- Sony has a long history of making
some really awesome headphones.
But so far, it hasn't really made a name for itself
with true wireless earbuds like the AirPods
or Samsung's Galaxy Buds.
That's about to change.
Because the new $230 WF-1000XM3s
are some of the best AirPod competitors I've seen to date.
(soft music)
Now if that awkward name sounds familiar
it's because Sony already makes
the 1000XM3 noise-canceling headphones.
These things get rave reviews,
and the earbuds are cut from the same cloth.
They have the same matte black design
with rose gold accents.
And there's a gray color option as well.
More importantly, they also have that excellent
active noise cancellation.
It's not quite on the same level as Sony's headphones,
but it makes a difference when it comes to drowning out
city streets or subways.
(train clattering)
So most earbuds that you buy
offer some level of noise isolation.
As long as you have a good seal in your ear
you're gonna drown out some of the stuff around you.
But noise cancellation goes several steps beyond that.
Now it's not some miracle.
If you're not playing any audio or music
you're gonna hear things around you
but once the music starts
everything else just kinda fades away.
(soft upbeat music)
Sony packs in a ton of different ear tips right in the box.
So it's pretty easy to find a nice and secure fit.
And the lower part of the earbud itself,
that rests inside your ear,
has this extra grippy finish to help it keep it snug.
And that actually works really well.
These M3s fit me great
and never came even a little bit loose during my tests.
Now they're a bit on the larger side,
but overall I think Sony made them look pretty classy.
And they're a huge improvement
over the plasticy design from the first model.
Now of course sometimes you do want to hear
what's happening around you.
And so when that happens you can turn on Ambient Sound Mode.
Or if you just wanna hear an airport announcement
or a subway platform announcement
you just press your finger down on the left earbud.
That pauses your music,
turns up all the sound around you, then once you let go,
noise cancellation kicks back in
and you're blissfully back to your music.
Now to control the M3s
you're gonna do a lot of tapping on the sides.
The left side controls the noise cancellation.
On, off.
Or the Ambient Sound Mode I just talked about.
The right earbud controls playback,
so you press once to pause or play.
Twice to skip forward a track
or three times to go back.
You can hold the right earbud
to do Siri or Google Assistant.
But you'll notice that I didn't say volume.
There are no built in volume controls on here
so you're gonna have to use your phone or a voice assistant.
Now let's talk about sound quality.
It's obviously very subjective,
but what I'll say about the M3s
is that they're very balanced.
There's a lot of bass, nice mids and sparkling highs.
Now I don't know if the sound stage
is as wide or all-encompassing
as higher-end earbuds like the Sennheiser Momentums
or the Powerbeats Pro.
But at this price, the Sony's easily win out
over the AirPods, Jabras and the Galaxy Buds.
Now for me, I think their best competition
are the new Powerbeats Pro.
These are Beats,
so of course they're gonna be super bass heavy.
But both of these ear buds sound fantastic.
Now you audio nerds out there are gonna wanna know
that the Sony's only support AAC and SPC.
So they can't do aptX or Sony's own LDAC codec
for higher quality music streaming.
Now a lot of people have asked me
how the M3s are at phone calls.
People can tell that you're on a headset.
There's really no way around that.
But they haven't complained
about being unable to hear me clearly.
Now unfortunately, you can't pair two devices at once.
So if you wanna watch a movie on your laptop
and take a call when it comes in, there's no way to do that.
Sony, please figure this out.
(upbeat music)
Now the one biggest downside of the Sony's
is that they're not sweat or water resistant.
It's summer in New York City and I'm a sweaty human being.
The idea that I can spend $230 on earbuds
and have them ruined just on a hot summer day.
That sucks.
Battery life in noise canceling mode
is six hours which is pretty good.
If you turn that off,
you get eight hours of battery life.
And the carrying case holds enough juice
for three extra charges.
So you get 24 hours with noise canceling on
or up to 32 if it's turned off.
That charging case is a little big.
It's twice the width of an AirPods case
and about the same height,
but it's still plenty pocketable.
And I think it's worth it
for all the extra battery life that you get in exchange.
Plus it'll charge over USB-C,
and, in a pinch, you can charge it for 10 minutes
and get 90 minutes of listening time.
But unfortunately, there's no wireless charging option.
Now a lot of the problems
from Sony's first true wireless earbuds
have been solved for the M3s.
I didn't really notice any connection dropouts.
And the bad audio delay from the first model is gone now.
Lips move in sync, and the connection is rock solid.
How did Sony fix those problems?
Well now, both earbuds connect to your phone simultaneously.
Whereas before, one had to relay
your music to the other one.
That also means you can use them individually
if you wanna leave one in the case
and use one like an old school Bluetooth headset
for making calls or just listening to music.
So, we've covered all the big picture stuff
but Sony also added a lot of small touches
that I like a lot.
For one, both earbuds tell you
their Bluetooth connection status and battery level
when you put them in your ears.
Two, there are a lot of LED lights
on the earbuds themselves and the case.
So you definitely know
whether you have to charge them or not.
And three, when you take an earbud out
it'll pause your music until you put it back in.
That's pretty common nowadays,
but it's still a pretty great feature to have.
Now of course Apple's AirPods
are the best-selling true wireless earbuds on the market.
So if you wanna take those on
you've gotta offer something that Apple can't.
For Sony, that's noise cancellation.
We've seen it before in their headphones
to amazing results and now it's coming to the earbuds
that you can just put away when they're not in use.
There are downsides of course.
I would loved to have seen sweat resistance
and be able to use them with two devices at once.
But I guess, I know what to look forward to
for the 1000XM4s.