Beats Solo3 Wireless On-Ear Headphones – Apple W1 Headphone Chip， Class 1 Bluetooth， 40 Hours Of Listening Time – Mickey’s 90th Anniversary Edition – Grey (Previous Model)

This is a hard one to judge short term so my rating here is certainly preliminary. Bottom line - admittedly there is a lot of plastic here. Yes, it is a plus under comfort as it keeps the headphones light. But when you get in to this price range you defiantly see more metals and leathers and less plastic. And some wired headphones I have are so solid they have lasted me over a decade! I am not sure I will be able to say that about these headphones. And a 1 year warranty is not very confident - some headphones starting at this price point offer up to 3 years. It would certainly inspire confidence if Beats backed these a bit more and made me feel like the plastic construction was solid and truly there for comfort (weight). That said its too early to bash longevity yet.

I was very hesitant on buying Beats because normally they're heavy on the bass and muffled on the treble. Not with the Solo3. These were extremely well rounded in the Bass/ Treble. Don't get me wrong, these headphones have a lotta Bass at a high volume and the treble is adjusted acoustically to sound normal and not muffled. At a low volume, the treble jumps out at you with a crystal clear sound and the bass is adjusted to a low roar.

Right off the bat, this is where these headphone excel, and why I considered and bought them in the first place. They are by far the easiest bluetooth headphones I have used to pair and manage with multiple devices. This of course assumes you are very deep in the Apple eco-system - which I am. I use these headphones with an iPhone, iPad and MacBook. Initial pairing was simple and automatic with my iPhone - place it next to it, turned it on, hit accept and done. Then in seconds the headphone showed up in all my Apple devices! And switching between what device is connected and active is just as easy. I could never get previous wireless headphones I owned to play nice with multiple devices even though they supposedly supported this feature. One wireless headphone always went back and forth between my iPhone and iPad even when I was in the middle of listening to music on my iPhone. Not so with the Solo3! And the range and battery life are incredible. I have owned my Solo3 for over a week and I am still on the initial charge. So hands down wireless performance is the best feature of these headphones.

Apple is really doing it: they're taking a brand that has the dominant marketshare in the headphone marketplace despite having had subpar audio quality, and greatly improving it while adding groundbreaking features that will take the competition a year or two to catch up with. It's a bit of a genius proposition: purchase the most popular headphone brand that people buy solely for the branding and marketing despite abysmal audio quality, then rebrand it so that consumers are actually getting a quality product with innovative features. The Solo3 is a solid buy for most, even if its audio presentation isn't perfect.

Overall, these are very good wireless headphones - they are now my primary go to wireless headphones for sound quality and convenience across all my Apple devices - though I am keeping my set of wireless Jaybirds for intense workouts only. They are even what I turn to now over my wired headphones for most music/podcasts unless I want to immerse myself in some Acoustic, Classical or Jazz where I still prefer my wired options. Value is good - plastic to price ratio is not ideal - but it is offset by the wireless simplicity and sound. If you want a no-compromise wireless experience, you should at least consider these headphones.