Editor's note: January 2024

• Original review date: June 2021
• Newer Sony WH-1000XM5 now out
• Launch price: $279 / £250 / AU$449.95
• Official price now: $199 / £199 / $359

Even three years after their launch, we still rate the Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds highly among the best wireless earbuds, because price cuts over the years (and the fact that their successor, the Sony WH-1000XM5 actually came with a price rise) means they still offer fantastic value. The particular balance of noise cancellation, sound quality and features is unbeatable at the discounted price you can often find them for during sales events – we've seen them at $160 / £180 / AU$260 during Black Friday. You can't do better at that price – though obviously, these days, if you pay more you'll get a better overall package. The rest of this review remains as previously published.

Sony WH-1000XM4: Two-minute review

The Sony WF-1000XM4 are smaller, lighter and greener than previous wireless earbuds in the line – oh, and the Sony WF-1000XM4 also sound even more articulate and immediate than the model they replace.

It’s true to say there’s no one area (with the possible exception of control-app excellence) in which they truly lead the field; but if you want to beat them for their combination of sound quality, noise-cancelling and battery life you’ll have to buy three pairs of noise-cancelling earbuds.

In every respect, the Sony WF-1000XM4 are either ‘very good’ or ‘very good indeed’ –and taken as a complete package they’re very difficult to lay a glove on.

Compared to their predecessors, the Sony WF-1000XM3, the new wireless earbuds offer enough quality-of-life features to make them worth upgrading to, even if they are slightly more expensive. 

A more compact design means the Sony WF-1000XM4 are more comfortable and easier to carry around, while the accompanying app makes it simple to adjust the controls and your EQ settings, rivalling the best headphones. 

Meanwhile, features taken from the over-ear Sony WH-1000XM4, including Speak-To-Chat, DSEE Extreme audio upscaling, and adaptive noise cancellation, mean you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensively-specced pair of wireless earbuds, even when seeking out the best wireless headphones. 

While other true wireless earbuds surpass the Sony WF-1000XM4 in particular areas – noise cancellation, for example – no other model comes close to offering such excellent quality across the board. That’s why the Sony WF-1000XM4 are hands-down the best true wireless earbuds you can buy today.

Read on for our full Sony WF-1000XM4 review.

Sony WH-1000XM4 review: Price & release date

• Available now, released June 8, 2021
• $279.99 / £250 / AU$449.95

The Sony WF-1000XM4 are on sale now, priced at $279.99 / £250 / AU$449.95, and when you consider that the outgoing WF-1000XM3 started life at a nominal $230 / £220 / AU$399 back in 2019, with the last few pairs currently available for around $170 / £150 / AU$200, that price seems fair enough.

In terms of the competition, the WF-1000XM4 compares pretty favorably with alternative designs from the likes of Bose, Grado and Sennheiser, and looks a bit of a bargain next to Bowers & Wilkins’ outstanding (and dizzily priced) PI7.

Sony WH-1000XM4 review: Design & controls

• Smaller than predecessors
• Outstanding control app
• Touch controls

The outgoing WF-1000XM3 gave us plenty of reasons to recommend them, but ‘discretion’ was not high on that list. The earbuds were big, and so was their charging case, and Sony has wisely chosen to try and reduce some of this bulk in this new model. 

The charging case is a full 40% smaller, while the earbuds themselves are 10% smaller. The fact that they’re still among the heftier examples of this type only serves to illustrate how big the WF-1000XM3 were – but at least the new charging case might conceivably slip into a trouser pocket, while the earbuds don’t protrude from the wearer’s head like a prop in a sci-fi movie.

(Sony has taken a big chunk out of the packaging, too. The box the WF-1000XM4 arrive in is 40% smaller than the WF-1000XM3 box, and it’s entirely paper-based, recyclable and eco-friendly.)

The WF-1000XM4 incorporate some of the features first showcased on last year’s WH-1000XM4 over-ears: active noise-cancellation that can ascertain what you’re doing and where you’re doing it in order to adapt to your circumstances; fast pairing for Android and Windows devices; and ‘speak to chat’, which simply requires you to make a noise in order to pause your music so that you can have a brief chat without removing the earbuds. Noise cancelling is augmented by new polyurethane eartips (small, medium and large are all provided) designed to provide improved passive noise reduction.

Your one-stop-shop for controlling the WF-1000XM4 is Sony’s fully featured, fully stable Headphones app. Here’s where you can fiddle with all the features (both great and small) that are partially duplicated on the capacitive touch surface of each earbud. In the app you can decide what you’d like the left and right earbuds to control: ‘volume up/down’, ‘play/pause/skip forwards/skip backwards/summon voice assistant’, ‘active noise-cancelling on/off/adaptive’, or the rather less helpful ‘nothing assigned’. 

