After a trio of audio products to mark its official India entry, Beats launched the Kim edition of its Beats Studio Pro at a price point of Rs 37,900. These are functionally same but different looking headphones that come in three colours – Earth, Dune and Moon – made in collaboration with Kim Kardashian.
The headphones are made of plastic with matte finish that feels sturdy and nice in the hand or when worn. These over-the-ear headphones come with a USB type C to C as well an AUX cable of the same colour that can be carried in an included pouch. Credit for the looks and build quality - its strong point, perhaps expectedly. There's the Beats logo on the outside of the cups and physical button to switch them in or off, take calls, toggle between noise cancellation plus volume buttons on the left cup.
The Studio Pro are powered by 400mm drivers and support Bluetooth 5.3 with SBC and AAC audio codecs for wireless use and can also be used wired via either a 3.5mm audio jack or a USB type C port. When in use wirelessly, the headphones have reliable controls via the physical button s that are quite quick to get used to. When it comes to audiobooks quality, the pair has ample bass got the bass-heads. There's good background treble even with heavy lows are delivered but vocals can be a little sacrificed in delivering that. There is loss-less playback when used wired and there's a lot nicer surrounds kind effect and you also get head tracking when used with an iPhone while on Android you get spatial audio only. An equaliser is missing again but it could have made the audio experience bit more customised and adjustable.
Active noise cancellation is pretty decent on these earphones when used outdoors, maybe nothing the same eagle as Sony and Bose but still event enough to be usable around noisy environments. Sound quality seemed better in transparency mode where the sounds around get amplified and of course there's less noise hissing.
You can get close to two days of playback in a full charge from the headphones. You can charge it to full in a little over an hour over USB Type C.
At the price point, the Beats Pro go directly against the established players Sony and Bose plus the recent entrant Sonos. While the audio quality is decent but not exactly better than those, it does have looks (more subjective) and comfort among its strengths plus multipoint connectivity if you use these with iOS and macOS.
