T3 Awards 2020: Beats Powerbeats Pro are still the GOAT when it comes to true wireless buds

True wireless, truly great and a T3 Award winner (again), in association with Deezer

T3 Awards 2020: Beats Powerbeats are our #1 true wireless buds
(Image credit: Beats by Dr Dre)
Duncan Bell
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published
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Beats Powerbeats Pro won this T3 Award last year, and we have not – aha haha – 'forgotten about Dre' in the interim. Because – guess what? – they've won at the T3 Awards 2020 as well! They really are the Greatest Of All Time (in case you were wondering what 'GOAT' means) when it comes to true wireless listening.

These high fliers in our Best headphones for running top 10 were pushed all the way to the line this year, however, and we are also handing a well-deserved 'Highly Commended' badge to Jabra's brilliant Elite 75t.

What's great about Powerbeats Pro is that, despite their appearance and marketing, they really aren't just for working out and running. Their sound quality and comfort levels are way above any other gym headphones and with the volume jacked up they sound positively thrilling with a wide range of musical styles. Powerbeats are not just for listening to Eye of the Tiger and pumping workout techno, and for a pair of headphones with 'power' in their name, they are capable of remarkable subtlety.

Powerbeats use a high quality, 'piston'-style driver to serve up audio the equal of anything short of Sony's WF-1000XM3. However, unlike those fantastic but limiting buds, Powerbeats fit incredibly well, and cannot be shifted about by walking. In fact, they can't even be shifted by doing somersaults.

More than a year on from launch, their battery life is still well up there with more recent rivals – you get a very solid 9 hours per charge, with a total of 24 hours when you charge them in their case when not in use. The 'Fast Fuel' charge gives you 90 minutes more music in just 5 minutes, too. 

Highly commended: Jabra Elite 75t

So, we love Powerbeats. But if you are looking for something more compact, without those distinctive – and very secure – over-ear hooks, fear not because we have just the thing for you. Jabra's Elite 75t are incredibly compact, sound great and fit like a, erm… glove? Well, they fit like a very small earhole-shaped glove that you wear in your ear, anyway. 

If you are sporty, there's also the Jabra Elite Active 75t, which is more or less the same, wondrous product, but with sweat-proofing.

Duncan Bell
Duncan Bell

Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years. 

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."

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