Apple recently updated its iPad Air line up a mere 10 months after it last did so, but it took the Beats arm of the company nearly six years to release a sequel to the enormously popular Powerbeats Pro wireless earbuds.

The wait is over, and the headline news is positive: the Powerbeats Pro 2 are very good, and improve on the original pair in every department, from fit to sound and from smart features to the addition of noise cancellation.

If you want a pair of earbuds that work just as well for your high-intensity workouts as they do on the commute, the Powerbeats Pro 2 are a great option, particularly as they work just as well with Android phones as they do iPhones.

The over-ear hooks are more comfortable and the battery life is long-lasting. The downsides are their sky-high price, a large charging case that isn’t very pocketable, and the absence of a couple of key features. But after a few weeks of wearing them, I’m torn between sticking with the Powerbeats or going back to my trusty AirPods Pro.

Unlike the original Powerbeats Pro, the new set has active noise cancellation, as well as a transparency mode that lets sound in when you’re wearing them. The quality is excellent, though it’s a step below the same modes on the identically-priced AirPods Pro 2, and the Beats also lack those buds’ excellent adaptive noise option that reacts to the noise around you. They also do not have conversation awareness that turns down the volume when you talk, nor the hearing aid feature that has just come to the Pro 2 in a software update.

This underlines the fact the Beats are squarely aimed at those with an active lifestyle, but I still think they’re overpriced for what they offer.

That said, Powerbeats Pro 2 have gained a rare feature for the earbud world, with heart rate sensors on both buds. In theory this is a great addition if you don’t want to also buy an expensive smartwatch to track your heart rate during workouts, but data capture is limited to a few third party apps including Nike Run Club and Runna.

I found the data hard to find and it was never obvious how to set it up, and was left feeling Beats would have been better off ditching the sensors entirely to keep the price down. Also, if you wear an Apple Watch at the same time, the heart rate sensor on the watch takes precedence over the buds, rendering their sensors pointless. But if you want to get these, you can track your runs with the GPS on your phone and gather heart rate data with your earbuds.

These niggles aside, the Powerbeats Pro 2 do a solid job of sounding good. To get the best out of them you can select from five different sizes of silicon tips included in the box. I found the best fit with the small size, and they range from extra small to extra large. You need to slide each hook over your ear, insert the bud and then twist the unit backwards to create the seal necessary for the best sound and for the noise cancellation to work well.

They come in Jet Black, Quick Sand, Hyper Purple, or my preferred Electric Orange.

While the buds never fell out while I was running in them, the right one didn’t feel as secure as I’d have liked, though this may be because I wear glasses, the arms clashing with the hooks. Beats has tried to accommodate all ear sizes with this design, but there is a small chance you won’t get on with them, as with all buds. I also prefer the fit and feel of the AirPods Pro 2’s oval silicone tips compared to the circular cones of the Beats.

My main complaint with the Powerbeats Pro 2 is, unfortunately, the overall sound quality. They do not sound as good as the identically priced AirPods Pro 2, and in some cases struggled to better the £99 Nothing Ear a. Listening to U2’s The Sweetest Thing on Spotify, the AirPods sounded clearer where the Beats had a little distortion and noise in the high end.

Audio will sound better depending on the source though, and these sounded better when, you guessed it, streaming from Apple Music. You get access and compatibility with Spatial Audio tracks, but weirdly, as with all Apple wireless headphones, can’t actually access the lossless playback Apple Music promises.

Perhaps this doesn’t matter when I am pounding the pavements, and indeed I enjoyed the fit of the Beats when doing so, but at £249 it’s worth noting these are not in the same sonic league as the AirPods Pro 2 or Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds for sound quality.

Connectivity comes via the Bluetooth 5.3 standard and you can switch between connected devices with multipoint, just having to put the buds back in the case to pair to another phone or laptop when you first connect. But compared to the Bose or Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4, there’s no Hi-Res playback compatibility.

As you might expect with Beats, the bass is loud and thumping on all genres, and for most people the sound will be more than adequate. I listen to a lot of guitar music, where the reproduction isn’t at its best, but if you are a hip hop head or are always tuned into the latest dance playlists then you’ll be right at home with the tuning here.

If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, the buds benefit from Hands-Free Siri, Personalised Spatial Audio with head tracking, Audio Sharing and iCloud Pairing across Apple devices – all features you can’t get if you pair with an Android phone.

Both iPhone and Android phones can track the last-known whereabouts of the buds in their respective Find My apps, which is nice to have if you misplace them. But the Beats lack the ultrawideband chip in AirPods, so you can’t precisely locate the Beats when close by using your iPhone as a mini radar.

Beats promises eight hours of playback from a set of fully charged buds with noise cancellation on, ten hours if it’s off. Best of all, you’ll get 36 hours overall with a fully charged pair and case that tops them up, some of the longest battery life away from the mains that I’ve ever tested. The drawback to this is an enormous charging case, though it does include wireless charging compatibility.

Given their exercise bent, the Pro 2 are IPX4 resistant to water and sweat, and I had no issues with playback after I’d worn them on a sweaty 10km run. The in-ear detection also works well, so will pause the tunes when you take one out, and I like the physical button controls on each bud rather than the touch pads on rival products. Pressing the ‘b’ logo will play and pause while holding cycles between noise cancellation and transparency. A small rocker on each controls volume and all are easy to use when running or at the gym.

These are also surprisingly good buds for voice calls. Both regular phone calls and WhatsApp calls bring solid connection and audio quality, and people I called said they couldn’t tell I was using earbuds, which is often the highest praise a device can get when it comes to calls.

Overall, the Powerbeat Pro 2 are a great upgrade to their aging predecessors, with improvements across the board. They sound and fit better with a tweaked hook design, have solid noise cancellation and transparency, add in heart rate sensors, have good battery life and a smaller but still-too-big case. For exercise, they are some of the best earbuds on the market, and in my time with them I forgave their shortcomings because the form factor and features are so good.

You are paying the Apple/Beats tax here though, as £249 is a lot to spend on earbuds that can’t claim the best audio quality in the market. But if you want new wireless buds that pair easily with your iPhone or Android phone and will likely never fall out of your ears and generally sound great, you can’t go wrong with the Powerbeats Pro 2.