Apple releases new airpods -- Should you upgrade?

Yahoo Finance Tech Editor Dan Howley explains why Apple's new airpod offerings might make you want to ditch your old pair.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: We are continuing to watch shares of Apple today sliding in the session on the back of concerns around their supply chain constraints. But one thing consumers are also watching for Apple, the new upgrade, the third generation pods now on sale. Dan Howley here to break it down for us. Dan, we're looking at a roughly $180 price tag. Is it worth the upgrade?

DAN HOWLEY: I think if you had the regular AirPods, yes, these are definitely worth the upgrade. You see right here, these are the new third generation AirPods. They're not the AirPods Pro or anything along those lines. In fact, they do look a lot like the Pros. I have those right here. And you can see that Apple really went and redesigned the original. Let me just pop these bad boys out real quick to give you a quick side by side. So these aren't-- well, one's gone forever now. No.

This is the third gen right here. And then this is the Pro right here. And you can see the difference between the two. The Pro has this silicone tip on it. The new third gen does not. But it's the same basic length. They both have those force touch controls on them so that if you want to call up a friend or you want to use the transparency mode or the active noise canceling on the Pros, you would use that. On this, they don't have active noise canceling, the third gen. They don't have transparency mode. In fact, those are really the only features that are missing from the third gen compared to the Pros.

They're sweat resistant. They have excellent sound. I mean, I put these on, and I regularly wear the Pros. And I actually think these sound better than the Pros now. I've been running around with them, you know, wearing them as my regular headset. And I think that, you know, these are fantastic. If you have the old ones, the second generation or the first generation AirPods, these are definitely worth the upgrade for 179.

That being said, the Pros do have that active noise canceling, so if you're on a bus, you're flying, you take the subway, and you don't want to hear people talking or a baby crying or, you know, whatever, the Pros are still the way to go. You can use that active noise canceling, and if you don't like the active noise canceling, they have that transparency mode that allows you to amplify the audio around you.

And I got to say, when I do go for a run with my third gen, I do hear a lot more ambient noise. And that can be a little bit of a problem. But when I am using them at my desk or something along those lines, I think that these are fantastic. So if you have the second generation or first generation AirPod, and you don't want to go all out for 249 with the Pros, go for this third gen for 179.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, I invested in Pros last year. Was it last year? Maybe about a year ago, but love it. I'm sticking to my Pros. Thanks so much for that, Dan.