There’s also EQ adjustment (the numerous presets include one racily titled ‘Excited’), with space for a custom preset or two, and the option to turn auto-pause and DSEE Extreme on or off. Here’s where you can submit pictures of your ears, too, in an effort to help Sony optimize those music streaming apps that offer 360 Reality Audio or Dolby Atmos, and where you can decide whether you’d like your Bluetooth connection to prioritize sound quality or connection stability.

Control is also available via the big three voice assistants – Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa – which can be summoned via their established ‘wake’ words. No matter your assistant of choice, the WF-1000XM4 prove sharp-eared and alert to instructions, even in unpromisingly noisy environments.

There are three mics in each earbud, taking care of active noise-cancelling, call quality, and interaction with voice assistants. A combination of feed-forward and feed-back mics capture the wearer’s voice directionally (from the mouth), though the feed-forward mics will automatically mute when adverse conditions (wind noise, most likely) are detected. Sony has also included a bone conduction sensor, which picks up voice vibration, but doesn’t register it as ambient sound.

Sony WH-1000XM4 review: Audio performance and noise cancellation

• Balanced, driving, poised and convincing sound
• Pretty good noise cancellation
• Great dynamic and rhythmic ability

Positioning the WF-1000XM4 comfortably takes a little longer than it really should – we found them a little fiddly to insert, and felt they should fit more deeply in the ear than is the case – but once it’s done you can set up the touch controls, the EQ levels and the myriad other options to your liking. All done? Good. Time to stick some music on.

We kicked off our testing with a Tidal Masters file of Burner by Ross From Friends, and the WF-1000XM4 immediately impressed. They don’t give any area of the frequency range undue prominence, they don’t let any details go unnoticed, and they don’t let rhythms or tempos hang around. There’s vigor and enthusiasm to their presentation, but it’s tempered by unarguable control.

Down at the bottom end, the earbuds freight bass sounds with substance, texture, and an absolute stack of detail. There’s drive and momentum to spare here, but the WF-1000XM4 never lose the run of themselves – there’s an equal amount of poise to go along with it. Entry into and exit from bass notes is clean and well-defined, which helps prevent the bottom end smearing up into the midrange.

The midrange itself is equally information-rich – listening to Kate Bush’s Lake Tahoe, the ability of the WF-1000XM4 to identify and incorporate the tiniest details or the most fleeting transients into a much broader picture was obvious. ‘Communicative’ may seem a redundant word when discussing a person’s singing voice, but here it’s absolutely appropriate: if they’re anything, the WF-1000XM4 are communicative.

The handover from midrange to top end is smooth and naturalistic, and treble sounds themselves have plenty of shine and bite without ever getting shouty about it. Both Kate Bush and Ross From Friends are more than happy to pile on the high-frequency information, but the WF-1000XM4 control it as deftly as they do the rest of the frequency range.

(All of the above assumes an unchanged EQ setting, we should point out. Sony is slightly unusual in allowing the end-user to fiddle endlessly with the sound of their earbuds, but the most natural and convincing sound comes from the WF-1000XM4 when their EQ is flat.)

Dynamically, too, there's little to criticize. The WF-1000XM4 are capable of switching from ‘ear-splitting’ to ‘almost silent’ and back again in an instant, and even the most subtle harmonic dynamics of Bush’s piano-playing are given full description too. As far as rhythmic certainty and expression goes, their combination of control and attack ensures that, like James Brown, they’re always on the good foot. All of this is helped no end by convincingly natural timing and unity of presentation.

The active noise cancelling is a success of the slightly more qualified kind. The problem for every other pair of ANC true wireless earbuds is that the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds have demonstrated that it’s possible to utterly reject external sounds, without leaving any counter-signal and without impacting on the quality of the music you’re listening to. 

The WF-1000XM4 can’t quite pull off the same trick – but they certainly minimize the impact of ambient noise on your listening experience. They may not be the market leader where noise-cancellation is concerned but, for most of the people most of the time, they’re extremely capable.  

Sony WH-1000XM4 review: Battery life and connectivity

• Eight hours onboard battery life
• Wireless charging
• Bluetooth 5.2

Even within the new and reduced physical dimensions of the WF-1000XM4 there’s much more going on than there was before. Connectivity is now via Bluetooth 5.2, which means simultaneous transmission to the left and right earbuds, and (when using Sony’s bespoke LDAC codec) Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification. 

Bluetooth 5.2 should, in theory, mean better battery life, too – but the best-case real-world scenario of 24 hours (between eight and 12 in the earbuds, depending on whether active noise cancellation is on or off, plus another couple of charges in the case) is really nothing special. Still, at least the WF-1000XM4 are Qi charging pad-compatible, and five minutes plugged into an outlet will deliver another hour of action. 

