Is the Nothing Ear 3 worth the upgrade from the Apple AirPods Pro 3?

Verdict

Downgrade

The Nothing Ear 3 actually scores 6.0 points below the Apple AirPods Pro 3, so on aggregate review consensus this is a step backwards. The gains are concentrated in value (7.5 to 8.0). You do give up ground on noise cancelling (9.5 to 7.5) and calls (8.5 to 7.0). On paper: battery life 8 h to 10 h, codecs SBC, AAC to SBC, AAC, LDAC and bluetooth 5.3 to 5.4. Worth checking: weight goes 5.3 g to 10.4 g and battery life (anc on) goes 8 h to 5.5 h. One caution: this steps down a line tier (AirPods Pro 3 to Ear 3), and base models usually trade away tier features - check the codec and ANC rows above before trusting the score gap alone. It is at least $71 cheaper, so the lower score comes with a saving. Only worth it if a specific feature above matters more to you than overall quality does.