I love my sony 1000XM3’s, and a whole lot of other people have unanimously decided that
the sony 1000XM3’s are perhaps the best ANC headphones on the market right now.
But the 1000XM3’s are far from perfect… and now that they’ve been on the market
for 8 months people have started to ask if we’ll see the Sony 1000XM4’s at IFA 2019.
Now at the time of this recording there haven’t been any Sony 1000XM4 leaks, but Sony has
made it a habit over the last few years to announce an updated version of their most
Premium ANC headphones at IFA which is Europe’s version of CES which is held every year in
August.
Now I’m not 100% certain if the Sony 1000XM4’s will be announced at IFA 2019, but if they
are I think they would be an incremental upgrade to the 1000XM3’s like going from an iPhone
X to an iPhone XS.
So, after heavily using my 1000XM3’s for 8 months… heres my wish list for what I
would like to see from the Sony 1000XM4’s.
We’re going to start off simple with the stuff sony could easily and definitely should
fix on their 1000XM3’s and then well get into stuff that I think would be a little
less likely.
So first, the most basic thing that a lot of people have complained about on the 1000XM3’s
including myself is simultaneous multi device connectivity.
Basically the 1000XM3’s can only be connected to one device at time, so you simply can’t
switch from your phone to your computer as easily compared to the Bose QC35’s or Airpods.
Even though yes, the M3’s can be paired to multiple devices, if you want to switch
from one device to another first you gotta turn off bluetooth on what ever device you’re
currently connected to, and then open the bluetooth menu on the other device you want
to use and manually establish a new connection.
These are a whole bunch of extra steps that just don’t need to happen on a lot of other
headphones.
So Sony, please we would like to see simultaneous multi-device connectivity on the 1000XM4’s.
Another thing sony should definitely fix on their 1000XM3’s is the could weather issue
causing phantom presses on their touch pads.
Now I haven’t experienced it myself, but a lot of people claim that when the M3’s
are worn outside in cold weather the headphones will start randomly messing with your music
cause their touchpad will start registering inputs.
But I would also like to see the touchpad on the 1000XM4’s to support multitouch and
maybe even gestures.
Right now the 1000XM3’s support both Google Assistant and Alexa Voice assistant integration,
but in order to use them you have to sacrifice your ambient sound button.
Which means you can’t manually cycle between having Active noise cancellation turned on
or off, Ambient mode, or having the headphones calibrate them selves by pressing and hold
the ambient sound button.
If you wanna toggle any of these settings on or off you gotta open up the app every
time.
And for me since I'm constantly switching between these settings depending on my environment
I find it annoying having to constantly open up the app.
So I would like the touchpad on 1000XM4’s to have multi-touch support so that if I want
to talk to my voice assistant I can just press and hold on the touch pad with two fingers.
This way we get to have voice assistant integration but still get to keep the ambient sound button
which I think is crucial to always have.
Or at the very least, sony should add an extra dedicated voice assistant button
on the 1000XM4’s.
But something that I think is very likely we’ll see on the 1000XM4’s is improved
battery life.
When we went from the original sony 1000X’s to the 1000Xm2’s we went from a 20 hour
battery life to a 30 hour battery life.
But when we went from the M2’s to the M3’s they both have the same 30 hour battery life
which is impressive and above average.
But I would like to see the 1000XM4’s have a 40 hour battery life.
And I think Sony is working on this cause the new Jabra Elite 85H’s have an advertised
battery life of 36 hours.
But getting into the less likely territory, I would really like to see power sharing makes
it way to the 1000xM4’s.
Just imagine being able to charge your phone with your headphones.
Obviously you’re not going to be using it all the time, but its a good last resort.
And it would also elevate the 1000XM4’s from just being a pair of headphones, they
would also be a battery bank.
But jumping back into the more likely territory, I think its a safe bet that the 1000XM4’s
will bring even more incremental improvements to Sony’s Active Noise Cancellation technology.
After testing dozens of ANC headphones I’ve found the M3’s have the best ANC performance
and I feel comfortable saying the 1000XM2’s have the second best ANC Performance.
Now I’ve done a lot of ANC test’s in the past, but today I have an ANC test that was
performed in an airplane at a cruising altitude of 35 thousand feet.
We’re going to compare the ANC performance of the 1000XM3’s calibrated on the ground
at One atmospheric pressure, against both the 1000XM3’s and 1000XM2’s calibrated
in the air at .8 atmospheric pressure.
Even though the difference is very subtle, its there.
And again, I do expect the Active Noise Cancellation on the 1000XM4’s to have a subtle improvement
over the Active Noise Cancellation on the 1000XM3’s.
But like I mentioned at the beginning of this videos, if the 1000XM4’s are announced at
IFA 2019, I expect them to be a sublet incremental upgrade over the 1000XM3’s mostly focused
tech specs and internals.
I doubt its going to be a hard ware refresh like we saw from the 1000XM2’s to the M3’s.
But that dosnt mean there aren’t any hardware changes I would like to see on the M4’s.
Personally I would really like to see better synthetic leather used on the M4’s, and
I think this upgrade is reasonable cause it wouldn’t require sony to change the over
all tooling of their current M3’s.
Compared to all of the other ANC headphones I’ve tested in the past, I feel the synthetic
leather on the M3’s feels very plastic, very fake.
And I assumed that after a few weeks of use, the leatherette would soften up.
But after 8 months of heavy usage the leatherette on my M3’s feels as synthetic as the first
day I got them.
And the quality of the leatherette on the M3’s pales in comparison to the Bose QC35’s,
surface Headphones, and even some 200 dollar headphones out there.
So like I said, I think asking for better feeling leatherette on the 1000XM4’s is
reasonable, but I think its unlikely.
But something that I think is really unlikely that we’ll see on the 1000XM4’s is more
spacious ear cups.
When we went from the M2’s to the M3’s we saw a complete design over all haul.
And from it we got more spacious ear cups on the M3’s compared to the M2’s.
Even though the ear cups on the M3’s fit me just fine I know that people with larger
ears or ears that stick out a lot are better off with the Bose QC35’s.
For me I can go 3 hours with the M3’s on no problem cause these are the headphones
I usually edit with.
But I have noticed I do suffer from wear fatigue with the M3’s when I wear them for over
5 or 6 hours.
So I do think the 1000XM4’s or 1000XM5’s would benefit from having slightly larger
ear cups similar to those on the Bose QC35.
And finally, I would also like to see the microphone on the 1000XM4’s be improved.
Now I know I said that the microphone on the Sony 1000XM3’s was better than the one on
the Bose QC35’s in their versus video but im willing to admit I messed up and I was
probably looking at the M3’s through rose colored glasses when I first got them.
So right now the microphone on the M4’s needs to catch up the microphone on the Bose
QC35’s.
But over all, thats everything that I would like to see from the Sony 1000XM4’s if they’re
announced at IFA 2019.
Theres basic stuff like simultaneous multi-device connectivity, fixing the cold weather touch
pad issues, improved battery life, and improved ANC performance.
But theres also more wishful thinking stuff like Muti touch support on the touch pads,
Power sharing, better feeling synthetic leather, and more spacious ear cups.
But for right now, if you’re thinking about picking up the Sony 1000XM3’s I say go ahead
cause even if the Sony 1000XM4’s are announced at IFA 2019, I think its more likely they’ll
be an incremental tech spec upgrade rather than a hardware over haul like we saw last
year.