As well as LDAC, the WF-1000XM4 are compatible with SBC and AAC codecs – but there’s no sign of aptX in any of its guises. They also incorporate DSEE Extreme capability, in case you’re a believer in an algorithm supposedly capable of extracting high-resolution sound from a standard-definition digital audio file (we've never been entirely convinced).

Should I buy the Sony WH-1000XM4?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Sony WH-1000XM4 review: Also consider

Not convinced by our Sony WF-1000XM4 review? Here are three more pairs of true wireless earbuds to consider.

First reviewed: June 2021

• See where the Sony WF-1000XM4 rank in our guide to the best earbuds. 
• Check out our guide to the best wireless earbuds for the competition

Editor's Note

• Original review date: November 2021
• Launch price: $199 / £199 / AU$299
• Target price now: $179 / £159 / AU$259

Update: January 2024. We still rate Beats Fit Pro as some of the best workout headphones, because they have such a great fit and lightweight design, despite coming with lots of useful features for both iPhones users and Android. They pretty much always have a discount now, keeping them as a decent value even though they're older, though there's no doubt that you get vastly better noise cancellation and sound quality from newer buds, including Apple's AirPods Pro 2 – but then, those aren't as well-fitted or sweatproof for exercise. The rest of this review remains as previously published.

Beats Fit Pro: Two-minute review

Think of the Beats Fit Pro as the Apple AirPods Pro, but with a few key differences. The most obvious difference is design. The Beats Fit Pro have a prominent wing tip, which ensures they’re secure in your ears when you’re exercising. There’s also a custom-designed driver in the Fit Pro, which means your music sounds bassier in comparison to the AirPods Pro, as well as slightly better 6 hours battery life. 

However, as well as being more than a year old now, a few niggling issues prevent the Beats Fit Pro from competing with the buds in our best true wireless earbuds guide. For example, while the Fit Pro have active noise cancellation akin to the AirPods Pro, they’re not quite as powerful as other earbuds from Bose and Sony. Especially considering Bose has taken the top spot in our best noise-cancelling earbuds guide with the excellent Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2.

Another issue is the wing tip. Yes, this holds them in place and some people will find it secure and comfortable. But for others, it adds extra pressure to the outer ears that can become uncomfortable to wear over a prolonged period. If you prefer the more standard style of ear hooks, take a look at our Beats Powerbeats Pro review.

Finally, like all Apple-owned buds, Android users won’t get the full experience (i.e. spatial audio and hands-free voice assistance) that iOS users get and for their price this means we can only really recommend these buds for people with an iPhone.

So, while the Beats Fit Pro deliver better results than the similar-looking Beats Studio Buds, and are a solid choice for working out, there’s still room for improvement. Read on for our full Beats Fit Pro review.

Beats Fit Pro review: Price & release date

• They cost $199 / £199 / AU$299
• Slightly cheaper than the Apple AirPods Pro

The Beats Fit Pro became available to buy in November 2021 in the US and January 2022 in other markets. They cost $199 / £199 / AU$299.95. 

This makes them slightly less expensive than the Apple AirPods Pro ($249 / £249 / AU$399). For a cheaper option, take a look at our Beats Studio Buds review, which cost $149.99 / £129.99 / AU$199.95.

For what you're getting, they're good value—especially considering the fact that they come with noise cancellation and the H1 chip.

Beats Fit Pro review: Design

• Secure fit thanks to wing tip design
• IPX4 water-resistance rating makes them sweat-proof

While the Beats Fit Pro don’t reinvent the wheel—or in this case, the wing tip—they do implement it in a way we’ve not yet seen before. By making it a part of the earbuds and giving it extra flexibility, it’s able to latch onto the inner ear to keep the buds more secure.

Previously, other earbuds have gone for the wrap-around design and while we think that style is more comfortable, there’s something very stylish about the fin being directly attached and inside the ear. 

To help you get that perfect seal, the Beats Fit Pro come with two additional sets of different-sized ear tips in the box, and it’s well-worth taking the time to find out which of them fit best. 

Speaking of fit, these buds do honestly do a great job of staying in your ears. At no point in our review did the buds so much as move a millimeter once they were seated properly. However, because the fit was so exact it did put some pressure on the ears—especially after wearing them for a while. 

That’s particularly important because the Beats Pro Fit are targeted at workout enthusiasts and even come with an IPX4 water-resistance rating that should make them sweat-proof. They’re not waterproof, however, so do be careful with them near a pool or on the beach, and they don't have dust resistance either, so keep them out of the sand.

On the outside of each bud, there are the touch controls that allow you to play or pause music and skip between tracks. A long hold will turn on ambient listening mode that will turn off noise cancellation while a second long press will turn it back on. 

