Sony's flagship earbuds get a slew of awesome upgrades in a much smaller design.
Sony WF-1000XM4 MSRP $280.00 Score Details DT Editors' Choice “With an all-new design and tons of improvements, they're very hard to beat.” Pros Cons Sony’s eagerly anticipated follow-up to its very highly rated WF-1000XM3 noise-canceling true wireless earbuds is finally here. The WF-1000XM4 cost $280, and they address even our very few critiques of the XM3 with a laundry list of improvements — some big, some small.
The only hint of plastic is in the thin exterior wrapping band that holds the two halves of the box together. Once opened, there’s no way to close it again, but I’m willing to bet most people discard their earbuds packages anyway, which is really the whole point. The other big change is the shape of the earbuds themselves. For years, Sony used the same capsule shape for its true wireless earbuds, with the bulk of the body protruding significantly from your ear. For the XM4, Sony’s designers tried something completely different, creating a more compact, rounded housing that sits much closer. It looks much better in my opinion, though there may be some disagreement over the look of the prominent copper-capped microphone enclosures.
If your ears can accommodate the XM4’s larger shape, you’ll be rewarded with a very secure fit. There’s a ton of surface contact, and once inserted, they won’t be going anywhere. They inspire much more confidence than their predecessors. There is a workaround, at least for Android users. The XM4 enable wake-word access to both Google Assistant and Alexa when using a phone with Android 6 or higher. Either of these voice assistants can control volume for you, so if you pick playback and ambient for your physical controls, you could always say, “Alexa, turn up the volume.”
These observations are based on factory settings, with no EQ adjustments within the Sony Headphones app. Switching the XM4 to “Bright” or “Treble Boost” helps a little, but even then, I think the XM3 are better overall for clarity. Noise cancellation and transparency Sony’s noise cancellation tech has always been excellent, and the WF-1000XM4 manage to improve on it. Sony claims the Integrated Processor V1 chip inside the XM4 improves on the XM3’s ANC performance across the board, diminishing external sounds throughout the audible spectrum. I’m inclined to agree.One of my benchmark tests for ANC is to run my loud bathroom vent fan, which produces both low and high-frequency sounds.
Battery life When fully charged, Sony claims eight hours of play time with ANC turned on and an impressive 12 hours when it’s turned off — a big boost over the XM3’s capacity of six and eight hours, respectively. Several features, like wake-word access to voice assistants and wind-noise reduction, will reduce these numbers, but on the whole, I found they were accurate.
Call quality Calling on the WF-1000XM4 is good. Most competing sounds, like traffic, are effectively neutralized, and so is wind noise, which was a weakness of the WF-1000XM3. It’s not perfect: As the earbuds attempt to correct for these external noises — especially wind — it can sound like you’re speaking through several layers of fabric. But since that’s preferable to listening to the annoying whistle of the wind, I think it’s an improvement.
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