Beats seems to be making a habit of revealing new products in the hands (or in the ears) of famous athletes. Most recently the new Beats Pill appeared in the mitts of one Lebron James, and then was spotted swinging from the finger of F1 star Daniel Ricciardo. Now, we've gotten a glimpse of the new Beats Powerbeats Pro 2, courtesy of the Dodgers' designated hitter, Shohei Ohtani.
In the short Instagram video, we're also given a rough date (or year) as to when we can expect to see the new headphones — "coming 2025". Whether that means we only need wait a few months for January or a whole year for next September remains to be seen, but it's the most news we've gotten about a new pair of Powerbeats for some time.
Since 2019, in fact.
What do they look like?
In the video, we're given a shot of Ohtani wearing the buds, in a cream colorway. They look different from the old model — curvier, smaller, and potentially more comfortable. They retain the ear hook, however, something that could be crucial for athletes who need their earbuds to stay put no matter how much they might be moving around.
It's athletes that these new buds are being aimed at as well. Putting my meager understanding of the Japanese language to work (and Google Translate), the caption reads "everything an athlete could want". The new Powerbeats Pro 2, then, are for the most active amongst us.
The video finishes with the name — the Powerbeats Pro 2 — and then "coming in 2025". Beyond that, there's nought much else to glean from the video, so to work out what kind of features they might have we have to look back at the first model.
The Powerbeats Pro, released in 2019, featured the H1 chip from the AirPods Pro of the time. That made their noise canceling excellent, and their sound quality top-notch as well. To this end, could we expect the Powerbeats Pro 2 to feature the H2 chip of the AirPods Pro 2? It would stand to reason. That would also bring better battery life to the Powerbeats, hopefully up from 9 hours.
As for sound quality, until we've got them in our ears, it's going to be impossible to tell. Given the sound quality improvements from the likes of the Beats Solo Buds and the Studio Buds + that have come in recent years, however, we reckon that there could well be some great sound coming from the Powerbeats redesign.
Of course, we now have to wait for 2025 to roll around before we get our first glimpse of the new Powerbeats. Stay tuned for more Beats news as we learn more over the coming months — and whether you should just grab a pair of AirPods 4 that might be revealed at the Apple Glowtime event on Monday, September 9th.
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