The controls can be a bit sensitive so you’ll have to be careful when putting the earbuds into and taking them out of your ears—trust us, it’s very easy to unintentionally hang up an important phone call or blast music in your ear without meaning to do it. 

We’ll talk about them in more detail below, but it’s worth pointing out here that there are a total of six microphones on both earbuds that help pick up your voice and block out incoming noise. There’s also a redesigned driver and ventilation system that helps the bass range sound weightier, and the aforementioned H1 chip inside here that will enable a number of neat features for iOS devices. 

Finally it’s worth quickly talking about the redesigned case that’s much smaller than the one that came with the Powerbeats Pro. It easily slides into a pocket and its smooth exterior feels great to hold, just don’t let it slip out onto the sidewalk or floor as it might pick up a few scratches. (Whoops!)

Beats Fit Pro review: Features

• Four colours to choose from
• They have the Apple H1 chip

While it’s not exactly a feature, we definitely appreciate having the option to pick between four colors for the Beats Fit Pro. Not only does it come in the classic Beats Black and Beats White color ways, but you can also select between a stunning Sage Grey with light green accents or Stone Purple that’s lavender with dark grey accents. 

Of course, the main reason you’re paying a bit more for the Beats Fit Pro than the Beats Studio Buds is because the former have the H1 chip. That allows them to access hands-free Siri as well as spatial audio support on Apple Music, Apple TV and FaceTime. 

The other reason these cost more than some other earbuds is because they have active noise cancellation that will block out some outside noise. In practice we found that they weren’t quite as adept at this as the Sony WF-1000XM4 or Bose QuietComfort Buds, but they do a decent job blocking out conversations happening in another room when you’re working from home. 

While Beats designed the earbuds to work with both Android and iOS devices, Android users won’t be able to access the entire suite of features. Specifically, they’ll be locked out from an always-listening assistant and spatial audio. 

Those aren’t exactly deal breakers considering how many earbuds don’t have access to spatial audio at this point—and Beats does make a pretty great Android app that will let you customize their controls – but these snags might persuade you to pick a more Android-friendly option like the Sony WF-1000XM4 instead. 

Beats Fit Pro review: Audio performance

• The sound is excellent
• Good call quality

Gone are the days of Beats earbuds sounding like blown-out car speakers with enough bass to shake your skull. The new sound profile Beats has gone with keeps things exciting with elevated highs and lows and good overall clarity. 

To put the earbuds through their paces we checked out INDUSTRY BABY by Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow, which is available in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music. Right off the bat you hear the driving bass line but it’s followed by a vocal track that moves depending on which way you’re facing. Look left, and the vocal track moves to the right earbud. Turn right and the opposite happens. Being able to dynamically change the audio mix as you move your head is electrifying—giving you a concert-like experience anywhere. 

Much of this is due to the way Beats are tuned and Apple’s H1 wireless chip—but the newly-designed driver inside the earbuds does help give them a slightly larger soundstage than previous Beats earbuds. 

Apple Music has thousands of Dolby Atmos-mixed tracks that deliver a spatial audio experience on true wireless earbuds that really sounds great—INDUSTRY BABY is just one of many songs that really flaunts the sound profile of the new Fit Pro. 

The caveat we’d make here is that, despite their impressive performance for their size, the spatial audio on the Fit Pro doesn’t replace the immersive sound you get from a true Dolby Atmos speaker system. However, it’s a big step up from traditional wireless earbuds. 

As far as call quality is concerned, the Beats Fit Pro use five of the six microphones to accurately portray your voice to your recipient and the results are good overall. People we spoke to said we sounded relatively clear, though the volume was a bit softer than when we used speakerphone. 

What that tells us is that these earbuds probably won’t be the ideal solution for business professionals who need crystal-clear audio in their calls, but would be absolutely fine for someone who just takes the occasional call or two on their earbuds.

Beats Fit Pro review: Battery life

• Six hours per charge with 18 hours in the charging case (with ANC)
• No wireless charging

According to Beats, the Fit Pro have some of the best battery life of any of their earbuds—with ANC on you’re looking at around 6 hours per charge with 18 hours in the charging case. That’s around an hour-and-a-half more per charge than the AirPods Pro and is a significant improvement on Apple’s flagship true wireless earbuds. 

The Fit Pro will last even longer with ANC turned off—though, if you’re using them for talking instead of listening to music, the battery life will be a bit shorter.

Overall, that battery life is on par with other noise-cancelling earbuds—which is great—and falls just a bit short of other true wireless earbuds without ANC. 

The silver lining here is that the buds support fast charging that will restore about an hour of listening time after only five minutes on the charger and will be fully charged in around an hour. 

