If you're in the market for a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones then the
Sony WH-1000XM4's are one of, if not the best, pair available right now.
However, if you've bought the previous generation, the Sony WH-1000XM3’s, then should you upgrade?
And if you've got neither of these then should you buy the Mark 4’s or should you save yourself
some money and get the Mark 3’s instead as these are heavily discounted at the moment?
Well, to answer all of these questions I'm going to take you through the core
differences between them both and give you my recommendation as to
which one I think it's worth buying and whether it's worth upgrading.
Welcome to my Tech Gear.
Let's get into it!
So, if you compare them both side by side they're almost identical, and that's not exactly a bad
thing, because the Mark 3’s when they came out were market leading and were super comfortable.
So these are a tweak on the Mark 3. Both of them are an incredibly comfortable pair of headphones.
Looking at them both you can see these are easily very identical and the differences
between them are minor. There is a 10% increase in the ear pads on the Mark 4's compared to the M3’s.
So you're gonna have to try and have a look at these side-by-side and it's going to be kind of
difficult to see the difference, but there is a 10% increase on these ones over here.
Again, Mark 3's. Mark 4's.
There is a slight difference in the headband as well. You do have a slightly narrower
headband on the Mark 4's compared to the Mark 3's. They both extend the same amount
and also you can see they fold flat. That's really useful if you're gonna put them around your neck.
There is a slight weight difference between both of these as well with the Mark 4's being one
gram lighter than the Mark 3's. I don't think you're going to notice that weight difference.
The touch pads on these are slightly different. Where the Mark 3's have this
super slick plastic feel to them, the Mark 4's have gone for a more textured
feel. What this means is the Mark 3's are more sensitive to touches and the Mark
4’s are less responsive to accidental touches, which I actually prefer.
Putting these on and there is a minor difference between the Mark 3's and the
Mark 4's, but with the overall small design changes that have been made,
it's the Mark 4's that win the design battle here.
Charging wise, both of these have class leading battery life with both of them providing 30 hours
of battery life from a single charge, with ANC turned on. If you turn ANC off it will
give you about 38 hours of battery life for both of them. Both of them will also charge in around
three hours. The biggest difference is in the quick charge capabilities of the mark
4’s. So the Mark 3's will give you about 70 minutes from 10 minutes of charging but the
Mark 4's will give you 5 hours of playtime from 10 minutes of charging. The M4’s win it for me here.
Bluetooth connectivity is one of the biggest differences between the pair. So the Mark
4's support Bluetooth 5 which provides multi-point support, which i'll get to in a minute,
but the M3’s only support Bluetooth 4.2. So the M4's win it for me here because
multi-point allows the headphones to be connected to two devices at the same time.
So I can be connected to my mobile phone and my PC. I could listen to music on my
PC whilst I'm working and then I can take a call from my phone on the same headset.
It will stop the music, take the call, when the call finishes go back to music on the PC.
It's all super seamless and it is super useful. So M4's definitely win it for me here.
Now the audio codec supported over Bluetooth does see a difference here too but not in
the direction that you might expect. So both of them support AAC and Sony's LDAC high-res codecs
but it's only the M3's that support aptx and aptxHD. Now that's not going
to be an issue if you're an iPhone user because they only support AAC anyway,
but if you're an Android user and you're used to those codecs that lack of support is surprising.
I am honestly surprised why they ditched it and it could be a deciding factor for you
as to which one you pick. So for here, it's the M3's that win on the audio codec front.
Now we get to the new features. Now whilst both of these do have the ‘Quick Attention Mode’,
that's basically when you stick these on your head you can put your hand over the ear cup
and it will pause what you're listening to so you can hear somebody else, you can talk
to them and when you're finished you can let go and then your music will start playing again.
Now the M4's have ‘Speak to Chat’ which is an extra feature over the M3's. With this you can
have these on your head and when you start talking the headphones automatically detect
that you're talking and pause your music so you can talk to the person you're talking to and then
it'll start it again when you finish. It's kind of like ‘Quick Attention Mode’, but automatic. The
downside of this though is it will also pick you up laughing to something or even singing along to
a song so if you're karaoke inclined, probably a feature you're going to want to turn off.
