Sony WF-1000XM4 Review: The ULTIMATE All-Rounder Earbuds With INCREDIBLE ANC!

When Sony came out with their WF-1000XM3 true wireless earbuds in 2019, there really wasn’t much competition around, and they swept to the top of many people’s list of best true wireless earbuds relatively easily. Well, it’s 2021. There are options aplenty for true wireless earbuds, and some are truly amazing, but the Sony WF-1000XM4 is back on top.

Let’s talk design first. These are radically different from the XM3s, with a brand new earbud shape and brand new case shape and texture and I have to say, I’m all for this. Looking at the case first, Sony calls this Silver, but honestly, it looks more like a beige-ish sandstone colour. There are tiny shimmery specks that are only noticeable up close, which I really like. The texture of the case is also really interesting and it’s the same texture on the earbuds. It’s almost like a rubber-ish soft-touch coating on the plastic, but it’s not as smooth as the black area on the XM3s. Regardless, this means the case and earbuds aren’t slick, so you won’t have to worry about a slippery case or earbuds.

There’s a small LED indicator on the front in between where the lid meets the body of the case, and it’s directly taken from the XM3, which is nice. It looks sleek and integrated. Open up the lid and you get the earbuds inside. The earbuds look way different from the XM3. Gone is the elongated piece that sits outside the ear, in favour of a bulbous shape that does protrude from the ear slightly, but at least it doesn’t look as much like a work headset anymore.

There’s a copper ring that houses the microphone, and I actually quite like it! It was also present on the XM3s, but more subtly there. I think this is a pretty standout design, and while I don’t like my earbuds to be too attention-grabbing, I think I really don’t mind this.

The ear tips are changed too, from the standard silicon to a new polyurethane foam material that acts kind of like a foam tip. Now, I’ve used standard foam tips in the past and yes, they do help with noise isolation, but they break down a lot quicker than silicon tips and don’t even get me started on how easily earwax gets stuck to foam tips. These, though, seem better in that the tips don’t feel or look quite as porous, and even after using them for a few days, I haven’t actually noticed any earwax or dust getting caught on the tips, which is nice.

That being said, I’m definitely unable to test the longevity of these, but I’d say you should definitely mentally prepare yourself to purchase replacement tips if you’re planning to use these for a long time. Here’s a tip for you guys, don’t try to shove the earbuds in. Roll the tips between your fingers first to compress the foam, then put the earbuds into your ears and let the foam expand to form that seal. If you just shove the earbuds into your ears, you might get some wearing fatigue after a while. Getting the right size tip is really important to make sure these don’t cause any discomfort for you, especially because the earbuds are so bulky.

Also, shout out to Sony on improving their packaging and removing plastic. Sonos did this with their Roam speaker earlier this year, and I thought it was fantastic, so to see Sony scale down the size of the XM4 box and use this recycled paper material for pretty much all the packaging in this product is excellent. The box itself is also darn sturdy, so no worries about your earbuds getting crushed or whatever.

Now that we’re done with the design, let’s go into the features and the Sony Headphones app. You get touch controls on these, and they’re relatively responsive. There’s a lot though, so you’ll really need to memorise what taps do what on which earbud. Here’s the list, starting with the left earbud. Single tap toggles between noise cancelling and ambient sound, double-tap picks up or hangs up a call, triple tap does nothing and a long tap either turns on Sony’s Quick Attention feature, where it lowers the volume of your music and pipes in external noise, or rejects a call.

On the right earbud, it’s a single tap for play/pause, a double tap for the next song or to pick up and hang up a call, a triple tap for the previous song and a long tap to pull up your phone’s voice assistant or reject a call.

Yeah, it’s a lot. You’re able to customise what functions you want to be assigned to the touch sensor on either earbud though. For example, you might want to change both earbuds to playback control, or if you really want volume control, you can set it to one earbud. Personally, I don’t toggle ambient sound on that much since I usually just take out an earbud if someone talks to me, so I just changed that to volume control. My point is, you get a lot of customisation here. Sure, you might not be able to customise what each tap or double-tap or triple-tap does, but Sony gives you way more control than some other brands do in this aspect.

As for voice assistant, you can select between using the voice assist function on your mobile device, or choose between Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, as long as you download their respective apps. Or just turn it off like me if you don’t use voice assistants.

You can choose whether you want the earbuds to automatically power off if they’re left out of the case or your ears for a period of time, and you can also choose whether you want wear detection turned on or off.

Sony’s app is truly one of the most comprehensive offerings I’ve ever tried, and it’s always a joy to test Sony products because the app covers basically everything. You get to toggle between noise cancelling, ambient sound or everything turned off in the app, as well as choose the level of ambient sound you want. There’s also the speak-to-chat feature that first came out in the WH-1000XM4 headphones, which detects when the wearer is speaking and lowers the volume of music automatically while turning on ambient sound.

