Excellent design and controls ; Very comfortable ; Great non-ANC battery life ; Easy pairing with Apple products

Expensive ; Underwhelming bass ; Poor wireless call quality

Solid construction ; Comfortable fit ; Excellent connectivity (with Apple) ; Great battery life (with Apple) ; Effective noise cancellation

W1 battery/connection boost only for Apple ; Lower-mids could do with more separation

Pretty good… for Apple users.

Satisfying bass thump ; Collapsible design ; Comfortable, cozy pads ; Flawless operation with Apple devices

Battery life and Bluetooth suffer when not connected to Apple devices ; Sound lacks refinement, vocals lack fullness ; Competitors in same price bracket have more premium build ; MicroUSB is an anachronism, especially in Apple ecosystem

If you happen to use an Android phone or a bunch of Windows PCs, the proposition becomes much trickier. Beats wins on practically none of the major parameters of comfort, design, or performance. It’s decent in all, but without the W1 augmentation, it’s...

Great wireless performance ; Solid sound ; Top battery life

Soggy mids ; Don’t quite deliver the sub-bass power you may want

Beats W1 chip means that the functionality of its headphones continue to impress. Battery life is good, connecting them to your phone is simple and straightforward, and build-quality is solid. Even their noise-cancellation is decent, if not...

Ridiculously long battery life ; Very enjoyable sound quality and comfortable design ; Great ease-of-use for Apple users thanks to W1 chip ; Lots of bass

Pauses music when notifications come through on Apple Watch ; Plastic design might not suit everyone ; Lots of bass

The Beats Studio 3 Wireless might not suit the audiophile, but for everyone else these over-ear cans are very easy to recommend. Especially for iPhone users, thanks to the W1 chip's easy pairing and cross-device ease of use.

Pure ANC cleans up noises very well ; W1 made pairing experience easy for iOS users ; Fast-charging

Short battery life with Pure ANC enabled ; Still uses Micro-USB

Two years ago, the argument for and against Beats was cultural. It was more status symbol than really solid headphone. Athletes, celebrities and neighborhood show-offs draped them around their necks like jewelry. To many, the sound they produced paled...

Comfortable and stable fit. Good ANC feature. Low leakage.

Mic struggles to separate voice from moderately noisy environments. Just okay recording quality. No NFC or multi-device pairing. Bass delivery varies significantly across users. Sensitive to glasses.

The Beats Studio3 are okay for neutral sound. They have an audio reproduction that adapts to each listener. However, they tend to have a bit more high bass and low mids than the original Beats Studio Wireless. This gives them less thump and rumble and...