Prabhu RamThe WF-1000XM4 true wireless (TWS) earbuds from Sony come with the best of everything that one seeks in a premium TWS device.
What I love about the WF-1000XM4 is that it is an overall strong premium proposition that packs a punch. Take, for instance, the design aesthetics of the WF-1000XM4. It screams premium with that unique design, the golden tinge on black, and backed by Sony’s noise-cancellation prowess and impressive audio quality.
The WF-1000XM4 comes with a simple, sustainable and eco-friendly packaging. With a more traditional earbud design, the WF-1000XM4 earbuds promise a snug and secure fit. While out jogging or jumping, I had no trouble with them.
I mentioned the golden tinge on black. The ring houses the microphone. There are two microphones on each bud, one of which is beamforming to enable voice better.
The earbuds have touch controls to play or pause music, activate noise cancellation as well as other features. These touch controls can be customized with the assistance of a Sony companion app. Also, pairing the WF-1000XM4 with Android phones is relatively swift.
Let’s dive in further.
Sony’s new V1 custom chipset processes both sound and noise cancelling, and this is absolutely impressive. For instance, I tested them at my home office, while my daughters were bringing the roof down with their excitement. I could zoom, cutting down on all the noise. Similarly, while out and about at the local park, I could enjoy my vintage A.R.Rahman minus all the cacophony around me. All of these experiences were made possible owing to the V1 chipset’s noise cancelling prowess!
The sound quality remained exceptional all through-out. For instance, A.R.Rahman’s Dil Se and its low-mid frequencies are handled brilliantly by the WF-1000XM4 earbuds. Across all frequencies, Sony delivers well, including on the acoustics, the beat or the thump.
The charging case, despite being a bit fat, fit in easily in the pockets. The charging case comes with the same colour scheme as that of the WF-1000XM4 earbuds with black and copper style. The WF-1000XM4 offers a pretty exceptional battery time, and I could easily get close to 7 hours with active noise cancellation mode on, most of the time. It took over an hour to fully charge the devices. The charging case can be charged wirelessly using Qi-enabled chargers.
The call quality on the WF-1000XM4 is absolutely great. Most of the external ambient noise is cancelled out, and the voice being picked clearly, whether it be in the loud cityscape, or while working-from-home.
I really found the ‘speak-to-chat’ feature nifty and cool. It automatically pauses the music when the earbuds detect that I were speaking to someone. This feature is turned off in Sony’s companion app by default. It’s interesting that one can customize the duration of the pause, before resuming the playback. Similarly, the ‘quick attention’ feature lets one hold down the earbud’s touch panel, and reduce the volume for enabling those quick conversations.
In conclusion, Sony has a big reputation when it comes to delivering quality audio. A true testament of that are the Sony WF-1000XM4. These are truly one of the finest wireless earbuds for Android users. They deliver big on the sound quality (across any and all music genres!), the active noise cancellation, the battery life, and, most importantly, the microphone quality!
At INR 19,990, the Sony WF-1000XM4 truly justifies the investment for Android users, in more ways than one, – whether it be on substance or a life-style defining statement!
