AirPods Max, Travel review
How do Apple’s top of the line headphones hold up outside the comfort of a home?
When I reviewed the AirPods Max, I didn’t get the opportunity to truly use them for traveling. Apart from trips to my university’s library or the occasional weekend getaway, they did not leave the comfort of my home.
However, I in early April I undertook a trip to NYC. My university participated in the national model of United Nations, a UN simulation, and I had the opportunity to be part of the delegation traveling to New York. Not only did I get a chance to debate with many different people from all around the globe, but it was also the perfect opportunity to test out Apple’s high end headphones in a real travel situation.
I boarded the Airbus A330 on the second of April, leaving from Zurich Airport in Switzerland for New York City’s JFK. An eight hour flight, with quite some work to do, some texts to write, and, of course, even more time to kill with movies and series.
The last time I travelled by Airplane I was leaving Switzerland for Cyprus for a one week vacation. However, back then I had yet to sell my Sony WH-1000 XM4’s. Therefore and also because the Sony’s are some of the closest competitors to the AirPods Max, I’ll be juxtaposing Apple’s ANC over-ear headphones with the complicated-named Sony ones.
ANC
Ever since I experienced ANC on a flight, I could not imagine ever flying without it again. Therefore, ANC performance is the single most important criteria for traveling headphones for me. Even though I did not have a direct comparison on the flight, I feel that the noise canceling is very similar with both headphones. The AirPods Max manage to reduce the cabin noise as well as the engines to a distant hum, allowing you to focus on your movies or work. From what I am able to remember, the Sony’s did a slightly better job on filtering out the engine noises, whereas Apple’s headphones are superior in reducing the higher pitched noises like the dialogues of the other passengers.
While I can’t provide any fancy graphs that illustrate the noise canceling ability of either pair of headphones, I can confidently say that the AirPods Max also are capable of canceling out airplane noises. The ANC exceeded my expectations and made the flight quite pleasant, allowing me to focus on writing and reading.
With this, the AirPods Max fulfill the most important criteria I have for traveling headphones, a well working ANC, allowing one to focus.
Comfort
Another highly important criteria for good travel headphones is the comfort. There is no use in fantastic noise canceling if you can’t wear the headphones for more than two hours at a time.
The AirPods Max are not a light pair of headphones. However, they are surprisingly comfortable, despite the all-metal construction. I never felt any uncomfortable pressure points on top of my head over the whole journey. What I did feel though, was a slight pressure on the top part of the earcup. It was very slight but still noticeable. Even though the AirPods Max have a very comfortable, knitted padding material around the cups, in my case this gets compressed so that I start to feel the metal part of the earcup. However, it was only really slight and after 6 hours of constant wear when I started noticing it. Furthermore, the fact that I wear glasses could also be a reason for the slight pressure I felt there.
Anyway, overall, the AirPods Max were really comfortable to travel with and I did not notice them at all for the majority of my trip. When I did notice them a bit, it was very slight and not even close to the point where I wanted to take them off.
Battery
While ANC and comfort are by far the most important factors of good travel headphones, battery life time is also vital. Here, the AirPods Max were also good. Apple claims a 20 hour battery life time and I figure I achieved that. In my experience, I did not have any issues with the battery running out during the journey and once I arrived at the hotel I just charged them back up.
I believe the Max’ battery life is more than sufficient for the vast majority of trips. Only if you plan on being on the move for more than 18 hours I feel like the AirPods Max could run out of battery. In all other cases, they will have enough juice to let you travel in relative peace.
However, I have to mention that the Sony WH-1000 XM4’s did have a better battery life, which was also quite noticeable in the real world.
Further observations
So far the AirPods Max have held up very well as travel headphones. However, their biggest weakness is their portability. The fact that you cannot fold them at all, makes lugging them around quite cumbersome. Furthermore, the “case” they have is not really protective at all, especially at the delicate knitting at the top. Therefore I had to be careful when storing them in my backpack, which was always a small annoyance.
Another minor inconvenience I came across with the AirPods Max is the placement of the “crown” to adjust the volume and skip tracks. It happened to me a few times that while trying to sleep, I’d turn my head in a way that also changed the volume of the music, giving me a good jump scare.
Verdict
The AirPods Max are still amazing headphones. Furthermore, they also can hold their own outside the comfort of my home, fulfilling all the most aspects of a good pair of traveling headphones. However, most noticeably they fall short in the portability aspect, where their weird case and the inability to fold them make them much more cumbersome than other models out there.
Overall though, the AirPods Max can also serve as traveling headphones, without many troubles or shortcomings.
As always, stay safe
Raffael
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