TL;DR: There are very few flaws to the Beats Fit Pro earbuds. The sound is full and vivid, the ANC is great, the spatial audio is surprisingly decent, the transparency mode works well, and the fit is secure. However, the worst aspect of the earbuds is that the wingtip design physically hurts my ears. I would highly recommend trying out these earbuds in an Apple Store before you buy them.
I didn’t need new earbuds. I bought the Beats Fit Pro because my friend got me a $200 Apple gift card for my birthday and I found the sound quality of the Anker Soundcore Sport X10 disappointing. With that being said, I’ve now been using the Beats Fit Pro daily for over a month, and I have some thoughts.
At $200, the Beats Fit Pro have to be great. Being Apple products, these earbuds are almost never on sale. The buds come in seven color options: Tidal Blue, Coral Pink, Volt Yellow, Beats Black, Beats White, Sage Gray, and Stone Purple.
The late-2021 Beats Fit Pro were meant to replace the mid-2019 PowerBeats Pro. As some of you may know, I owned the PowerBeats Pro for a while, and I liked them a lot. However, I had to replace them when one of the earbuds stopped charging in the case. Like with AirPods, you can get your name engraved on the Beats Fit Pro charging case for free if you buy directly from Apple. In my opinion, the Beats Fit Pro look sporty but not overbearing. To keep the PowerBeats Pro in your ears, Beats used an ear hook design. However, with the Beats Fit Pro, Beats relies on a wingtip design based on the earbuds maintaining pressure against the inside of your ear. While they are quite secure on runs just like the PowerBeats Pro, the Fit Pro’s pressure begins to hurt after about half an hour. I’ve never gotten used to the pressure, and it still hurts to take them out of my ears every time. When I spend $200 on earbuds, I don’t want them to be painful. However, it’s important to remember that comfort is subjective, so I would recommend trying the Fit Pro on in a store before you consider them.
In the box, you will find the earbuds in their case. The case is relatively large, but not as big as the PowerBeats Pro case. Underneath that is the USB-C to USB-C (not Lightning) charging cable and some extra ear tips. Small, medium, and large sizes are included, with medium being the default. Speaking of the extra ear tips, there is an interesting feature called the “Ear Tip Fit Test,” in which Apple uses the H1 chip in the earbuds to detect whether they fit your ear with the current ear tips. I found this feature pretty useless, but I guess it has potential to be improved for future releases. The Beats Fit Pro case feels very flimsy, and it does not charge wirelessly. For a $200 pair of earbuds, that’s disappointing.
With Apple devices, Bluetooth pairing is as simple as opening the case near your device with Bluetooth on. The standard pairing message will pop up and invite you to connect your earbuds. In terms of battery life, the Beats Fit Pro are sufficient but nothing special. Apple claims six hours of listening time plus an additional 18 hours from the case, for a total of 24 hours. However, these claims are actually with ANC on (good job, Apple), so battery life will be higher with ANC off. According to Apple, when the battery runs out, five minutes of charging can deliver an hour of listening time. Additionally, you can use the Find My app on Apple devices to locate your earbuds if you lose them. With Android devices, some Apple-specific features are not present, but there is a Beats app for Android that provides many of the same options.
Each earbud has a single button, located right on the Beats logo. With a single press on either earbud, you can play/pause music, answer a call, end a call, or switch between active calls. With a double press on either earbud, you can play the next song or swap audio during a call from your earbuds to your phone’s speaker. With a triple press on either earbud, you can play the previous song. By pressing and holding, you can reject an incoming call. While I wish these options were customizable in Settings, they are not. You are able to switch the single press to end a call to a double press. By default, pressing and holding an earbud switches between ANC, transparency mode, and standard listening. However, you can switch the press and hold to instead adjust volume. That’s all there is in terms of customization of the touch controls. You can’t even call Siri without saying “Hey Siri.”
Unsurprisingly, the Beats Fit Pro have a very similar sound profile to the PowerBeats Pro. However, this is a good thing. As they say, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ The bass is deep and punchy, while the mids and highs are slightly muddy but overall pretty good. The microphone quality is also quite clear, and it’s comparable to the AirPods 3 microphone. In terms of sound customization and EQ, however, there really is none to speak of.
The Beats Fit Pro offer ANC, transparency mode, and Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking to enhance your listening experience. With the dynamic head tracking, Beats claims that it essentially tracks the location of your head in relation to your device to change the perceived source location of the sound. This head tracking feature only works on iPhone and iPad, and based on my testing, it doesn’t really do anything. The Spatial Audio experience in general is fine. It’s only immersive if you turn the volume up, but it doesn’t feel like it’s coming from all around the room.
Apple likes to market its H1 chip, which is also found in the latest AirPods. This chip allows you to say “Hey Siri” to talk to Siri through your earbuds, and it allows you to enable the automatic ear detection feature. Other features include IPX4 water and sweat resistance and wind reduction with the built-in mic.
As a person who wears glasses at school and during gaming sessions, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the glasses test for headphones and earbuds. Since the Beats Fit Pro rest inside your ear canal, they pass the glasses test with flying colors.
The Beats Fit Pro are good earbuds in nearly every respect. The sound quality is good, the features are good, and the ANC is good. However, at $200, it’s hard to justify the sound quality you get. Indeed, these earbuds have a little bit of the classic Apple tax. Meanwhile, they face stiff competition from Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser who make similarly-priced earbuds with less gimmicky features and better overall sound quality. In fact, the iconic Sony WF-1000XM4s are on sale for $200, the same price as the Beats Fit Pro. However, with limited options for sport earbuds that actually stay in your ear, the Beats Fit Pro are a decent option. Still, the discomfort the earbuds cause is a major detractor from any good aspects they have. The old adage holds true, then – try before you buy.
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