- Okay, so Microsoft is now selling
its own Surface headphones, and I have questions.
Is it worth its $350 price tag,
and can it really stand up
against the best from Bose and Sony?
Today I'll tell you in my full review.
Stay tuned.
(upbeat music)
Alright, when it comes to high-end headphones
on the market, $350 is the price tag for them.
Whether it's Bose, Sony, or these new Surface ones,
and that's because of the active noise cancellation.
Now these headphones, it seems a little weird.
After all, Microsoft is known, so far,
for making a lot of laptops,
but what we were told that these were supposed
to originally launch with say a foldable,
pocketable device that, well, hasn't come to market yet,
so instead we have these.
But there's a lot of good about these headphones,
and I'm actually really surprised
by how good they do stand up against the Sony and Bose,
and at this point, I don't even wanna consider the Bose.
They're just not that good.
Taking a look at the carrying case
that comes with it, it's actually a really nice case.
It's a pretty nice material.
Has the logo on there.
Nice little zipper, and you get a little lanyard strap
there if you wanna attach it to a bag.
It is a hard case too,
so it should protect your headphones.
But I do wanna point out, it's a rather large case.
For instance, here it is compared to Sony's latest,
and while it's obviously way bigger,
it's because the Sonys,
just like the Bose, fold up nicely,
where the Surface headphones don't quite do that.
They just rotate around and lay flat like that,
so it's gonna be a much bigger footprint
for carrying that around,
which is not so good if you travel a lot like I do.
Definitely a negative in my opinion
for the Surface headphones, but it is what it is.
Looking at the top section here,
you do get a nice little net area for storing away cables,
or anything else you wanna carry with this.
A lot of companies put this on the back of the case.
They do it on the inside, which I actually prefer.
Now for the cables,
you do get a 1 1/2 meter USB Type C cable for charging,
or for connecting it for data.
You also do get a 1.2 meter headphone cable,
so if you wanted to do a wire connection,
you can do that as well.
Pretty good size, pretty normal as well.
You do get some directions here at the top as well,
for using these, and we'll talk about that a little bit,
including those new gestures.
Taking a closer look here at the design,
and Microsoft did a beautiful job.
More specifically, there are no visible screws
on this device, and not a lot of seams.
And that's an easy thing to overlook,
but it's actually something you see
on really high-end headphones,
like the Sony 1000XM3's,
which also has a very clean minimalist design
with no screws.
But the Bose, the QC35 Series II,
does have visible screws,
but it's a differentiator, and it's a really nice job
that Microsoft did this on its first try,
creating a very clean and minimalist looking headphones.
Looking at the bottom of the device here,
you can see a few buttons.
We do have a power button,
which you depress once, and it turns on the device.
Press it again, turns it off.
You just do a short press.
A five second hold will go into pairing mode,
and if you hold it down for 20 seconds straight,
well it resets the device to factory defaults.
Now there shouldn't be any issue there
with any firmware updates,
but in case that happens, that's how you would fix it.
There's also a mic button here
that I guess mutes the microphone.
I haven't actually been able to get that to work,
so I'm not really too sure what it does,
but hey, you get an extra button there.
You do have a little LED for charging,
to let you know it's on as well,
and there is a USB Type C, which is really awesome.
So this does have fast charge, which is nice.
It can recharge the entire headphones
about two hours time, but,
even when plugging in for about 10, 15 minutes
will give you around 10% of the battery back,
so, really nice to have.
Super convenient as well.
Plus you do get a standard headphone jack
there on the side, if you wanna do a wire connection
to your phone or a PC,
or you just wanna go without using Bluetooth.
Turning to the cups themselves,
you can see the holes here for the microphones.
Now this one's nice, because it's actually depressed,
which should help, in theory,
with some wind blowing over the device.
This one though is a little bit more exposed,
and from my experience, these are okay in the wind,
but they're not the best.
The Sonys still get better wind reduction
than all the headphones out there,
even compared to Bose, which are probably the worst,
but these are right in the middle.
Pretty nice.
You also get the nice dial here
for controlling volume, so,
it's a really nice module here.
You just slide it and it goes around.
Turns up volume up and down.
You also have touch sensitive panels here,
so this is really kind of the ingenious move here
that Microsoft did with the Surface headphones,
which is, you tap it once and it will pause.
Tap it again, it un-pauses the music.
If you long press, it calls up Cortana,
which is really nice.
You can also do things like double tap
to skip to the next track.
Triple tap to go back.
And you can also answer calls
with a long press if one's coming in as well.
And it works really nice.
Between the ability to control the volume,
just by using the dial, or using the tap gestures,
it's really nice compared to having, say the Bose,
which have dedicated buttons,
which are really hard to find when you're wearing them,
and I prefer this method a lot better.
