I’m not afraid to admit I was wrong: AirPods are amazing. Not amazing-sounding, but still pretty great for what they are. Open soundstage, good imaging, solid separation (better than I initially gave it credit for), clean mids, unexaggerated bass that reaches surprisingly low (Solo3 also struggled with 30Hz-20Hz), and a full treble.
Way better in a quiet environment. The best analogy I can give is that the lack of isolation (only 1-2dB of total isolation) makes it sound like two speakers next to your ears in that you can hear audio and all your surroundings and details can be drowned out by the environment. This may sound odd, but if you’re using AirPods in a noisy environment you have to learn to mentally focus on the sound.
75% sounds adequately full and is still loud enough to enjoy. ~80%+ fatigues me quickly so I tell Siri to set the volume to 75% when needed.
Find My AirPods features and the little touches like the charging case are also very cool.