So the new Sony WF-1000XM4’s have some major upgrades from their predecessors specifically an all new design to them and more importantly a much smaller case which is something that I’ve always critiqued the WF-1000XM3’s about. Now performance wise the WF-1000XM4’s are very impressive, but just like their predecessors fit wise these earbuds will might not be for everybody. 

Regarding pricing, there has been a noticeable bump. The new WF-1000XM4’s retail for $280, and for comparison sake their predecessors used to retail for $230 when they first came out. However I wouldn’t be surprised to see the WF-1000XM4’s go on sale from time to time for somewhere below $250. Nonetheless if you want to pick these earbuds up they’ll be linked down below… but just keep in mind, fit wise these earbuds will might not be for everybody. 

Now first lets talk about these earbud’s case cause this to me is a major upgrade. The WF-1000XM4’s now have a much smaller case in line with what you’d expect from your earbuds in 2021. Cause for comparison sake even though the WF-1000XM3’s case was fairly thin… it does have a large foot print so this case is very noticeable when its in your pocket. Now the WF-1000XM4’s case is still larger than your AirPods Pro’s case or Galaxy Buds Pro’s case but it is a little smaller than your Jabra Elite 85T’s case. Overall the WF-1000XM4’s case is much manageable this time around and it isn’t super noticeable when you’ve got it in your pocket. Now from a built quality stand point this case has a slightly slate finish to it making it easy to get a grip. The lid opens very easily and locks itself in place, its much easier this time around to take your earbuds out, and this case also has some very strong magnets in it which makes putting your earbuds aways very easy and shutting this llid closed very satisfying. Overall I'm very happy with this new case and I'm glad that Sony listened to the criticism from the WF-1000XM3’s case.

But besides being smaller another major upgrade found on this new case is that it has wireless charging. Where as the larger WF-1000XM3’s case doesn’t. Now personally I don’t really care for wireless charging but this could be a big deal for someone who either has a phone that supports power sharing or if you’ve already invested in multiple wireless charging mats.

But now lets talk about battery life cause this is an area where the WF-1000XM3’s always stood out from the rest of the competition and the WF-1000XM4’s continue to do so even though they have a much smaller case this time around which is a phenomenal thing. The WF-1000XM4’s have an advertised combined battery life of 24 hours. The earbuds can go for 8 straight hours and the case can supply an additional 2 charges and thats with their active noise cancellation turned off. 

But with their active noise cancellation turned off the earbuds themselves can go for up to 12 straight hours… plus two full charges we’re looking at a combined battery life 36 hours. And for comparison sake under the same circumstances the WF-1000XM3’s maxed out at 32 hours. So if you’re like me and you only use the ANC on your earbuds when you have to, you can easily get 30 hours out of them if not a little more. 

But now lets talk about the earbuds themselves and we’re really going to have to dive into fit here. For starters just like the WF-1000XM3’s the WF-1000XM4’s fit like your standard pair of in ear ear buds like lets say either the Galaxy buds Plus or Sennheiser CX 400BT’s as in they go into your ear canal a decent amount. But the thing about these sony earbuds is that they do go in a little deeper than your standard in ear earbuds which could be a problem for some people. But the biggest thing to point out here is going to be the ear tips. With the WF-1000XM3’s you get two set of ear tips. You get a set of silicon ear tips just like you would with most other earbuds and you also get a set of foam ear tips. Where as with the WF-1000XM4’s you only get foam ear tips. Now these foam ear tips passively block out a ton of noise and they also offer great lock down cause they conform better to the shape of your ear canal and they also have more grip to them then silicon ear tips. But there are two major cons to them. For starters these foam ear tips can get very itchy very quickly. Now ive tried getting used to them and ive tried letting the ear tips themselves break in by letting them absorb my oils… but still even though ive managed to cope with them a little better they’re still quite itchy. But then there’s also just their size. Personally I usually gotta use the small eartips on my earbuds… but the smallest tips that come included with the WF-1000XM4’s are still pretty big. So if you’re someone with smaller ear canals then the WF-1000XM4’s will might not work for you period. So overall the foam ear tips that come included with the WF-1000XM4’s do a great job of passively blocking out noise pollution which definitely helps when it come to active noise cancellation and sound… but these foam ear tips can get itchy very quickly and even the smallest ones will might be a little too big for people with smaller ear canals. Now these issues will might not affect everybody but they do to me. But nonetheless I do wish these earbuds came included with a second pair of silicon ear tips in the box like their predecessors. Especially given their $280 price tags.   