Now flipping to the left hand side here,
you also get another dial over here,
and this one's for the active noise cancellation,
and again, super cool design.
So, when you're wearing these,
you can just move this dial forward and back.
It'll adjust the noise cancellation,
and it's on a scale, which is nice.
Most headphones, it's either on or off,
or it's like on and high, and on and medium.
This gives you much more granular control,
and it's really nice.
And if you set it to the opposite end of max,
it will actually amplify noise in the room.
Now it's not super hearing,
but it does work pretty well.
Alright, let's talk about some of the differentiators here
with Surface headphones, compared to the Sony and the Bose.
So, if you use Cortana,
and you can save the jokes for later,
but obviously if you're in the United States,
Cortana's actually a really big part of these.
You can almost think of them as Cortana headphones.
From the moment you turn them on,
and you start pairing it up to either your phone
or your PC, well Cortana's there
for the entire experience.
The AI assistant will walk you through
setting up the headphones,
talking about the features and how to use it,
and that's just getting used
to the actual headphones themselves,
but Cortana's also built into the headphones,
or at least kind of whatever device you're connected to.
So whether it's iOS, whether it's Android,
using the Cortana 3.0 app,
or your Windows 10 PC, well,
Cortana is part of the experience.
Hey Cortana.
What is the current weather?
- [Cortana] Right now, it's cloudy and 42 in Worcester.
The forecast shows rain showers,
with a high of 45, and a low of 25.
- So what can you do with it?
Well you can do all sorts of cool stuff, actually.
You can send text messages to people, for instance,
including dictate the entire message,
which is really nice, and send it
without having to look at your phone.
Or you can ask if it's gonna rain on Saturday,
or how to convert pounds to kilograms.
So all of this is part of the experience,
and it's pretty neat, and I should point out here
that it's kind of a big difference,
because if you go with Bose,
well you can only do Alexa or Google Assistant,
or if you have Siri on your phone.
And when it comes to the Sonys,
well you only get Google Assistant.
Neither of those devices will let you use Cortana,
so if it's an important feature to you, well,
that is sort of the hallmark feature here
of these Surface headphones,
and I don't wanna really put to much emphasis on it.
If you don't use Cortana or have no interest in it,
well, this is not a selling point for you,
but if you're actually into the Microsoft ecosystem,
well these are really your only choice.
Don't forget, this is the only way
you'd be able to activate Cortana on iOS,
just using your voice,
and actually works very well.
It's kind of fun to use,
but it's gonna be up to you whether or not it's important.
Another unique feature of the Surface headphones
that's not found on the Bose or Sonys,
is ability to auto-pause music.
So, if you're wearing them,
you have active noise cancellation on,
and someone comes up to you and talks,
when you put them around your neck like this,
well, it'll auto-pause your music.
As soon as you put them back on your head again,
they start to resume.
And it's really neat,
because you don't need to pull out your phone,
you don't need to tap anything.
It's very instant, and just works very well.
I've had no issues with it.
I should point out Sony does
have a really clever feature here as well,
where if you press on the side of the device,
well, it's going to lower the music,
and turn off the active noise cancellation,
for as long as you're holding it,
and when you remove your hand, well,
it resumes again.
It's not quite as effective as I think auto-pausing,
but at the same time,
you don't have to take off your headphones either.
I think the way both Sony
and Microsoft address this problem is really unique,
and Bose has no answer here, so,
really it comes down to which one you prefer,
but the Surface one works pretty well for me.
Alright, now when it comes to audio quality,
it's probably one of the most important features
of any headphones here.
These are 40 millimeter drivers,
and they're very good here.
I would say they're very similar
to the Sony 1000XM3's,
which I've been using in comparison.
They sound very similar to me.
They're rich, they have a lot of bass,
they have a lot of presence. Just a really enjoyable sound.
You also do get a graphic equalizer,
with a bunch of presets,
and you can also do custom, and preset your own,
which is a really nice feature.
Something that Bose does not have,
and if you're familiar with Bose,
well they have a preset, very flat equalizer
with their devices, and you can't actually adjust the EQ,
unless you're going to use a third party app.
I don't actually think that Bose sound very good.
They're okay, that's as much as you can say about them.
The Surface, though, is very similar to Sonys,
and that's a pretty big accomplishment.
I consider Sony to be the bar here for headphones,
and Surface does come very close,
if not very similar to the Sony.
(upbeat music)
Next up is active noise cancellation,
and the Surface headphones do a pretty good job.
They're not the best out there, I'll be honest.
So when it comes down to it,
I think the Sonys are still the best here.
The 1000XM3's really do sound the best,
when it comes to active noise cancellation.
Just very quiet, it does have a lot of reduction
of the ambient noise around you,
plus it's actually smart.
It can actually adjust to the room your based on,
and it has all sorts of neat features.
