The Sony WF-1000XM4, in our opinions, is one the best, if not the best pair of wireless earphones you can find in the industry currently. It will set you back MYR 1,099. That kind of money offers you the best-in-class noise cancelling action with one of the best sounding wireless earphones you can buy.
MYR 1,099 is still a lot of money. Not everyone has that kind of money to spend or is willing to spend that kind of money for a pair of wireless earbuds. Spending less money most of the time will only get you subpar earbuds experience. That may not be the case with Sony’s latest wireless earbuds though.
Sony’s new WF-C700N was just announced not too long ago will set you back MYR 549, half the WF-1000XM4. It also offers Sony’s clever noise cancelling technology, and you get up to 7.5 hours of battery life in a single charge. The compact case offers another full charge of the earbuds.
What are you giving up for that kind of price though? Is it good enough for your money? Should you get one? We try to answer all of that.
Design
The new WF-C700N is designed differently from Sony’s usual wireless earbuds. Instead of a bulkier case that offers more than a single extra charge on the earbuds, they decided to make it more compact than before. The result is a tiny pill like package that you can easily stow in your pockets without adding too much bulk. The entire thing is even smaller than the Linkbuds S package.
The tiny package means that Sony must compromise on the size of battery they can pack into the case. It still packs a whole charge for the earbuds itself. The earbuds itself is also tinier than ever though, which also explains the more compact case size. How they extract a quoted 7.5 hours out of these earbuds is a wonder even to us.
Still, we like the fact that Sony offers more colour options with their more accessible earbuds. You get to choose between the usual black or white colour options. You also get to choose between Sage Green and Lavender colour options, both rather attractive colours. We got the Lavender one and we have to say that we quite like the soft purple colour with matted texture.
The earbuds themselves are lightweight and are more compact than what we are used to from Sony. It is about the same size as the Sony Linkbuds S we think, but it feels smaller than that. You might not want to wear it in bed though.
To make the earbuds lighter and more compact than before, Sony resorted to physical tactile buttons for the earbuds. Using physical buttons means that it is a little more intuitive to work with and more responsive than touch sensitive buttons. Instead of needing two taps to get it to respond to you, a single click on either earbud registers as a control input. That is also why you do not want to wear it to bed.
Hardware
The WF-C700N packs two tiny 5mm drivers on each side. Both ends also offer IPX4 water resistance ratings just in case you want to go to the gym with them on. There is no wireless charging case to talk about here in the interest of keeping the case as compact as possible.
Specifications
| Sony WF-1000XM4 | |
| Driver Unit | 5mm Closed |
| Frequency Response | 20Hz – 20,000Hz(44.1kHz sampling) |
| Headphone type | Wireless Earbuds |
| Battery (Continuous Music Playback) | Unspecified capacity Earbuds only – Max. 7.5 hrs(NC On) / Max. 10 hrs(NC Off) W/ Case – Max 15 hrs (NC On) / Max 20 hrs (NC Off) |
| Miscellaneous | Bluetooth 5.2 Active Noise Cancelling DSEE IPX4 |
Features
It is a Sony product, of course it comes with Sony’s clever know-how with noise cancelling technology. But Sony headphones are more than just its noise cancelling. There is DSEE upscaling technology, and of course, they all work with Sony’s clever headphones app.
Noise Cancelling
You do not get the state-of-the-art V1 processor or Sony’s older QN1 processor that you have in the WF-C700N. In fact, Sony never mentioned what kind of processor you find with the little earbuds. Even then, WF-C700N offers superb noise cancelling technology. We think that it is even comparable to Sony’s higher-end offerings from the likes of the WF-1000 series; not the WF-1000XM4, more like the older WF-1000XM3.
The WF-C700N’s noise cancelling offers a decent amount of isolation. There is no disorientating anti-noise that we have noticed on the WF-C700N, which is always a plus. It keeps most loud noises away from your ears, which is a good thing. It deals with sudden noises quite well too, thanks to its clever algorithm. In some cases, where the noise floor is rather high, you will not get complete quietness, you still can hear the outside world but it is at a much more bearable noise floor.
Of course, it comes with ambient noise mode too. It is also controlled by Sony’s Headphones app. Like any other Sony’s noise cancelling gear, its ambient noise control is rather granular on the app. You can choose how much noise gets through and target human voice specifically to pass through the algorithm.
The ambient noise mode is as good as what we get from the WF-1000XM4 or even the WH-1000 series. It feels more natural than anything that Sony had to offer before at this price range. It almost feels like you are not wearing anything in your ears, since the earbuds are so light. The only giveaway is the amplified wind-noise or some scratchiness to the ambient noise mode.
Sony Headphones App
The Sony Headphones app has not changed much for a while. As with our previous headphones review, the app layout and interface has remained pretty much the same as long as we know it. It is not the best-looking interface in the world, nor is it the sleekest feeling interface out there. It is highly functional though.
It offers control over everything you have on the earbuds. Most of the time, we control our noise cancelling and ambient sound mode on the app instead of the physical buttons. We could mess with the EQ too on the app. The app offers you a few EQ presets you might be familiar with if you have used the app before. You can also save your own custom preset for the EQ and store up to two different custom tuning. The app also offers you geolocation-based settings like any of Sony’s modern headphones. You can also control what the buttons on the earbuds do, unfortunately those settings are also pre-set, and you cannot change what each gesture does, which we find rather limiting. It is important to have the app if you want to keep your earbuds firmware updated. You can only update your earphones through the mobile app either on Android or iOS.
