Well, it's 2019 and it looks like true wireless earbuds are here to stay after the success of Apple's air pods
Everyone is getting in on this market so far this year
We've torn down Samsung's Galaxy buds
Which turned out to be some of the most repairable ear buds we've ever seen and Apple's updated air pods
Which were almost identical to their first gen counterparts today?
We've got the power beats Pro on our teardown table the first wireless earbuds made by Apple own beats by dre
How do you get into the power beats Pro?
Well, it's slightly less destructive than the air pods, but it's still a challenge using some heat
We soften the adhesive holding down the panel with the beats logo then using an exacto knife
We can create an incision along the seam which allows us to carefully pry the panel on
There's not much to the inside of these earbuds
But what's in here is packed in tight the tiny folded motherboard pops up and out
But the battery that it's attached to requires a bit more finesse
After carefully cutting through the adhesive holding it in place. We are able to pry it all up and out of the ear buds
There's a hiccup here though the folded mainboard and the battery are still connected to a third
small board and that board is connected to the earbuds driver which we can only access from the other side rather than without the
Ultrasonic cutters we opt to cut the cable. This disassembly just got destructive
we've
Finally got everything out as best we can and we can see all the pieces that make up a power beats Pro earbud first up
Is the coin cell battery which is soldered to the folded motherboard via some incredibly delicate wires
This is actually the same battery. We found in Samsung's Galaxy buds
It's a 200 milliwatts oil cell battery that has almost twice the capacity of the battery found in Apple's airports
Seeing the battery soldered to the board is disappointing, but at least a replacement is not entirely impossible
Theoretically next we have the folded motherboard, which is home to the Apple made. H1 chip
That is also found in the second gen air pods supporting. Hey Siri functionality and Bluetooth 5.0 finally
We have the driver that delivers the sound this driver looks pretty similar to the airport's drivers though
They sound significantly better since these earbuds have better passive noise isolation with the earbuds and pieces
we turn our attention to the charging case incredibly strong adhesive holds the case together and
unfortunately
Our opening procedure ended up being less than precise to say the least
eventually tons of heat and difficult prying got the job done the upper half came for
And we got our first glimpse at the inner workings of the case
It sure feels like they don't want us getting inside this thing. Even the cable connectors are glued in place
These beads do have an IP X for ingress resistance rating, which could explain some of the adhesive we see here
But it feels excessive and a little sloppy finally
We make it to the battery powering this charging case, which no surprise here is glued in place
This battery is a 1.3 watt hour cell which falls right between the air pods case battery at?
1.5 2 watt hours and the smaller galaxy buds case battery which was a smaller 1.0 3 watt hour
So at the end of the day these power beats Pro fell far short of our repairable air pods hopes and dreams
On the one hand you can get into them without doing too much cosmetic damage
But actually making a repair and putting them back together is a whole other story
with that said the power beats Pro earned a 1 out of 10 on our pair ability scale and here's why on the upside the
Battery is a fairly common button cell and is only lightly soldered in place
Meaning battery swaps are technically possible with the right tools?
The earbuds opening procedure is not totally destructive per se but it will likely lead to at least some cosmetic damage on
The downside the earbuds internal circuitry is all connected with fragile ribbon cables that do not detach
So a full disassembly can only be accomplished destructively
And finally, the charging case is a nightmarish bucket of glue making potential battery replacements unnecessarily difficult and destructive