AirPods Pro 3 vs AirPods Pro (1st generation)

On apple.com, “AirPods Pro” now means AirPods Pro 3, so a listing without a generation could be either pair. The 2019 original is discontinued and sells used and refurbished. You can identify it by model number: the buds are A2084 and A2083, and both of its cases, the 2019 Wireless Charging Case and the 2021 MagSafe Charging Case, are A2190 with a Lightning port.

What changed in six years

Spec	AirPods Pro 3	AirPods Pro (1st generation)
Announced	9 September 2025	28 October 2019
US launch price	$249	$249
Chip	H2	H1
Bluetooth	5.3	5.0
Case connector	USB-C (MagSafe Charging Case)	Lightning (Wireless Charging Case, or the 2021 MagSafe Charging Case)
Case extras	Speaker, lanyard loop, second-generation Ultra Wideband chip	None listed
Dust and water	IP57, buds and case	IPX4 buds; cases not sweat or water resistant
Tips	Foam-infused silicone, five sizes from XXS to L	Silicone, three sizes
Controls	Touch, with a volume swipe	Force sensor
Hearing Aid	Yes	No
Adaptive Audio	Yes	No
Heart-rate sensor	Yes, for workouts	No
One bud	5.55 g; 30.9 × 19.2 × 27.0 mm	5.4 g; 30.9 × 21.8 × 24.0 mm
Case	43.99 g; 47.2 × 62.2 × 21.8 mm	45.6 g; 45.2 × 60.6 × 21.7 mm (Wireless Charging Case)

Battery: three and a half more hours per charge

Mode	AirPods Pro 3	AirPods Pro (1st generation)
Noise cancelling on	Up to 8 hours	Up to 4.5 hours
Noise cancelling and Transparency off	Not published	Up to 5 hours
Spatial Audio with head tracking	Up to 7.5 hours	Not rated separately
Heart-rate sensing in a workout	Up to 6.5 hours	No sensor
Transparency with Hearing Aid	Up to 10 hours	No Hearing Aid
With the case	Up to 24 hours, noise cancelling on	More than 24 hours
Five minutes in the case	About 1 hour	About 1 hour

Per charge is where you’ll feel the difference: up to 8 hours with noise cancelling on, against 4.5 on the 2019 pair. The case totals barely moved, so the gain is all in how long you can keep the buds in.

The ratings come from tests six years apart. Apple rated the 2019 pair in October 2019 with 256 kbps AAC tracks at 50 percent volume on an iPhone 11 Pro Max, and Pro 3 in July and August 2025 with the same kind of track and volume on a preproduction iPhone 17 Pro.

Hearing Aid and the listening modes the 2019 pair never got

Pro 3 has the FDA-authorized Hearing Aid, with automatic Conversation Boost, plus Hearing Test, Hearing Protection and Loud Sound Reduction. Apple limits them to AirPods Pro 2 and later on iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 or later, and to people aged 18 or older with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss, and they aren’t offered in every region. Hearing Aid is an over-the-counter feature, not a diagnosis, so talk to a clinician about whether it suits you.

None of that reaches the 2019 pair, and Apple offers no update that adds it. Its accessibility settings include Live Listen, headphone levels, Headphone Accommodations and Conversation Boost, but that Conversation Boost is neither Conversation Awareness nor Hearing Aid.

The listening modes moved on as well. The original has Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency, Adaptive EQ and spatial audio with dynamic head tracking, with an iOS 15 requirement for stereo content. Pro 3 adds Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, Personalized Volume and Personalized Spatial Audio, which you set up with a TrueDepth iPhone. By Apple’s count, Pro 3 blocks up to four times as much noise as the original and twice as much as AirPods Pro 2; those are ratios, not decibels. Only Pro 3 of these two gets Live Translation, which is still in beta, needs an Apple Intelligence iPhone on iOS 26 or later, and works in some languages and regions only.

The old case: Lightning, no water rating, no speaker

The 2019 box held the buds, the Wireless Charging Case (Qi or Lightning), three tip sizes, a Lightning to USB-C cable and documentation. In 2021 Apple sold a MagSafe Charging Case for the same buds. The serial number tells the two cases apart: the 2019 case’s ends in 0C6L or LKKT, the 2021 MagSafe case’s in 1059 or 1NRC. A MagSafe case doesn’t turn the buds into a newer generation, and it still charges over Lightning.

Apple says neither of those cases is sweat or water resistant, even though the buds are IPX4 for workouts. Pro 3 is rated IP57 under IEC 60529, buds and case alike, for dust, sweat and water in non-water sports.

Pro 3’s MagSafe case charges over USB-C (the cable is sold separately), MagSafe, an Apple Watch charger or Qi, and adds a speaker, a lanyard loop and a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip. Find My for Pro 3 and its case speaker needs iOS 27 or later. Older AirPods get their Find My features through software; the 2019 case has no Ultra Wideband hardware for Precision Finding.

Fit, controls and microphones

Both use a custom high-excursion Apple driver, a high dynamic range amplifier and a vent to relieve pressure. Pro 3’s bud is the same height but narrower, deeper and a fraction of a gram heavier, and its case is slightly bigger yet lighter. The bigger change for fit is the tips: three sizes in the 2019 box, five foam-infused sizes with Pro 3. If the original never sealed in your ears, the extra sizes are a real reason to switch.

The 2019 stem uses a force sensor: press to play or answer, press twice to skip, three times to go back, and hold to switch between noise cancelling and Transparency, plus “Hey Siri.” Pro 3 uses touch controls and adds a swipe for volume.

Both have dual beamforming microphones and an inward-facing microphone. Pro 3 adds Voice Isolation, studio-quality recording and a heart-rate sensor for workouts in the Fitness app on iOS 26 or later, which cuts listening to 6.5 hours and isn’t meant for medical use.

Phones and switching

Neither pair comes with a codec list from Apple. Both switch automatically between devices on your Apple Account rather than offering a two-phone toggle, and both work as Bluetooth headphones with an Android phone, with limited features; Hearing Aid, Live Translation and personalized spatial audio need Apple devices.

Price

Both launched at $249 in the US, the original on 28 October 2019 and Pro 3 on 9 September 2025. A used or refurbished 2019 pair is only a deal well below what Pro 3 costs today, so check apple.com before you pay for one.

Coming from AirPods Pro 2 instead is a smaller step, since Pro 2 got Hearing Aid in a firmware update; AirPods Pro 2 vs AirPods Pro 3 covers it.