fall out of your ears. If you have normal human sized ears, they will probably be comfortable and the battery life is great. You have to deal with a bigger case but the positive improvements over Air Pods make the size trade-off worth it. If you don't hear the bass, try different tips and twist them around a bit before you give up. Hopefully you won't have to work as hard at it as I did to find your happy place with Powerbeats Pro but the effort has been worth it. These are really great headphones and worth the price.
Top critical review
238 people found this helpful
I didn't know a product could be so poorly designed.
By RIR on Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2020
This is a review for use with android and macbook pro TLDR most glitchy product i've ever had in my life. Updates are few and far between and bring new glitches. Most common glitch is sound going out of sync between left and right resulting in delay, and feeling of echo in the audio: it's infuriating and requires disconnect and reconnect: sometimes with waiting in between or having to repair from box which makes the big bulky charge box a must carry everywhere: can't exactly go ona run with that thing. Imagine having to interrupt your sports routine 2-4 times to get these things working, does that make you want to work out more or less? Since i first bought them, they have been nothing but glitchy, and it took two months to have them replaced on apple care (because apple after sale service is a joke) so i made a glitch diary over the past few weeks to write this review. Android: many of these glitches are not android dependent but rather location/movement dependent, or where you put your phone dependent, or what your phone is touching dependent or next to what appliance you're standing dependent and sometimes audio app dependent (switching apps resolves the glitch). Glitches are "seasonal" they come and go, though some are constant. But there's always something new. -Worst and by most common glitch: the earbuds often go out of sync resulting in an echo (bc of the delay btw one ear and the other). This one is infuriating/maddening: happens everyday many times. Sometimes i just live with it because i don't want to go through the motions of disconnecting/wait/reconnect but the sync keeps drifting and it gets jarring/disorienting after a while: like chinese drip torture. - powerbeats connect, sound still comes from phone speakers -“skipping sound effect” from the connection faltering -sometimes nonstop struggle to stay in sync, stay connected -Sounds cuts in and out repeatedly with random intervals (on... off........ on.... off... on........ off...) -put them in a box and close it only to realize they’re still connected and the sound is coming out of the box still, but sometimes the opposite problem occurs: i'd be listening from macbook speakers and they. randomly connect to the laptop and start playing from within the box, and pause playback. Must turn off bluetooth on device to recover sound from speakers. -sometimes resumes all audio app after you pause and play (eg pause podcast, hit play, youtube, podcasts, audible all start playing together at the same time) - Different buttons/functions cease to work, sometimes all buttons won’t respond (sound plays buttons unresponsive), sometimes just some buttons, just volume or play, or just one earbud. -Sometimes buttons work but no sound (can see the app play/pause on the screen) -Sometimes connects (as confirmed by connection sound and bluetooth menu on phone) but no sound and buttons unresponsive. Sometimes no sound though buttons can play/pause -lag between commands and response (btw hitting play and music playing, pause and music pausing) - often disconnects from phone after a call: when you hang up sound resumes from phone speakers -sometimes disconnects during call making me run back to phone to continue call on phone - sometimes one of the earbuds "forgets" its charged straight out of the box, putting it back in the charge box "reminds" it it's actually full (goes from 0% to 100% immediately): imagine you put them on step out of the. house and realize one of the earbuds is acting dead, now you have to go back home, stick it in the huge box you don't want to carry around and. then g et back to your run/bike/routine -rarely, one earbud "dies" and needs to be placed in charging box for a long while before it comes back to "life" -updates few and far between and bring new glitches - EVERYTIME I ride (bike) through specific intersections it "slices" the connection: audio goes out though the app continues to play and the connection is still established in the bluetooth menu. Recently (new "seasonal" glitches since last update ): -just doesn't automatically connect when i open box and put them on, I have to manually connect them from the bluetooth menu, sometimes i have to repair them from the box. - one ear starts playing immediately, other earbud takes 6-9 seconds to connect, during which you're standing there. waiting to see if it's this glitch or the one where one of the earbuds thinks it's empty and needs to be put back in the box to remember it's full. -earbuds connect but they don't make the connection sound so you don't know if they've connected or not without playing something - entire volume range is on the bottom three increments of the volume bar, goes from no sound (one volume click up) 50% volume (one volume click up) 100% volume and all the rest of the range no matter how much you volume up/down, remains at 100% volume. Macbook pro -refuses to connect/reconnect to macbook pro, no idea why, requires a factory reset and re pairing -randomly switches to another device mid use (from phone to macbook pro or vice versa) Sound Quality: bass ok, HIGH TREBLE many podcasts sound like there's a hissing in your ear when they pronounce the letter S. Overall sound is good but the hissing from the high trebble is annoying: one solution to this i found was to use biggest size rubber buds and shove them well into your ear: enhances bass and mitigates treble. Customer service: took nine days to ship them back to some facility to have them "looked at" decided they were fine within twenty minutes (i know this because they have a link to a tracker) and returned them to me (they had to overnight ship them when I blew a gasket at the store when i realized the confirmation email after nine days was just for their receipt of the product at the repair facility and not that they were done and ready for pickup: nine days, just to get from the store to the "repair" facility). Had to return twice more and both times same thing: they receive them, immediately decide nothing wrong with them, return them: spent the whole summer without the product i had bought SPECIFICALLY for that summer. In the end some "genius" i paris told me it was because they were labeling the problem as "permanent" as opposed to "intermittent" (permanent means it's always there and so it should show right out of the box) Please comment if you've been having any of these problems. thanks 100% would not recommend
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