There’s an EQ feature here, and I absolutely love Sony’s EQ offering. You get a whole bunch of presets as well as two custom slots for you to save your own EQ setting if you want. You get to choose whether you want to focus on sound quality or connection stability, turn on Sony’s DSEE Extreme upscaling as well as analyse your ears for Sony’s 360 Reality Audio offering. And of course, you can see the battery levels of each earbud as well as the charging case at the top. I think every brand should take a page out of Sony’s playbook when it comes to companion apps, it’s just that good.

The WF-1000XM4 support Bluetooth 5.2, which is definitely what you want to see in a pair of high-end flagship earbuds. Bluetooth 5.2 allows for higher data transmission at lower power consumption, which should theoretically mean you get more battery life out of your earbuds even when audio is streaming at higher quality.

Speaking of higher quality, LDAC support now comes to the WF-1000XM4, which is nice. You still get your standard SBC and AAC codec support, but unfortunately, there’s no multipoint connectivity here, which is a bummer. After seeing it on the WH-1000XM4 headphones, I thought Sony might have decided to include it in the earbuds too. No such luck.

Battery life, though, has definitely been improved. You now get 8 hours of battery life with ANC turned on and a whopping 12 hours with ANC off. You also get two charges in the case for a total of 24 hours with ANC turned on, which is actually in line with the total battery life of the XM3s. But considering the better ANC and smaller form factor, I’d say this is an upgrade. Also, there’s wireless charging! Insanely convenient, I just plop the case on the charger every few days and make sure it’s topped off.

There’s also IPX4 water resistance now, so you have an official IP rating if that makes you feel more comfortable bringing these out for exercise and such.

There’s honestly a lot I can say about ANC in these earbuds, but to sum it all up, it’s amazing. I have to throw a disclaimer in here that I haven’t tried the Bose QuietComfort earbuds, and apparently, those are neck and neck with the XM4, but for me, these are the best. Forget about the AirPods Pro or Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro or whatever other earbuds you might be considering for ANC purposes. This is the king, and Sony has reclaimed its spot at the top. Honestly, I’m not sure the XM3 ever left the top, because while the AirPods Pro and other noise cancelling earbuds were good, they were never that good to outright dethrone Sony.

Just a quick note here about the microphones, I already mentioned there’s one on the outside in the copper ring, but there’s also one inside that monitors the amount of sound in your ears. It’s a feed-forward, feed-back system that a lot of brands are using nowadays for their noise cancelling system and well, clearly it works. As for calls though, the XM4 is better than the XM3, and while nobody’s going to go “wow you sound incredible!”, nobody’s going to be complaining they can’t hear you clearly either. Sony has included a bone-conduction sensor in these, which are supposed to help pick up your voice better. I can’t say I noticed a huge difference, but I think it all kinda plays a part in making the call experience better, so yeah.

Okay enough of all that, let’s move on to the sound. I love the Sony sound, this has to be said. I loved the XM3 when it came out, and I love the XM4 now. Sony’s audio products just have this musicality to them that’s equal parts energetic and detailed. I did most of my testing with the EQ turned off, but I did occasionally put on the Bright EQ which is my pick out of the lot that Sony offers.

Songs with strong basslines like The Hills by The Weeknd or Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy are such a pleasure to listen to on the XM4. You get that clear, impactful, textured bass that seemingly can do no wrong. I never noticed any distortion or muddiness even when jumping from pop to rock to metal or EDM music.

This accuracy also translates up into the mids and highs. You get a beautiful airiness and excellent separation even when listening to busy tracks. It’s just a really well-controlled sound that I think is even better than the XM3 because vocals sound even more natural on the XM4 and the bass is improved slightly as well, with just a bit more texture and edge compared to the XM3.

So, on to the quick comparison with the XM3. Let’s see. Battery life, the XM4 wins, 8 hours to 6. Features wise, there’s more in the XM4, despite the glaring omission of multipoint connectivity, so if you want speak-to-chat, better ANC or LDAC support, you’ll definitely have to go with the XM4. For people who are doing a lot of calls, the mics on the XM4 win, for sure. The sound quality is really close between the two, but again, the XM4 just edges out the XM3 because of the better vocals and ever-so-slightly better bass.

Pricewise though, the XM4 comes in at US$279.99 or S$379. It’s pricey. It’s also a good US$50 or so more expensive than the XM3 was. Honestly, if I was on the lookout for a new pair of earbuds, I’d go for the XM4, simply because it’s newer, has slightly better ANC and it’s more future-proof. But if you’re on a budget, or you just want something that sounds great and works well enough, the XM3 is still a really good option. The noise-cancelling performance on those is still holding up to plenty of other newer earbuds on the market right now, and if you enjoy the Sony sound, you’ll love them.

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Content by Cheryl Tan