The only real disappointment on the battery life front is that the Fit Pro don’t support wireless charging like the AirPods Pro which means you’ll always have to keep a USB-C charging cable close at hand when you want them to be recharged. 

Beats Fit Pro review: Verdict

It's hard not to compare the Beats Fit Pro to the Apple AirPods Pro. They've got the H1 wireless chip and active noise cancellation, the two best features of the AirPods Pro at a big discount. The AirPods Pro do have wireless charging, but that’s a relatively minor feature to be missing out on. Especially considering the Beats Fit Pro have a better battery life. 

The Beats Fit Pro aren't perfect. Noise cancellation could be better and we felt they weren't as comfortable after a few hours of us. Although Beats has gone above and beyond to make Android users feel welcomed with its adoption of USB-C, one touch pairing and the Beats app on the Google Play Store, there’s still no always-listening assistant for Android users or spatial audio support.

But these are a great pair of true wireless earbuds that we think are best-suited to workout-loving iOS users because they'll work well in the office and at the gym thanks to their sporty design and you'll get the most from them with an iPhone.

Beats Fit Pro review: Also consider

If our Beats Fit Pro review has you considering other options, here are three more true wireless earbuds to ponder.

• First reviewed 2021.

Editor's Note

• Original review date: July 2021
• Launch price: $99 / £99 (approx. AU$185)
• Official price now: $89 / £99 / AU$119

Update: February 2024. Stock seems to be running down on the Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0 in some countries, and these days these earbuds have been largely surpassed by more advanced entries among the best budget wireless earbuds. You can get fantastic sound and solid active noise cancellation (something the Lypertek lack totally) from the Sony WF-C700N at around the same price, or you can get ANC and a bunch of other smarter features from the Earfun Air Pro 3 for cheaper than the Lypertek. However! The battery life here remains fantastic – these noise cancelling buds can only dream of 10 hours from the buds, and 80 hours in total including the case. So they still have something to recommend them, but generally we'd suggest looking to the Sony or Earfun options. The rest of this review remains as previously published.

Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0: One-minute review

When we first reviewed the original Lypertek PurePlay Z3 true wireless earbuds (then known as the Lypertek Tevi), we were blown away. We couldn’t believe that a pair of headphones that sounded as good as they did, with the battery life they offered, could be sold so affordably and be the product of a company we’d hardly heard of. They were so good, we made them our headphone product of the year, as well as including them in our look at the best true wireless earbuds.

Dial the clock forward a couple of years, and we’re now looking at their successors, the Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0 true wireless earbuds. They’re very similar to the originals, with a few key improvements, and yet still come in at the same affordable price point the originals did – $99 / £99.

This gets you everything we loved about the original PurePlay Z3 (detailed balanced sound, a whopping 80 hours total battery life from its petite USB-C charging case, and a comfortably fitting bud with physical buttons), and adds wireless charging, a powerful new LDX Audio mode, improved app functionality and a hear through ambient mode. This is one of the best cheap headphones to buy in 2022.

For the most part, it’s an improvement across the board and one of our top picks of the best wireless earbuds, as well as the best headphones. LDX Audio adds a well-tuned, full bodied sound for those that want more oomph than the near-reference default, wireless charging works a treat, EQ features respond well to tweaks and battery life remains stellar.

However, app connectivity is patchy at best, and the ambient hear through mode is pretty much useless in comparison to the competition from the likes of Sony’s noise cancelling WF-1000XM4.

And yet, with the price still rock-bottom low, and nothing to detract from the quality standard the originals set out, with a few notable improvements, they remain must-have earbuds, more than a match or headphones two or three times the price. Get them.

Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0 review: Price and availability

The Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0 is out now, priced at $99 / £99 (about AU$185). That’s not a penny more than their predecessors, despite a raft of new features being included. And though they don’t feature active noise cancellation, they more than challenge rivals many times the price. That includes the Apple AirPods Pro ($249 / £249 / AU$399) and Sony WF-1000XM4 ($279.99 / £250 / AU$449.95). They are a total steal.

Design

From the outside, not much looks very different about the Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0 compared to its 1.0 predecessors, and that’s indicative of the product as a whole in many respects – this is a refinement on that top-notch original, rather than a revolutionary new direction.

Again, you’ll find ovoid, stemless earbuds sitting within a pill-shaped, fabric covered case, complete with a removable carrying strap. Both white and black versions of the PurePlay Z3 2.0 are available, and each features USB-C charging and four LED indicator lights to show battery levels. The earbuds securely fit into the case with a magnetic snap, which will start them charging from the case’s own internal battery – removing them from the case will start the Bluetooth pairing process, and once they’ve been paired once, you won’t have to perform the process again unless you’re looking to pair additional devices with the headphones.