Regarding connectivity, each earbud establishes a connection with your phone. So if you want to use one earbud at a time you can use either one it doesn’t matter. And this is the connection set up that we would expect to see from our earbuds these days.

However these earbuds can only be connected to one device at a time. You can’t hot swap between multiple devices like either the AirPods Pro or Galaxy Buds Pro in their respective eco system or Jabra Elite 85T’s which are OS agnostic.

However switching between devices with the WF-1000XM4’s isn’t super hard. After you’ve already paired to your device once you can reestablish a connection by just going into you bluetooth menu. You don’t gotta press on these earbuds and put them into pairing mode every single time you wanna switch from one device to another. But over all the WF-1000XM4’s are better used with just one primary device.

But when it comes to performance these earbuds have zero latency across the board when watching movies or videos on your phone whether you’re using an iPhone or an android device and when it comes to audio codecs these earbuds have support for SBC, AAC and Sony’s own LDAC which is Sony’s standard set up these days.

But now lets talk about actually listing to music with these earbuds. For starters I gotta point out that the active noise cancelation on these earbuds doesn’t affect how your music sounds which honestly isn’t surprising cause the ANC on the WF-1000XM3’s and the ANC on their over ear headphones also doesn’t affect how your music sounds. However the WF-1000XM4’s have adopted a warmer and harder hitting bass sound signature. With their stock EQ’s the highs and vocals on the XM4’s aren’t as prominent as the highs and vocals on the XM3’s. Now personally I don’t mind that the vocals on the XM4’s are a little pushed down compared to the XM3’s cause the XM3’s can sound a touch nasally by comparison. But I do miss those highs a little bit on the XM4’s. But thankfully since the XM4’s have a fully customizable EQ you can always just go in and raise those highs. And if the XM4’s have too much bass for you then you can always just go in and lower their clear bass setting as well. But performance wise I gotta say the WF-1000XM4’s have the same instrument separation and sound stage as the WF-1000XM3’s. The only really performance difference is that the bass on the XM4’s hits much harder than the bass on the XM3’s. Cause I found that if you use these settings the XM3’s they’ll sound like the XM4’s with their stock EQ. But no matter how much I play around with the Clear Bass slider on the XM3’s I can’t get their bass to hit as hard or resonate like the Bass on the XM4’s. So besides a new warmer stock EQ on the WF-1000XM4’s sound quality wise the real major difference from the WF-1000XM3’s is just more bass. Nonetheless the Sound WF-1000XM4’s sound much better then your entry level in ear ear buds and without a doubt they sound much better than the AirPods Pro. And thanks to their fully customizable EQ these earbuds should be able to please people who like a warmer bass heavy EQ or people who like a more neutral EQ. But due to their instrument separation and sound stage these earbuds still rank number 3 for me. First place going to the Sennheiser Momentum 2’s and second place going to the Galaxy Buds Pro.

Now when it comes to actually controlling your media, just like before the XM4’s have touch pads. And through Sony’s app you can customize the layout of your touch pad. However just keep in mind this is strictly a tap based touch pad there, aren’t any gestures like let's say the pixel buds. Nonetheless this touch pad is very accurate and its easy to use. 

But now lets talk about the active noise cancelation on these earbuds. Now first I do want to tapper expectations here. The ANC on earbuds isn’t going to block out as much noise as a proper pair of over ear ANC headphones like either the Bose NC 700, Sony 1000XM4’s and especially the AirPods Max… However I will say the WF-1000XM4’s are getting really close to blocking out as much noise as the Sony 1000XM4’s headphones. 

Now the ANC on these earbuds mostly focuses on lower frequency sounds like road noise where as the headphones can block out constant lower frequency sounds and they also do a better job of blocking out random higher frequency sounds allowing them to block out more chatter than the earbuds. Overall yes the headphones block out more noise than the earbuds, but these earbuds aren’t too far behind. 

And when it comes to ranking… I gotta say the Sony WF-1000XM4’s are my new number ones, followed by the Jabra Elite 85T’s, then there are the Sennheiser Momentum 2’s and AirPods Pro which I feel are neck and below them are the Galaxy Buds Pro and in last place are the Sony WF-1000XM3’s. So you can definitely see that Sony really shot up the rankings here. 