DSEE
It is not DSEE Ultimate, so the upscaling engine is not as powerful as what you would find on the Sony WF-1000XM4. Then again, the WF-1000XM4 is twice the price of the WF-C700N. any form of upscaling, if you are listening to Spotify mostly, is still a huge welcome.
If you have yet to understand what DSEE does, you can refer to Sony’s website or our previous reviews of Sony’s headphones. It is basically an intelligent system that fills missing pieces in compressed audio. Obviously, to do that Sony needs to rely on some machine learning algorithm.
We tested mostly with Tidal and Spotify. With Tidal, the upscaling does quite little to elevate the already excellent music experience from Tidal. With Spotify though, you can hear the difference in fidelity when you turn the DSEE on or off. With it off, Spotify runs at business as usual. With DSEE, your music from Spotify somehow sounds more full, more complete. There is a small added satisfaction and joy in listening to better audio, and that is what you get with DSEE on Spotify music. Of course, that applies to other music players that plays MP3 music too, since the upscaling system is embedded in the earbuds itself than your smartphone. You can turn it off or on via the Sony Headphone App too.
Performance
Of course, this being a Sony gear, you can expect it to sound decent at least. We are happy to report that it does sound better than we expected it to be. We also mentioned that we were pleasantly surprised with the noise cancelling performance from the WF-C700N.
Sound Quality
While it does not have the DSEE Ultimate that the WF-1000XM4 packs, DSEE is still a great upscaling technology. That means that you get better than Spotify listening experience anyway. While Sony says DSEE Ultimate offers even better upscaling, from a listening perspective, you can hardly tell the difference between DSEE Ultimate or DSEE if you are not paying attention and if you do not know what you are looking for.
At the lower end frequency, the WF-C700N sounds excellent and powerful enough to give you plenty of details in songs like ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd. For orchestral performances like ‘Final Fantasy VII Medley’ Video Game Orchestra, the WF-C700N offers detailed enough highs that the music does come alive in your head. We tested the mids with Loren Allred’s ‘Never Enough’ and it sounded quite excellent at that too. We are testing the WF-C700N on Tidal at Master quality, so if you are on Spotify, you might want to dampen your expectations just a little bit. Still, even with Spotify, you get a rather bright audio quality from the WF-C700N without sacrificing too much bass details and qualities. If there is one word to describe the WF-C700N’s sound profile, we would say that it is balanced. You get plenty of dynamic range from the earbuds in whatever listening situation.
Battery Life
Sony quoted 7.5 hours of battery life on the WF-C700N. The capsule that is the charging case is quoted to offer an extra full charge for the earbuds as well. That means a quoted total listening time of 15 hours.
In our tests, we never use the WF-C700N more than an hour or two on average. We did however get to use it for three hours straight at some point in our test. Within that week, we got to use the WF-C700N almost daily with total use in the region of up to 10 hours. In the test, we alternate between ambient noise mode and noise cancelling mode depending on the situation and leave our volume between 20% to 75%.
We never got the ‘low battery’ warning. In that case, we want to believe Sony regarding their 15-hour total battery life claims. You could extend on that 15-hours too by turning off noise cancelling or ambient noise mode while also turning down your volume. We charged the device only once in our two weeks review period.
Unlike the higher-end headphones, the WF-C700N does not have a proximity sensor that pauses your music automatically when you take it off. That could also explain why it is sold for less and offer an extensive battery life. There is also no wireless charging technology here, just a plain USB Type-C port.
The Sony WF-C700N – Not Quite the Baby WF-1000XM4 We Expected, But Better
The Sony WF-C700N will set you back MYR 549, almost exactly half the cost of a Sony WF-1000XM4. On paper, it looks like it is half the product that is the high-end noise cancelling earbuds. When you use it, it does not feel like half the product the WF-1000XM4.
We cannot say that theWF-C700N performs on par as its higher end sibling. It is good though, nearly as good as. We really think it outperforms its asking price.
It offers a well-balanced sound reproduction. Compared to other earbuds at this price range, the Sony earbuds offers a more well-rounded listening experience with clear details at almost every dynamic range. It sounds clean and bassy without sacrificing other frequencies and muddling your music listening experience. Since it is water resistant, you get to use it anywhere too and at any time.
We like the tactile physical button, but there is some caveat to that. Unlike Sony’s WF-1000XM4, you cannot push the earbuds in at the center of the earbud’s body. You want to hold it around the physical button, which does not have a lot of space and leverage to secure your earbuds into your ears. Because it is a physical button, you might not want to wear it to sleep.
We are highly impressed with the build quality despite its weight. It is a Sony product after all, build quality should be at its best here. At the same time, we are also impressed with its battery life. While we might have preferred more charges from the case, we also think that it is a good compromise in packaging size and weight, especially if you have an active lifestyle.
We really like the WF-C700N. At MYR 549, it is an inexpensive pair of wireless earbuds, which is already a bonus. It offers active noise cancelling, while not entirely on par with the WF-1000XM4, it is still decent and good enough thanks to Sony’s know-how in the field. It sounds great, better than most earphones you find in the same price range. It is light, and super compact, more so than Sony’s high-end offerings. It features physical buttons, which may not be to everyone’s liking. For what the Sony WF-C700N is offering though, we think the physical button is quite forgivable.
There are nearly no caveats with the Sony WF-C700N, you get more than what your money is paying for, we can say that for sure. It is worth every penny you spend on it and more if you can get it at a discounted price. Just for those, you should get one if you are looking for a premium piece of audio kit that is relatively inexpensive.