The case (being just a touch too big for a comfortable trousers pocket fit), is quietly attractive, and makes use of its size to fit in a gigantic battery. You’re already getting a solid ten hours of playback from the buds themselves, but there’s an additional 70 hours to be had by recharging them in the fully-juiced charging case. That’s a whopping 80 hours total battery life before you’ve got to plug the cable back into case. And, in a first for the line, there’s wireless charging support too here. These are top-class battery specs, in case you were in any doubt.

In terms of the earbuds themselves, they’re lightweight and comfortable in the ear. Each can be paired with small, medium or large silicone ear tips, or Flexifit foam tip that expands slightly in your ear for a tighter seal and better passive noise cancellation. That’s worth pointing out as, due to the budget nature of the earbuds, there’s no active noise cancellation here. Still, with strong volume levels and a snug fit, ambient noise was very rarely a concern with the PurePlay Z3 2.0. IPX7 waterproofing makes these safe for a quick splash in the shower, though note that the case is not similarly protected.

Both earbuds also feature physical buttons, controlling volume, track selection, play, pause, call response and hear-through mode activation. They’re far more reliable than touch-sensitive buttons (and preferred here as a result), though pushing them without driving the earbuds further into your ear takes some practice.

Internally there is an improvement too, with the introduction of Bluetooth 5.2 support. This allows for SBC, AAC and aptX codecs to be handled without fuzz, with the Qualcomm QCC3040 chipset allowing for improved battery life even to offset the introduction of the afore-mentioned LDX Audio mode.

Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0 review: Audio performance

The original Lypertek Tevi, or PurePlay Z3, excelled when it came to bringing a clear, neutral sound to your ears. Just shy of what we’d consider reference or audiophile quality, they were revelatory when considering their price point. And that base-level, out of the box tuning remains present here. Making use of 6mm graphene drivers, there’s an identical level of clarity to the Z3 2.0, presenting an unbiased sound that favours studio intentions rather than ramping up any individual frequencies. As a result, we’ll point you to our original Lypertek PurePlay Z3 review for a detailed rundown of the out-of-the-box sound of the Z3 2.0.

However, despite it being a preferred way of listening for audio connoisseurs, it’s not always the right tuning for every scenario. What about if you’re down the gym, and want a little more bass? Or generally want a punchier, more-powerful sound, even if that’s at the expense of balance?

That’s where the PurePlay Z3 2.0’s new LDX Audio mode comes in, accessible from the also-new accompanying app. Switching on LDX Audio in the app is a bit like hitting an overdrive button – raising the volume of less-present frequencies (particularly bass tones), widening the soundstage.

It results in a more energetic, dynamic delivery, and one that certainly is a noticeable departure from the stock tuning. They are two very distinct sound profiles, and both have their merits – I found myself switching between the two depending on the listening situation, favouring LDX Audio when out and about, while going for the stock tuning when indoors and intently listening to songs and albums. What neither is lacking in is clarity – the PurePlay Z3 2.0 does well to highlight details, and does well to avoid distorting when even at high volumes. They’re simply a pleasure to listen to.

Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0 review: Features

It’s more of a mixed bag when it comes to new features. 

First the good – the LDX Audio mode, as mentioned, is excellent, and is accompanied in the app by an equally-impressive EQ option. As well as a number of presets, from Rock to Jazz, Pop to R&B, there are also presets that favor Bass or Treble response. That’s in addition to two custom slots for your to save your own tunings. They make a noticeable impact, really letting you refine the sound to your tastes.

But other features aren’t as impressive. A "Hear Through" mode, which is intended to let you hear more of your ambient surroundings via the earbud mics without interrupting playback, is pretty much useless, not making anywhere near the impact needed to make you comfortably more aware of what was going on around you. A Find my Earbuds feature was similarly patchy, while the app itself sometimes struggled to identify and connect to the headphones at all – even without any nearby wireless devices to potentially cause confusion.

Despite some failings here, it’s hard to be too critical of the PurePlay Z3 2.0 though. Managing to bring more to the table than earlier models (mostly positively too), and still retaining the same price point, they remain an overall improvement to an already-impressive package.

Should I buy the Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0?

Buy it if...

Don’t buy it if…

• Looking for the best earbuds? Check out where the PurePlay Z3 2.0 rank.
• The best true wireless earbuds: how does the PurePlay Z3 2.0 compare?

Editor's Note

• Original review date: January 2019
• Launch price: £69.99 (around $90 / AU$125)
• Regular price now: $49 / £69 / AU$95

Update: February 2024. The SoundMagic E11BT are not the first earbuds we would point to when asked our recommendations at this point; the best budget wireless earbuds have since turned heavily towards the convenience of true wireless buds, which are available with better audio quality and more advanced features than you get here: just look at the likes of the Earfun Air Pro 3. However, some people prefer the added safety of neckband earbuds, and if that's you, we still think these are a solid buy (even if that's perhaps heavily because so few new options are made these days with an eye on quality). The rest of this review remains as previously published.

