Apple AirPods Max 2 review

Full review

The AirPods Max 2 are Apple's premium over-ear headphones, with an H2 chip in each ear cup. Noise cancelling is paired with Transparency mode and Adaptive Audio, and the headphones have nine microphones, eight of which are used for noise cancelling and three for voice pickup, with two shared.

Apple quotes up to 20 hours of listening with noise cancelling on, the shortest figure here, and five minutes of charging gives about 1.5 hours. They charge over USB-C, which also carries wired audio. Apple notes that lossless and ultra-low-latency listening require a wired USB-C connection and compatible content, so over Bluetooth you are not getting that.

At 386.2 g without the case, they are noticeably heavier than rivals such as the Sonos Ace at 312 g or the Bose at about 264 g, which matters on long flights. The Smart Case weighs 134.5 g and holds them in an ultra-low-power state.

Apple does not list codecs, multipoint, drivers, folding or water resistance on the specs page, so we have marked those as not stated. Bluetooth is version 5.3. These are best seen as an Apple ecosystem choice rather than the best option for Android users.