Lots of competition in the headphone market.
Also, wouldn't it be kind of hypocritical to do so at the behest of the Kings of Proprietary (Sony), of all companies. ?
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Video: Sony's New WF-1000XM4 Earbuds vs. Apple's AirPods Pro
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Also, wouldn't it be kind of hypocritical to do so at the behest of the Kings of Proprietary (Sony), of all companies. ?
TBH apple should do the made for iPhone thing and open the pairing chip to high quality manufacturers. They already hand it out like candy to crappy cable manufacturers. Sony is offering something different from Apple's offering in this case, and sure they'd pay a royalty to Apple for the chip, but so many customers. That being said, my QC35II can connect to multiple devices simultaneously and is a better experience than my AirPods switching between MacBook and iPhone.
Anecdotal evidence iOS has poor experience with Bluetooth devices.
Also, I hate the label truely wireless.
I don’t get why Sony namin scheme is so terrible. Take a note sony from apple.
That's not true. AAC offers lossless if you encode that way. Had it for 8-9 years now...
It's almost like Apple have more access/permissions than third party developers!
Well they are inferior in sound quality. So depending what you use your earphones for, that may be important.
I have both, and use the AirPod pro more regularly as they are lighter and good enough. But if I want to enjoy the music, there’s no question the Sony sound better to my ear.
There’s a setting in the iOS music settings you can change that will allow spatial audio with non Apple Bluetooth headphones. 9to5mac had an article about it yesterday. Don’t know if it works with these new WF1000xm4 earbuds but it definitely works well with my WH1000xm4 headphones.
?
Wow. Dinging the Sony's because they're "awkwardly named" and they aren't being discounted right off the bat (launched June 8).... If you wanted to give readers the idea of this being a fair and honest review, you just blew it.
Nice write up! Poke fun at the name, don’t cover audio quality. This for an earphone that is arguably the best sounding wireless noise cancelling earbud on the market.
But Sony haven’t followed the tech trend of naming conventions.
But Sony haven’t followed the tech trend of naming conventions.
The ANC and sound quality are really great with the Sony's. The fine tuning you can do to the sound and ANC is just fantastic. I can't believe in 2021 Apple still doesn't have an EQ you can adjust manually in the OS.
iOS and macOS don't support LDAC, so unless you're using Android or a Linux PC it's useless (not even Windows uses it).
So I have the Sony XM4 over ear headphones and they do sound fantastic and have best of class noise cancelling and battery life...
BUT
When you configure it to be the least annoying as possible you still have to put up with the assistant voice saying "Bluetooth Device 1... Connnected".
Connected to two devices and take a phone call? 5 seconds into the phone call "Bluetooth Device 2... Disconnected" drowning out the other person.
Listen to a funny podcast and laugh? It pauses playback thinking you're talking to somebody.
When the next version of the stupidly expensive over ear Apple headphones comes out in a year or two, I might seriously consider getting them just to avoid the "helpful" features of Sony.
BUT
When you configure it to be the least annoying as possible you still have to put up with the assistant voice saying "Bluetooth Device 1... Connnected".
Connected to two devices and take a phone call? 5 seconds into the phone call "Bluetooth Device 2... Disconnected" drowning out the other person.
Listen to a funny podcast and laugh? It pauses playback thinking you're talking to somebody.
When the next version of the stupidly expensive over ear Apple headphones comes out in a year or two, I might seriously consider getting them just to avoid the "helpful" features of Sony.
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Just ordered a pair of these. B&W are my favorite audio brand. I have a pair of Airpods Pros, and while I really liked the airpods at first, I'm not a fan any more. They audio and phone call quality isn't good. The battery life is not good, and they have terrible connectivity and auto-pairing issues. I'm audio quality all the way. I will probably pick up a pair of these sony's as well and ditch the airpods.
Sony knows. I am pretty sure they like differentiating themselves with long names. It's a trademark thing for them.
So, would people still complain that AirPods are overpriced? Seems like the competitors have no problem exceeding Apple's price without being called overpriced.
Dolby Atmos is a fad in music that will not last long, just as when they tried to do 5.1 DVD Audio records that took nowhere. I’m much more interested in finally getting lossless than this.
Here is an advice, for Apple the Air pods are an accessory, they may integrate nice with iPhone, decent sound, but is still an accessory for Apple, product quality is not that important. They won't put much effort on them becasue anything can be solved by returning the product. In the other hand earbuds and headphones are one of Sony's specialty. Buy a Sony if you want a solid product that lasts. Same applies for Microsoft, these big companies make a lot of money by selling masses of overpriced and in some cases garbage accessories with no quality, because you can return them, so quality doesn't matter that much.