SoundMagic has cut the cord on its popular E11 series of in-ear headphones to bring us the new E11BT and they're some of the best cheap headphones out there. In fact, we'd go as far as to say that these are best headphones for those on a budget. With a similar shape and feel to its predecessors, the E11BT connect to your device via Bluetooth, and are connected by a durable neckband. 

They are available to purchase for £69.99 (around $90 / AU$125) however, right now it looks like they are only available to buy in Europe, with no word on when you will be able to buy them in other territories.

We tried out the new wireless earbuds – here’s what we thought.

Design

In terms of design, the E11BTs look similar to the wired E11C’s, with one crucial difference; the buds are now connected by a neckband, and connect to your device wirelessly. The neckband feels very sturdy, and with a flat design, it feels comfortable against your neck. 

Coming in an all black design, they look more ‘sporty’ than the E11C’s, and boast an IPX4 waterproof rating – that means they will be safe from minor splashes and sweaty workout sessions, but you absolutely shouldn’t take them in the shower with you after your run. 

Like the other earbuds in the E11 series, the bullet-shaped earbuds themselves are extremely small, lightweight and elegant-looking, with an aluminum housing that features the SoundMagic logo and the model number on the left and right buds, respectively. 

One nice feature of the E11BT wireless earphones is that the two earbuds connect together magnetically, so you can keep them secured around your neck while not in use. 

About two inches down from the left earbud you’ll find the inline remote, which features volume buttons, and a ‘multifunction’ button. The multifunction button can be used to control your music, pair the headphones with your device, and answer phone calls. 

On the side of the inline remote there is also a micro-USB for charging the E11BTs – SoundMagic includes a USB cable in the box. While charging, a small LED on the inline remote will glow read, and when the earphones are fully charged, the red light goes off and is replaced by a blue one. 

Overall, the E11BTs haven’t traded off the elegant design of previous models in the series when cutting the cord; they look very attractive and they have retained the compact housing design that SoundMagic has become well known for. 

Features and performance

Generally, the audio quality provided by the E11Bts is very good, with an impressive amount of sonic power for such small earbuds. 

Vocals sound clear and smooth on Fleet Foxes’ ‘Blue Ridge Mountains’, thanks to their custom-tuned drivers – as dynamic drivers they also provide a hefty amount of bass, due to the relatively large volumes of air they displace as they vibrate. We tried them out on Kanye West’s ‘Flashing Lights’, and we were impressed by the thumping bass and unctuous synth strings. 

Treble frequencies are sharp and crystal-clear, with a good level of attack – they can occasionally come across as a little harsh, so if you’re looking for a warmer sound stage, you might want to try the true wireless Earin M-2s, which have similar sized buds but feature balanced armature drivers instead of dynamic drivers. 

It’s important to make sure you’re using the correct-sized eartips when using the E11BTs, as a good fit enhances the sound ten-fold, as well as improving the sound isolation – they come with three different eartips, so you should be able to find a good fit through a bit of trial and error. 

The sound isolation is pretty good for in-ear headphones; if you have your music pumping you’ll be pretty well-insulated from annoying environmental sounds. We also tried listening to podcasts using the E11BTs, and while the sound isolation was less obviously pronounced in when listening to dialogue, the noise from a loud train carriage was reduced enough for us to hear speech clearly. 

Using the inline remote to control playback worked well, and we didn’t experience any problems with connectivity while using the E11BTs; in fact, pairing them with our smartphone was an absolute breeze. 

If you’re thinking of buying these in-ears to use while working out or running, you may be concerned about how secure they feel. Generally, they fit pretty snugly into your ear, but if you’re concerned about the buds falling out mid-run, you might want to try a pair with wingtips that fit into the conch of your ear for extra stability. 

Overall, the E11BTs are very comfortable to wear, even for long periods of time. SoundMagic claims that these headphones can handle continuous playback for 20 hours; while this is likely not at full volume, we had them on continuously for around five hours and found that the battery hardly depleted at all. 

Final verdict

The SoundMagic E11BTs are an extremely capable pair of wireless in-ear earphones, and given their low price, it really is difficult to fault them - the audio quality is fantastic and design-wise, they look very elegant. They're comfortable to wear thanks to ergonomically designed eartips and a flat neckband that won’t irritate you while running or working out – and with an IPX4 rating, they should withstand sweaty sessions. 

They generally feel secure, although the option to add wingtips would be a great feature for those who want a little more stability when listening on the go.