The Surface ones, they work, and they work well,
but they're not as good as the Bose.
They're not as good as the Sonys.
There's a little bit of a background hiss
I've been hearing with the Surface headphones,
which I do find a little bit annoying,
or rather distracting. Now some of this will be addressed,
probably in a firmware update.
Don't forget, this is Microsoft's first attempt
at active noise cancellation.
They do a really good job with it.
It's very good, it's just definitely not the best.
Sony's had multiple times to get this right,
and it's only on this last version
with the 1000XM3's, they finally have.
Bose, meanwhile, has been doing this forever,
and they also have nice noise cancellation,
but there's is a little bit controversial.
By that I mean some people actually
have some discomfort when wearing those headphones,
because of the way the active noise cancellation works.
You get some pressure on your eardrums,
and even the back of your eyes,
and even I've experienced that.
I haven't really experienced it with the Surface headphones,
which is a good thing as well,
so it's not the best out there.
It gets the job done, but if you really probably want
the best active noise cancellation,
the Sonys are still gonna be the ones to get.
When it comes to battery life,
Surface headphones gets around 15 hours,
and that's on a full charge,
along with Bluetooth on, active noise cancellation,
and Cortana.
In the real world I get around 13 hours,
maybe around 12 hours of usage.
It's not amazing, though it's not terrible either.
However, when you look at the competition,
Bose is supposed to get around 20 hours,
and those Sonys get around 30 hours,
which is pretty incredible when you think about it.
So there is a trade off there.
The good news is, at least with Surface headphones,
you get a Type C fast charge with this,
so you just plug it in for a few minutes,
or even a half hour,
and you're gonna get a lot of your battery life back.
The Bose, meanwhile, use a micro-USB,
which is just outrageous in 2018,
and I would really not recommend doing that.
The Sonys is also Type C,
so kudos to them for doing that,
but yeah, if you want the best battery life,
these are probably not the best.
They're going to get 50 hours standby time,
so I think for most people on most flights,
they're gonna be okay with this.
I don't mind it, but it would be nice
to have a little bit extra battery life,
and they could fix that later on,
but right now, you'll get about 13 hours.
Alright, when it comes to comfort,
the Surface headphones do a very good job.
They have a lot of padding around them,
and this is another area where they separate themselves
from Bose and Sony, which have very similar cup designs.
They're more oval.
These are very round,
and they wrap around the ear really nicely.
They have a lot of padding,
especially behind the ear, which is really good.
And I have no issue wearing them for long durations,
especially on the apex of the head,
also very comfortable.
I still give a little edge here to Sony's,
which do have a little bit more padding
on top of the head, and just feel really nice.
Now when it comes to weight,
well the Surface headphones are the heaviest,
at 290 grams, versus 255 grams for the Sonys,
and well, the Bose are still the lightest.
Now, this is very minimal difference between them.
When you're holding them,
it's really hard to feel the difference,
but yeah, if you want the lightest ones,
the Bose are gonna be your best choice,
and Surface are a little heavier than I would like.
Alright, let's bring it all in.
So, Microsoft has done a very good job here,
for a version 1.0 of Surface headphones.
Are they the best on the market overall?
No. I would actually say the Sonys are still pretty good,
but that doesn't mean the Microsoft Surface headphones
haven't brought some unique things to the table.
I really love the auto-pause feature,
when you put it around your neck.
I think it's super important and super convenient.
The other neat thing is the Surface headphones
can pair to multiple devices.
So if you're gonna use this with a PC and your phone,
well, you can switch dynamically between them.
If a call comes in on your phone, you just answer it.
Then you can resume music on your PC.
The Sonys can't actually do that.
You can only pair with one device at a time,
which means you have to turn off the Bluetooth
at one device, wait until it disconnects,
pair to the other one.
It's a huge pain, and really a negative
for those Sony headphones.
But considering Bose and Sony
have been doing this for years,
I think it's pretty amazing
that Microsoft has come out the gate here,
and in my opinion, are already beating the Bose.
Those are some of my favorite headphones.
I've been using QC15's for about five years now.
They're just really good headphones.
Yeah, Microsoft is gonna beat the QC35 II's.
I think that is definitely the case here.
Now, everything is not perfect.
For the next version, I'd like to see them
get a little bit lighter.
I'd like to see improved battery life.
That active noise cancellation,
well that can always be improved here,
and we'll probably see that
through some firmware and software updates.
I also like the Cortana experience here.
If you're using Cortana, this is really your only bet,
especially if you're on iOS.
Overall, the $350 price tag is actually justified here.
Now whether or not you want this entire feature set,
or the Sonys do something better,
well, that's gonna be up to you to decide,
but Microsoft has done a pretty good job here,
and I'm actually really impressed
with what they've accomplished.