Review: Sony WF-1000XM3 Truly Wireless Earbuds

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True wireless technology keeps stepping forward by leaps and bounds, and Sony’s new market leader is no exception. The Sony WF-1000-XM3 Noise Canceling Truly Wireless Earbuds combine high-quality sound with an all-new noise-canceling processor that reduces ambient noise even more while consuming less power.

Sony breaks away from the pack with their new Bluetooth chip that connects each earpiece rather than relaying sound from one ear to the other. With a Tri-hold fit, they’ll stay in place better, too. Noise-canceling does put a dent in expected battery life, but thanks to the more efficient processor, it won’t interfere with your listening plans.

These truly wireless noise-canceling earbuds are the perfect partner for your mobile device. Compact, convenient, and able to deliver the perfect noise cancellation to keep you focused on your new favorite book, your workout, or just tuning out the drone of your commute. With voice assistance, one-touch call answering, and easy gesture controls, you won’t miss a thing.

Video Transcript

"Hi, everyone. It's Adam with World Wide Stereo. Today I'm going to talk to you about the Sony WF-1000XM3 truly wireless earbuds. ♪ [music] ♪ So, the XM3 truly wireless earbuds come in silver and black, and these are kind of meant to replace the AirPods or compete with the AirPod category. Great headphones for an Apple or a Droid device.

I got to give it to Sony. I showed these around and everybody I showed these too was like, "What is that?" They love the case. It's really, really beautiful. On the back of it here, you got a USBC charger, and the top flips open right here. And we'll take a look inside. So, here you have the Sony earbuds.

And one awesome thing that I love about them is they're magnetic. Okay. So, when you take them out and you put them back in you can hear them click into place, so they're not going to fall out. All right. So, if you drop them, they're not going to just fly right out of the case for you. So, that's a nice feature for Sony. When you take them out, you get voice prompts in your ear to let you know that they're in pairing mode or that they're connected.

You'll also hear the charging level of each earbud when you put it inside your ear. These are the silver ones. And you can see I've outfitted mine here with what I'll call the memory foam style tip here. So, you get two different kinds inside the bag. You'll get the, what I called the memory foam ones, which I love. I think they're really comfortable, they form to my ear perfectly. But everybody's ear is different, so that's why it comes with a wide assortment of tips.

The other ones are more of your typical neoprene kind of rubber that'll go in there too. That tended to slip out again in my ear, so that's why I chose the memory foam. Putting them in is super simple. I just like to put them in here and I'll turn them a little bit and you're not seeing me pull on my ear like this or do anything crazy. They really just go in really, really nicely. A couple of twists and they're in.

And at first, it kind of felt like a little bit of pressure on my ear, but after about 5, 10 minutes, I got really, really used to wearing them and I didn't even think they were on. And I'm usually very sensitive to putting something inside my ear canal. These were very comfortable. I wore them for a long time on long drives at work while I was working and they just kind of become part of your life. So, some great features for these.

These actually have active noise canceling, which is fantastic, but also they can relay the ambient noise that's coming in. So, if you want to be able to hear what's going on around you, you can do that. And with the use of the app, the Sony Headphones Connect app, which is awesome, it can tell what you're doing, whether you're just sitting and sitting around or if you're walking or if you're in what's called transit mode which so like if you're on a train, if you're on a plane, or you're driving in a car, and it'll automatically, if you so choose to, it'll automatically change how much ambient sound you're getting or go full-out noise cancellation.

Talk about battery power a little bit. They get six hours of battery inside of these headphones, which I was actually able to achieve, but then inside here you'll get three extra charges, okay, to get these to full capacity. So, built into this, again, three extra full charges just by putting them back in and you get that magnetic clip in which is great, and then you can just use them again. To control these headphones, you'll notice on the side you have these nice shiny silver pieces here.

Now, this is... I love this about this headphone. It's actually a touch-sensitive, so it's not a button, so I'm not pushing it further into my ear or anything like that. And I got really good as opposed to even just tapping on it, which sometimes sounds like a bang inside of your ear when you're doing it. I got good at just swiping on it real lightly. Okay. And then these buttons can do things like pause the music, answer a phone call, track forward, or if you have them both in, and you have to walk up to the counter to pay for something, you could simply go like this and hold on the earphone, and now you can hear everything that's happening.

It's in full conversation mode, so all of your ambient noise is coming through. I can have a nice dialogue with somebody in front of me, and then let go and go back to listening to music. So, with those touch controls inside of their app, you can actually change what you want the left or the right one to do. Again, for me, I chose the right one to be the sound ambient mode, so I either go noise cancellation or bring in that outside sound on the left one because I don't do it as much, I used it for the play and pause and track forward.

I found myself using the change between... the cycle between those sound fields for ambient sound or noise cancellation, more so than tracking forward or pausing and playing, that kind of thing. So, I not only just listened to music with these, I made a lot of phone calls with them. And a lot of people, I would ask them, "Hey, how do I sound?" They're like, "You sound great.Why? Are you using something different?" So, that was a good testament to the call quality of these. People could hear me well and I could hear them really well better, than putting my phone up to my ear or any other Bluetooth device that I've ever used.

So, in that regard, these are very, very similar to the over-ear versions of these which I loved a lot as well. The call quality was great, the reliability was great. I will say every now and again, when I tried to just use one, I noticed that it might cut in and out a little bit until I kind of put them both back and then just grabbed one. So, because sometimes you just want to have one in versus two, but I think that's just natural with the Bluetooth.

So, not a real big deal, but something I did notice but I wouldn't be alarmed if it happens to you. One little thing for Sony I wish I loved, I mean, when I grabbed this case, the first thing I wanted to do was go like that with it. But because of the bottom design, you can't do that, so you either have to put it on its head right here or lay it flat if you're laying it down. So, just a minor cosmetic thing, but like I said, everybody thought that this was beautiful.

I don't know what it is. I just want to set it right here. I don't know why. So, overall, I really, really love these headphones. I think they're fantastic. I love all the little features that they have between the magnetic grill here, the touch-sensitive on the outside, I absolutely love that because I don't like pushing things in my ear. They look great.

The call quality was great. These really elevated my quality of life on a daily basis. So, it's something I can see myself using every single day. So, these are the Sony WF-1000XM3 truly wireless earbuds. They'll be available online at worldwidestereo.com or if you happen to be in the area, please stop by our Ardmore, or Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania showrooms. We offer free shipping, a 60-day return policy and we're authorized dealers for everything that we sell here.

If you have any comments or questions you can leave that in the sections below or please call or email us at any time. Please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel. This is Adam with World Wide Stereo reminding you to listen to music every day. So long."