Hands-On with AirPods 4 and New AirPods Max – Video

I just came from the Apple event where Apple introduced two new airpods earbuds along with some cosmetic improvements to the airpods. Max. I’m going to focus on those airpods four models, one of which has active noise cancellation. Have you had a chance to try out that active noise cancellation? Let’s do that. Okay. So there’s a little bit of confusion about the two airpods four models because they both have the new H-two chip and they both have the same design. They’re a little bit smaller than the airpod three. They also have a slightly smaller case. They’re $129 for the entry-level model and $179 for the model with active noise cancellation. Now, the way to look at the airpods four with active noise cancellation is to think of them as the airpods pro two with an open ear design. So the airpods four with active noise cancellation for example, because it has noise cancellation, it can do that conversational awareness mode. It turns on a transparency mode and it also has adaptive audio. Now the entry level airpods don’t have those features. The other feature that the airpods four with active noise cancellation have is a slightly better case, the case has a speaker that emits a sound so that if you lose the case, it emits the sound and it’s easier to find. The other feature that the case has is that not only does it have wireless charging with keyboards, but it can also be charged with the Apple Watch charging pad. Now both of the airpods four cases of course have USB C charging instead of lightning charging. That’s a feature that will be a whole new airpods in the future. And as far as the design of the airpods, like I said, they’re a little bit smaller, so they’re kind of in between the airpods two and the airpods three. And that means in theory that they’ll probably fit more ears better. A lot of people didn’t like the airpods three because they just didn’t fit smaller ears. I’ll wrap up with a discussion of the active noise cancellation in those airpods four with active noise cancellation. I was able to try it out on the floor. I was pretty impressed because I’ve never heard open earbuds that could actually do active noise cancellation. Okay. So we started with noise cancellation. This is obviously a very noisy room and it definitely works. Um, it’s better at canceling out the lower frequencies. I can still hear the music and it’s not going to be as good as the airpods pro two. But it’s impressive that it can cancel out the noise for an open earbud. That’s rare. It does a pretty good job of canceling out the lower frequencies. So not the frequency range that the airpods pro two can do with noise cancellation and not as strong. The idea is that you have air conditioning in the background or some low drone noise in the background and the earbuds would cancel out that noise. As for battery life, both airpods 4 models have up to five hours of battery life with noise cancellation off. Obviously the entry level model doesn’t have noise cancellation but the airpods 4 with noise cancellation are said to last up to four hours with noise cancellation on. So Apple hasn’t really improved the battery life on these models compared to the previous model. Now if you’re wondering if it’s worth getting the entry level model compared to the more expensive model, it’s clearly a $50 difference, look at how it all shakes out their street prices. But I do think for a lot of people it’ll be worth it to get the noise cancellation feature. Unfortunately the new airpods max aren’t the airpods max two that we were hoping for which may have the H two chip and some other new features, these new airpods macs only have USB C charging and some new color options, a new blue color for example, sort of a peach color which I liked but nothing new from a features and performance standpoint. It’s really just cosmetic changes. So I’m here with the new color options for the airpods max. As I said before, it’s really just USB C added instead of lightning. No new H two chip. They’re still $549, but check out these new colors. I’m David Connor for cnet.com. Thanks for watching.