Sony seems to have the earbuds game on lock. There’s an ultra budget pair, their mid-range ANC model that appears on the best wireless earbuds as best budget, and then the range-topping WF-1000XM5 that also happen to be our favorite earbuds around.
Sony doesn’t show any signs of slowing down — the firm has just updated the mid-range WF-C700N with a new version called (somewhat predictably) the WF-C710N. And there’s a new color that’s tantalizingly clear… and blue.
Sony’s latest buds
The first thing on the list are the new colors. There are the usual austere Black and White colorways, but this time, Sony has shaken things up with some more colorful variants. This time around, we’ve got a pastel pink color and “Blue Glass” crystalline clear finish.
The buds themselves might look similar to the old model, but there’s a key difference on the outside of their tiny shells — the physical button is dead, long live the touch panel.
That’s going to be a boon for some and a pain for others. I tend to languish in the latter camp, and to see a physical button leave does make me sad. But we live and move on, and the rest of the buds’ new specs make up for things.
Beyond the new colors and touch controls, some extra goodies have been packed into the buds. Battery life sounds particularly strong, with 12 hours of staying power with ANC off, and then an extra 28 from the case.
Turn ANC on and you get 8.5 hours, and 21.5 in the case. A massive step up from the 20-hour battery life of the WF-C700N.
They’re likely to sound excellent as well, thanks to the same audio internals as the last model. There are upgrades on the Bluetooth front, though, with 5.3 bringing Auracast. Sadly, there’s no hi-res codec support — LDAC is irritatingly absent.
There’s support for Sony’s 360 reality audio as well, although good luck finding a service that uses the standard. ANC sounds like it could be good, too — given the performance of the previous model and Sony’s claims of improvements, I’m looking forward to some better noise blocking.
The best bit? They’re still coming in at that AirPods 4 beating price. The WF-C710N are going to cost $119 in the states, and users in the UK can expect to pay £100. We’ll let you know how they stack up against the best cheap earbuds the moment we’ve finished testing them.
