Although it sounds a bit cliché, there is one thing to say, the impact of AirPods released in the same year as the iPhone 7 on the consumer digital industry is far greater than the expected other digital products released in the same field, or even in the same year, and the power of a single product alone has opened up a potential market size of up to 140 billion.
However, from the perspective of Apple's achievements in the field of headphones in recent years, in addition to the first generation of AirPods and full-featured AirPods Pro, which are at the peak of the beginning, Apple's headphone sequence seems to have few products to hand. Whether it is the small repair of the AirPods 3 or the "high-end flagship" AirPods Max, or Apple's Beats brand, in the face of the majority of Android brands can not prevent the effective counterattack, but also spawned the "reverse trend" in the field of headphone trends: using Apple's mobile phones, but wearing headphones of other brands.
But from the user's point of view, there is also a certain reason for using other headphones with iPhones, after all, the design of AirPods Pro is too easy to drop, and there are even mature "single matching" businesses on e-commerce platforms and second-hand websites. So is there an "AirPods Pro" that is not easy to drop?
Yes, it's called Beats Fit Pro.
"Better" AirPods Pro?
From the perspective of product form, Beats Fir Pro (hereinafter referred to as Fit Pro) and Apple's AirPods Pro do not seem to have much to do with each other, and the only thing they have in common seems to be that they both use an in-ear structure. But if we dig deeper into the common ground between the two, it is not difficult to find that between the AirPods Pro and the Fit Pro, there is far more than one common point between the in-ear and the "Pro".
First, the Fit Pro uses Apple's most powerful H1 chip in the headphone category at present, rather than the previous generation's W1 chip. At this stage, among the Beats headphones sold in the Apple Store, there are only two with H1 chips, and fit pro is one of them. It is also the H1 chip that allows Fit Pro to enjoy Apple's "pro-son" treatment as a non-AirPods product:
Pop-up matching, noise reduction/transparency mode these functions do not need to be talked about, Fit Pro can even automatically switch between different Apple devices like AirPods, even spatial audio technology and dynamic head tracking technology are also supported. In terms of supported functions and experience, Fit Pro is simply an AirPods Pro designed by Beats Motion.
The more "sporty" design also allows the Fit Pro to be worn more securely, in my own case: probably because my ears don't look ergonomic, both the AirPods and the AirPods Pro will slowly be squeezed out of the ears. But the Fit Pro, which features an ear wing design, can firmly anchor itself to the ear, and even if it is deliberately flicked, there is no sign of falling off.
In fact, the reason why I went to the Apple Store to buy it directly at the original price was also because the headphones on the left side of my AirPods Pro fell on the subway and I wanted to make up one in the store. From the results, whether it is cross-device connection or noise reduction experience, Fit Pro and AirPods Pro maintain a high degree of consistency, and even better than AirPods Pro in my opinion.
This is Beats, but not as much as Beats as before
But then again, Beats' unique sound style is primarily responsible for the fact that beats' products have not been recognized by consumers in the past. Simply put, the mid-frequency high frequency disappears, leaving only the low frequency wandering in the ear. It may be that the lessons of the past have been learned, and in recent years, the sound performance of Beats products has been much more serious than in the past. Although bass is still a product feature of Beats, the heavy and low volume has obviously converged a lot, and the sound quality has also been improved to a certain extent, emphasizing the rhythm while also paying attention to the hierarchical performance of the bass part.
And because the Fit Pro sound cavity is not as big as headphones, the low frequency is naturally not as aggressive as the past products, and it is generally at a relatively comfortable level. In addition, the intermediate frequency quality of the headphones has also been significantly improved, and the vocals are no longer strongly biased by the low frequency band. Overall, in addition to traditional electronic tracks like Dunstep, Fit Pro can easily handle even vocal-based pop tracks.
Although the sound of Fit Pro is better than the past "verb play", it should be noted that because the target users of Fit Pro are still mainly iPhone users, so in terms of audio format support, Fit Pro is still inferior to those TWS headphones launched by the Android brand: LDAC is naturally impossible, but what people did not expect is that Fit Pro does not even support Bluetooth 5.2, and still stays in the combination of 5.0 + AAC. There is a natural disadvantage in supporting lossless formats compared to android counterparts.
However, thanks to the H1 chip, Fit Pro's performance in audio latency is very good in my opinion, whether it is connecting a computer in an office with many Bluetooth devices, or connecting a mobile phone during a night walk, Fit Pro's delay control is quite ideal, as long as it is not used to play audio games or cut videos, general music playback, movie viewing and even game play are no problems.
From Apple, to Android?
From the point that Fit Pro can control the headset through the Android version of the App, it is not difficult to see that Beats obviously considered the majority of Android users when creating Fit Pro. But from the point of view that Fit Pro only supports Bluetooth 5.0 and AAC transmission, Fit Pro is not like a product designed for Android users, after all, there are many headphones that support aptX or even LDACs below 1,000 yuan, and the price of 1599 yuan to switch to USB-C but do not support wireless charging "AirPods Pro" is far from affordable for Android users.
At the time of the release of Studio Buds, I said that the Beats product line would be Apple's bridgehead in the Android camp in the future. For those users who have not been exposed to AirPods and the so-called "Apple ecosystem" outside the Apple system, Studio Buds allows them to experience beats hardware in the Android ecosystem and use this as a stepping stone to attract new users into the Apple ecosystem.
The emergence of Fit Pro is actually for the same purpose, but Fit Pro is not aimed at users who have never experienced Apple's ecology, but those who "swing" between iOS and Android. Under the differentiated product concept, although the Fit Pro is essentially an AirPods Pro, the Fit Pro does not have the MagSafe charging in the Apple ecosystem, nor does it have Apple's ancestral Lightning charging interface. This ecological differentiation allows Android to experience the benefits of Fit Pro "limitedly" when used.
At the same time, features such as H1 chips and spatial audio split Android and iOS at the software level, attracting users to switch to the iOS camp like a "demo version". This is better for both consumers and Apple. At this time, Beats, as the identity of "youth version of AirPods", as a stepping stone for Apple's hardware ecology, provides consumers with ecological services similar to Apple's iCloud ecology, making Studio Buds a "trial version" of Apple's ecology, which is a better practice for both consumers and Apple.
Besides, even if you only buy Beats headphones and don't buy iPhones, in the Apple ecosystem "ecological day trip", Apple actually has no loss: AirPods Pro and Fit Pro have never been a competitive relationship, Apple is good Beats, in the end, it is the Apple brand, as long as you place an order to buy, for Apple to make a steady profit.
So at the end of the day, is the Fit Pro suitable for buying? As an iPhone user in Guangzhou and wearing an unstable AirPods Pro, a true wireless noise-canceling headset that can seamlessly access Apple's ecology can obviously make me pay for it, after all, in the sweltering heat of Guangzhou, using headphones outdoors is a kind of torment for users and headphones. Putting aside the Android attributes of Fit Pro, within the Apple ecosystem, Fit Pro is also a "sex ratio AirPods Pro" that can be considered. But if you're not interested in which features of the iPhone and don't plan to try the iPhone in the future, the Studio Buds or OPPO W51 might be a better option.