sony wh 1000xm4 review best wireless headphones
Digital noise cancelling: Industry-leading Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) lends a personalized, virtually soundproof experience in any situation
Voice assistant: Alexa, Google Assistant & Siri enabled (In-built) for voice access to music, information, and more. Activate with a simple touch
Speak-to-chat: Headphones use an array of smart technologies to create a seamless, hands-free listening experience. For eg, simply start speaking to automatically pause your music in Speak-to-Chat
Wearing Detection: A proximity sensor and two acceleration sensors in your headphones can detect whether you're wearing them or not, then adapt playback accordingly to help save battery power
Quick attention mode: Cover the right ear cup with your palm to turn down the music for instant, easy conversation
Smart listening: WH-1000XM4 adjusts the ambient sound to your activity to give you the best noise cancellation
Long battery life: A single charge provides up to 30 hrs of playtime for reliable all-day listening
When Sony's WH-1000XM3 headphones arrived in 2018, they were the first noise-cancelling headphones that really gave Bose's QuietComfort models a run for their money. Now, Sony's successor model has arrived. And like any good Hollywood sequel, the eagerly awaited WH-1000XM4 is equal parts familiar and satisfying, with a dash of slight disappointment thrown in.
While we reviewed this earlier in 2020, it's stood the test of time versus products that have come after in the category. As such, we're awarding it an Editors' Choice.
If you expected major changes and upgrades, you'll be a little underwhelmed. But if you thought the 1000XM3 was pretty great, which I did, and just needed to fix some of its small flaws, you may very well be happy that Sony has made some incremental improvements that address many (though not all) of the little gripes users had. The long and short of it is what may just have been the best noise-cancelling headphone of the last two years has gotten a little better. By how much? That's what this review is all about. Sony had pulled even with Bose as far as noise-canceling goes and then arguably went slightly ahead with the release of the XM3. (Bose made some small improvements with its excellent Noise-Cancelling 700 Headphones, which came out later.) The noise-canceling of both companies' headphones is quite effective, but in my limited testing with the Sony WH-1000XM4 (I didn't fly on a plane with it), it does seem to be a tad better at muffling ambient noise than the XM3. This model appears to be tops for noise canceling, but I'll have to conduct more tests to say that for certain. (Note that some people are sensitive to active noise canceling, which can create the sensation of pressure on your ears and feel oppressive.)Like their predecessor, you can manually select the amount of noise cancellation or engage adaptive noise canceling that adjusts on the fly according to your surroundings. I'm not in love with the adaptive noise canceling, because when it switches modes your music pauses for a second and you get a little dinging noise in the headphones letting you know that it's adapted. That can be a bit jarring. While the WH-1000XM4 headphones are almost identical in looks to their predecessor, there are some new features tucked away inside. Bluetooth multipoint makes them just slightly more convenient in everyday use by letting you connect to two devices at once (more on that later). It makes it easy to transition from listening to music while working at your desk to watching a YouTube video on your phone, and back again, all without opening your Bluetooth settings. This was one of the biggest complaints with the WH-1000XM3, and having it here in the Sony WH-1000XM4 is definitely going to make plenty of people happy, with one big caveat. If you’re going to use multipoint, both connected devices need to use the AAC Bluetooth codec. The actual earcups are also slightly thicker than the previous pair, which results in better isolation even when noise canceling is turned off. On the other hand, the headband itself is thinner with a little less padding, and I have to say I felt the difference here. While these are definitely comfortable, there was an ever-present pressure at the crown of my head that only became more pronounced with longer listening sessions. The headphones’ controls haven’t changed much. Both earcups are still touch-sensitive and you control playback with a series of taps and swipes. Unfortunately, the double-tap to pause function only actually works some of the time. Swiping to control volume and skip between songs works seamlessly, but for some reason, the headphones struggle to register taps. Sometimes it’s easier and quicker to simply take off the headphones and let them auto-pause—the pause functionality worked roughly 25 percent of the time
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