Unboxing: First Impressions of AirPods Pro 2nd Generation

Preface

I own a total of three headphones: an AirPods 2nd Gen for commuting, and two Sony headphones purchased in 2017—an MDR-1000X for office use and an MDR-100ABN for home use.

Originally, the 100ABN was bought for my partner, but after using it twice, they stopped because it was too heavy and pressed on their head. My 1000X had the same issue. Later, we both switched to AirPods 2nd Gen, leaving these two Sony headphones gathering dust at home for years.

In daily use, the 1000X and 100ABN are rarely worn because they’re heavy and uncomfortable. Another issue is that they flatten my hair, especially since I have short hair—once pressed, it’s hard to restore my handsome hairstyle, which seriously affects my stunning looks. So, the 100ABN is mostly used wired on weekends for PS5 gaming at home, while the AirPods 2nd Gen are my go-to for meetings at work.

However, for reasons unknown to me, the microphone on my AirPods 2nd Gen stopped working, making it impossible to take calls or join meetings normally. Whenever a call comes in while I’m listening to music, I have to manually switch to the phone’s microphone and speaker, which is very inconvenient.

So, I asked my partner for permission to buy a new headset. Unsurprisingly, they said, “You see see you, how many headphones do you have already? Still want to buy? I also want a big house inside the Second Ring Road!” I countered, “My headphones are broken. I really need one for commuting. How about selling my current 1000X and AirPods 2nd Gen to recoup some costs and buying an AirPods Pro 2nd Gen instead?” Only then did they reluctantly agree.

I placed the order immediately, and after three days of waiting, it finally arrived—hence this unboxing, nearly half a year after the headphone’s release.

Unboxing

Here, I opted for laser engraving—a five-pointed star “☆.” Why a star? Just randomly picked it, no special reason. If I had to force an explanation, it could be the Dragon Ball star, the star on Dio and his descendants in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, or the stars on the Chinese flag… but really, it’s just random. The principles were:

1. Symmetry
2. No text, as engravings make reselling harder.

The default ear tips are medium-sized. After switching to XS and running the “Ear Tip Fit Test,” it told me they were too small, so I switched to S, which worked.

Next came all the settings.

Spatial Audio scans the shape of your left ear, right ear, and the front of your face:

It claims to support Spatial Audio, but when I tried it, the experience was that no matter how I turned my head, the sound seemed to come from a fixed direction.

Minor Issues Encountered

After just a few hours of use, I ran into a couple of small problems:

1. Not sure if it’s because of the initial setup, but while listening to music on my iPhone, a text message came in, and the headphones emitted a crackling noise—like TV static with no sound. The noise stopped automatically after the message disappeared, without me doing anything.

2. Regarding those ear tips, I chose the S size, but I always feel like they’re not securely fitted. I constantly worry they might fall out when walking, eating, talking, or running. However, when it actually feels like they’re about to drop, pulling them out still requires some effort—meaning that while you feel they might fall, they actually won’t. Still, this sensation is quite uncomfortable! After all, I never experienced this with my AirPods 2nd gen.

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