Now there's a sensor inside the Mark 4 that allows it to detect whether you're
wearing the headphones or not. So if you're playing music and then you take your headset
off your head it will then pause your music and it will then resume it when you put the
headphones back on your head. It will also detect whether you're not wearing
your headphones for 15 minutes and then automatically turn the headphones off.
Both of these headphones have ‘Adaptive Sound Control’ which allows the headphones to change
the audio settings based on your activity, so whether you're running or walking or sitting,
that kind of thing, but the Mark 4's adds location awareness to the headphones. So you can change
your headphone settings automatically based on where you are. So if you're at work, if you're
at home, or if you're somewhere in between, the headphones will automatically change it to the
best settings that you've had it set to before. Whether you want your headphones tracking your
location all the time just to change a headphone setting? That's a personal choice. So for all
the new features that the Mark 4 provides over the Mark 3’s, it's a win for the Mark 4's here.
Sound quality wise both of them do support a 40mm driver but it's the M4's that has a
wider soundstage, with amazing detail and depth and a more neutral sound. The Mark
3's do have a slight more emphasis on the bass. Now both of these can be altered
through the graphic equalizer that's available in the ‘Sony Connect Headphone App’. For me
it's the M4's that win, with the more detailed sound.
Noise cancellation. Let's face it, this is probably one of the main reasons you're
buying these headsets. Both of them are class leading and are exceptional but the Mark 4's
are slightly better. There is a new Bluetooth system-on-a-chip here that blocks out even more
noise, especially in that mid to high frequency range which is a problem for a lot of ANC systems.
So background noise from the likes of aircon units should be a thing of the past with the Mark 4's.
They do get blocked out a little bit by the Mark 3's but not as much. Both however are great noise
cancelling headphones. There are 20 levels of ambient noise adjustments. You can choose
how much noise it's going to cancel out. Again, all of that is adjustable in the mobile app,
but it's the Mark 4's that win the noise cancellation battle.
Now we're on to the microphone test. So the WH-1000XM3's weren't the best mics around,
so in the Mark 4 Sony says it has what it calls ‘Precise Voice Pickup’. This
allows you to pick out your voice better from background noise. So let's go do the mic test.
So now we are doing a test with the WH-1000XM3's. We are listening to
how it sounds. There is absolutely no background noise at the moment. I am recording
straight, as is no processing, so you can hear exactly how it sounds.
Now I'm doing a test for the WH-1000XM4's.
So again, it's a quiet room. You're hearing exactly as my voice sounds. No processing.
And now you listen to a mic test of the Mark 3's. Now I've got some coffee
background noise playing in the background and it's not quiet so you can hear how good
the headphones are at making my voice well heard above some background noise.
And now you're listening to a mic test of the Mark 4's again, with the same coffee shop background
noise playing in the background again. Still not quiet so you can hear how well it is pronouncing
my voice over the background. How is it canceling that? How well is it making my voice well heard?
Overall you will find that your voice is better heard on the M4's
although it's less bassy than it is on the M3. So it's the Mark 4’s that win the mic test here.
Both of these headphones are controlled via the ‘Sony Connect Headphone App’
which is a very simple and intuitive app to use. Has
all the feature controls over both of these headphones, so it's a draw here.
Now we're on to price. The Mark 4’s here are $350 which isn't the most expensive pair
around but it's not cheap either, but considering what you get I think it's
a pretty good price. The Mark 3's on the other hand are significantly discounted at the moment
and these are down to $250 at the moment. That's a $100 price
difference between the two. So on price alone the M3's easily win this one.
So whether you get the WH-1000XM4's or the WH-1000XM3's, or upgrade from the 3’s to the 4’s,
will depend on whether you value the incremental improvements and the new features of the Mark 4's
or are quite happy with what is still a class-leading pair of headphones in the Mark 3’s
and want to save some cash. It is a really close call but for me I obviously got the
Mark 4's. That multi-point functionality for me is super useful, and the wear detection where it
actually turns the headphones off when you're not wearing them when you take them on off was
super useful. The better audio and the better noise cancellation was an added bonus for me.
I do hope this has helped you decide whether you should get either of these. I'll place purchase
links to both of them in the description down below. Thanks for watching. If you have enjoyed
the video please don't forget to like and share it. Consider subscribing if you're not.
And as always…
See you in the next one!