Here it is, the vaunted quality of Sony at the peak of popularity

Yes, I know that you and I are sitting still in favor of Apple. And yes, I also use AirPods.

But I have long known how Sony wireless headphones appear. Not those that are full -size, namely the “plugs”. Fanatel from a weighty “top” model, WF-1000XM3and then from the current – WF-1000XM4. In terms of sound quality, I think, does not exist to this day.

I used the WF-1000XM3 for over a year every day, and the WF-1000XM4 for about half a year, and also every day. The first had questions about permanent work, but almost all of them were resolved by numerous firmware updates. And the model itself cost relatively inexpensive, about 12 thousand rubles.

However, the miracle has not yet happened. Moreover, I faced a problem with headphones unusable. Honestly, I did not expect this level of quality from the Japanese. I’ll think about it twice than before I recommend their wireless “plugs” again.

Briefly about the serious problems of the Sony WF-1000XM4

This video was still in a review of the headphones, and since then nothing has become better.

The case keeps getting hot. I encountered this only on the WF-1000XM4. The case has support for wireless charging. But she’s bad. In the process, according to incomprehensible everything and the case, its contents can be heated to a high temperature, to physical discomfort. After that, the charging completely goes out, and the case flashes with a red LED.

I need to remove the headphones from the morning from the site qi and get burned. They are not normally charged properly yet. Three months later, he completely ceased to charge these headphones without wires. I use Type-C.

Sometimes they don’t load at all. So I don’t understand what it depends on. But a couple of times a month, the case simply does not charge the headphones. They have a value all night “on the cable”, they are lit orange (this means an active charging process). I take it off in the morning, putting it in my ears, and there is 20 or 30 percent of the charge, as if I forgot to put them yesterday.

I have already changed both cables and chargers. Nothing helps. They didn’t forget about cleaning conflicts either, this is more often once a week.

The sensor falsely triggers in the cold. With the onset of winter, headphones began to behave strangely. Either the track will be put on a pause, then the noise reduction mode will be turned off. I soon realized that it was the touch panels.

Sony WF-1000xm4 is controlled by “taps” on the touch panels on the headphones. This in itself plays a minus (like any touch panels in headphones), but specifically for this model, it brings another problem. On the cold, the panel itself is triggered at random moments.

Because of this Disconnect sound control through headphones. I can now change the track or mode only through a smartphone or Apple Watch. Uncomfortable, but tolerable.

The state of headphones after 40 minutes of listening to music.

The left earpiece is discharged in 40 minutes. If the above can still be somehow written on tolerable bugs (let me remind you, tolerance for sound radiation!), Then with this disease, patients accidentally had to put an end to it.

Everything didn’t happen right away. A month ago, I noticed that the left headphone is discharged in the right person. When the left had 10%, the right extraction of 35%. Gradually the difference increased. Two weeks ago, the left turned off when the right had another 50%.

Today I could not get to work in headphones. After 40 minutes, the left one reported an emergency discharge, and after another 5 minutes, it turned off. I specifically managed to check the battery level in a proprietary application. 87% on the right eighteen% at the left. Roughly speaking, one member is already dead.

I almost always use both headphones, so the degree of battery wear on them should be sudden. Never burned them. Didn’t wear it in the rain. Contacts constantly wiped. Reset completely, also did not help.

I searched for similar cases on the Internet. But such owners have few owners. There isn’t much. It’s not Apple. No one cares that 10 percent of the already large number of buyers die off one of the Sony cases – with a name that is hard to remember even after six months of use.

With all these thousands of problems, the headphones cost 26 rubles, and to this day they are sold in Russia for about the same.

I understand. This is not 100, not 200 thousand rubles. But from a rating above average in its category, you expect, perhaps, higher quality than all this. How many times have I used AirPods consumables, none have had so many problems in such a short period (7 months in total). Yes, AirPods Pro crunched. But they put it on stream, and now almost no one has done it – that is, sooner or later everything is decided.

So now I’m waiting for the new generation of AirPods Pro in the fall, I will definitely take it. Awesome sound is, of course, great. Like a full-fledged LDAC, an almost uncompressed Bluetooth quality or charging by USB-C. But if it only works for 40 minutes and with regular glitches and surprises, then why?

I’m going to try and send these in for repair. There are no high expectations considering all situations. But for now, the experiments are firmly over. As an old friend is better than the new two, and the AirPods tested by time turned out to be ultimately reliable than a cool “novelty” from Sony.