One of the biggest unveils at the Apple Unleashed 2021 event was that of the AirPods 3 – the third generation of Apple’s wireless earbuds. Priced at Rs 18,500 in India, the AirPods 3 are available to order starting today, and will be available for purchase at Apple stores from 26 October. Combining design cues from the second-gen AirPods and AirPods Pro, the third-generation AirPods retain the plastic-bodied, one-size-fits-all form, but the AirPods 3 have shorter stems for a more subtle appearance.
The AirPods 3 are also sweat- and water-resistant, and feature a redesigned custom driver, adaptive EQ and spatial audio featuring Dolby Atmos in Apple Music, movies, and TV shows, along with dynamic head tracking, across Apple devices. They’re also equipped with a force sensor like seen on the AirPods Pro.
The AirPods 3 will offer six hours of playback time, four hours of call time and with the case, that figure rises to 30 hours. Image: Apple
Apple says the AirPods 3 will offer six hours of playback time, four hours of call time and with the case, that figure rises to 30 hours. The AirPods 3 are also compatible with the MagSafe wireless charging system, and Apple says a five-minute charge will be enough to give the AirPods 3 around an hour of battery life.
To further improve audio performance, the AirPods 3 are covered by an acoustic mesh to reduce wind noise, and also feature AAC-ELD, which Apple says is “a superior speech codec that offers full HD voice quality, providing clear, natural communication for FaceTime calls.”
The AirPods 3 will also come with ‘one-touch’ setup, that automatically pairs AirPods with other Apple devices, and Audio Sharing will enable sharing of audio between two sets of AirPods, AirPods Pro or AirPods Max, while using an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Apple TV.
Even after the launch of the AirPods 3, the second-generation AirPods will continue to be on sale at a lower price of Rs 12,900, while the AirPods Pro – still priced at Rs 24,900 – will now be sold with the MagSafe charging case.