But something to point out here is that yes the foam ear tips on these earbuds are giving them an advantage cause they passively block out more noise than the silicon ear tips found on these other earbuds. But out of curiosity I did try them out with silicon ear tips are well. Now with silicon eartips these earbuds aren’t going to block out as much noise… but they still block out a little more noise than the Jabra’s. So yeah I don’t think Sony’s new Integrated Processor V1 is just marketing fluff. 

And from a performance standpoint the ANC on these earbuds don’t have a whole lot of noticeable cabin pressure which is great for comfort… their microphone array does a great job of blocking out wind noise when walking out doors and like I mentioned earlier the ANC on these earbuds doesn’t affect how your music sounds which is good. So over all id say yeah im pretty impressed by the improved ANC on these earbuds. 

But like ive mentioned in the past, I only use the ANC on my earbuds when I have to and what’s really important to me is the quality of their ambient mode. And just their predecessors and the headphones, the ambient mode on the WF-1000XM4’s sound very natural with zero hissing in the background and their microphone array does a really good job of rejecting wind noise when walking out doors. 

However one important upgrade to point out here is that the WF-1000XM4’s now have an active ambient mode like the headphones. Meaning that if you’re walking out doors with your ambient mode turned on if a siren rolls by or if your dog starts barking the earbuds will turn off their ambient mode so that you ears don’t get blasted which I think is great.

But another new feature on the WF-1000XM4’s is speak to chat which first debuted on the 1000XM4’s. Which works like this

Hello there, so basically when you start talking the earbuds will automatically lower the volume of your music and pump in all of the ambient sound around you so that you can talk to someone without having to touch the earbuds themselves. Then if you stop talking for a preset determined amount of time the earbuds will go back to normal or you can tap on the touch pad like this.

Now personally im not a fan of speak to chat on the headphones and im also not a fan of speak to chat on the earbuds. Now my problem with speak to chat is that its very easy to accidentally activate. Even if you’re talking to yourself very quietly like this they’ll still get activated even if you’ve got them set on low. So to reduce interruptions I just turn speak to chat off on these earbuds. And besides I just feel taking one earbud when you’re going to talk to someone works just fine.

And finally here’s the microphone test and this has got to be the WF-1000XM4’s weak point. And in general sony has always struggled with their microphones. 

And for comparison sake this is the Microphone on the Sony WF-1000XM3’s which I feel sounds a little better cause the mids and highs are a little more elevated.  

But more importantly the WF-1000XM3’s do a slightly better job of lifting your voice so its little easier to hear over all of this road noise in the background. Now there is a little bit of choppiness but the XM3’s are trying their best here. 

Where as with the WF-1000XM4’s they’re letting in more road noise than the WF-1000XM3’s and there’s a lot of static or interference in the back ground. 

Now when it comes to blocking out chatter id say the XM4’s are blocking out as much noise as the XM3’s but you voice isn’t as prominent and there’s still a little bit of static in the back ground when im talking. However this microphone does a decent job of putting itself when you stop talking… but yeah the microphone on these earbuds isn’t the best. 

But for comparison sake here’s the XM3’s under the same circumstances. My voice is a little more forward which is a good thing and there’s less static in the back ground when im talking. But still neither of these two earbuds would be my top pick if im planning on taking lots of phones calls. 

So with all that being said the Sony WF-1000XM4’s have some major upgrades to them from their predecessors and there’s a lot to like about them. For starters im glad to see that sony listened and they shrunk their case down and they even added wireless charging. Cause for me case size can be a deal break when im looking at everyday carry truly wireless earbuds. The WF-1000XM4’s also have a super impressive battery life and I really like that these earbuds now have an active ambient mode. But the biggest come up here is just going to be the active noise cancelation on these earbuds. Even though they don’t block out as much noise as the 1000XM4 headphones… they’re getting close. But nonetheless these are my new top ranked earbuds when it comes to active noise cancellation. They block out a ton of noise with not too much cabin pressure which is super important for comfort. Now sound quality wise the WF-1000XM4’s still sound great and they should be able to please most people… but the only performance difference from their predecessors is that they have a lot more bass to them. But this now leads use to the two major things to look out for on these earbuds. First is their fit, since these earbuds only come included with rubber ear tips for some people they can be very itchy and uncomfortable or they’ll might just be too big. And then there’s their microphone… Sony still needs a lot of work here.