I love both these products, however due to my lifestyle, I would prefer to make use of the Elite 3 Active as I often go to the gym and usually do a lot of physical activity in loud places like parks and even just street noise tends to bother me.

The Elite 3 has decent fitting gels enough to reduce a lot of sound. The same is true for the Elite 3 Active. However, the Elite 3 Actives have the ANC function which helps even more when dealing with noisy environments. I've tried them at home with another device playing loud YouTube videos and notice the reduction in sound significantly.

The only downside I see with the Elite 3 Actives is that they only have a 6/24hr lifespan (I think while using the ANC, but maybe longer with the ANC off), while the Elite 3s have a 7/28hr lifespan. I have yet to test out their maximum duration without the ANC active to see whether or not they make it to the 7hr mark on their own.

Size of the buds are essentially the same but the Elite 3 Active buds seem bigger so I think that is the reason why they feel a lot more secure. The case of the Elite 3 Active is slightly bigger than the Elite 3 so I think that a lot of the silicone protector stuff on Amazon that are slightly too big for the Elite 3 are meant for the Elite 3 Actives.

The other major difference is that the Elite 3 Actives have a button cover on each earbud that protects from sweat and water entering the device, and seem to have better waterproofing overall, despite both being rated at IP55 on their boxes. I've seen tests where they dunk them (don't do this) and they work okay after a good 1minute under water.

The sound quality is almost exactly the same, with some better bass coming through the Elite 3 Actives when the ANC is on, likely because I don't hear a lot of what is going on around me. I did notice that my Xiaomi phone had the aptX symbol on the Bluetooth page with the Elite 3 Actives while the Elite 3 did not.

I have tried gaming with them and while there is a very slight audio delay from an action being done on screen to the sound coming out of the earbud, it's relatively negligible and I do hear a bit of surround sound too when listening to other players footsteps in game. The Elite 3 Actives seem to have more delay than the Elite 3s, however they're not too far apart. They're pretty good overall.

I love them both dearly, and honestly would keep both if I had the extra money, where I would use one for my home when things are quiet, and one for outdoors when things are loud. As it stands, I can only afford one for now so I am sticking with the Elite 3 Actives.