Battery life is pretty good at 20 hours, and they take just two hours to charge fully via the micro-USB cable included in the box. 

If you’re looking for a fantastic pair of value neckband earphones, the SoundMagic E11BTs are a great option – here’s hoping they reach territories outside of Europe in the near future. 

• See where these rank in our best earbuds guide.
• The best wireless headphones: our pick of the best ways to cut the cord

Editor's Note

• Original review date: June 2017
• Launch price: $100 / £70 / AU$150)
• Official price now: $39 / £49 (approx. AU$95)

Update: February 2024. Fortunately for the 1More Triple Driver In-Ear Headphones, the world of the best wired headphones moves much slower than the wireless world, and so despite being positively Jurassic by the standards of most tech, we're still very happy to recommend these. The dramatic price drop doesn't hurt either, but it wouldn't matter if some other product did it better for a similar cost – but they don't, really. Big, bold sound that feels truly premium is yours with these buds, and age hasn't dulled that. The rest of this review remains as previously published.

If you're in the market for a pair of in-ear headphones that are under $100 (£70 or AU$150), you've got a lot to choose from. There are tons of earbuds that sound great, but many at that low price usually have a fatal flaw, whether it’s less-than-stellar build quality, incompatibility between devices or they simply don’t fit your ears well enough to be comfortable. We've found it’s hard to find a pair of headphones that tick all of the boxes without breaking the bank. 

But all that changed with the 1MORE Triple Driver In-Ear Headphones, which we consider among the best cheap headphones right now. If you haven’t heard of 1MORE, listen up because it’s a company that deserves to be on your radar. 

1MORE offers a range of over-ear and in-ear headphones, but the stand out of the bunch are the Triple Driver in-ear headphones. We spent the last few weeks with them and were blown away at how much they offered at the price range, easily rivalling some of the very best headphones. 

Design

The 1MORE Triple Driver in-ear headphones feature a handsome design that is subtle yet stands out when you get your hands on them. 

The earbuds themselves are milled out of aluminum and feature a rose gold color. (And no, it’s not the pink color that Apple tries to pass off as rose gold with the iPhone 7 but the actual color of gold mixed with copper.) 

The earbuds themselves are angled and offer a nice fit in the ear. They don’t sit completely flush, and they stick out very little. While that means you won’t want to sleep with the Triple Drivers, they maintain a nice low profile with your ears. 

Moving on to the cable, 1MORE opted for two different textures. The cable from the Y-connector to the straight 3.5mm jack is sheathed in fabric for durability but the cables leading out of the Y-connector to each earbud are rubber. We’re not fans of rubber cables as they tend to snag on clothing or on itself. The 1MORE Triple Drivers are guilty of this, but it’s by no means a deal breaker. 

The headphones come with a three-button remote that works with both Android and iOS, which is something that not every headphone can do, hence the existence of Android and iOS specific headphones. 

Here's where we find our one and only flaw with the headphones: The remote is made of plastic and feels cheap, especially compared to the 1MORE Quad Driver headphones which have a remote made of aluminum. 

The Triple Drivers feature a ton of silicone and foam eartips in the package as well as a nice hard case for travel. The foam eartips aren’t very good as they’re shallow and don’t seal very well in our ears. Thankfully, the myriad of included silicone tips are more than enough to find a good fit for proper bass response. 

Performance

Sound quality is where the 1MORE Triple Driver stand out. While the balanced but slightly warm sound signature didn’t blow us away at first, we came to appreciate the balance and detail provided by the Triple Drivers. 

Music is exquisitely detailed with a good sense of space. Instruments are layered and complex songs don’t sound muddled as each instrumental layer remains audible. While there are more detailed in-ear headphones out there, you’ll have to pay much more for the minute increase in performance. 

The mids are lush and work to highlight human voices. There’s a slight mid-bass bump that give the 1MORE Triple Drivers a warm tonal balance, even more so than the 1MORE Quad Drivers. 

Speaking of the Quad Drivers, the Triple Drivers can’t match them in terms of detail, space or balance – but the differences between the siblings are so small that it’s really hard to fault the cheaper Triple Driver. If you want more overall refinement, detail and build quality, however, go for the Quad Drivers.

Bass is very good with great extension and impact. The mid-bass bump helps give the headphone an overall warm sound without it taking over. 

Last but not least, the 1MORE Triple Drivers create a nice seal to help seal out noise. While they don’t feature any active noise cancellation, the passive noise isolation is more than enough to drown out the world during your commute. 

Final verdict

After spending a few weeks with both the 1MORE Triple Driver in-ear headphones and the 1MORE Quad Driver in-ear headphones we were blown away at just how much value each one gave in their prospective price ranges. 

For $100 (£100, about AU$168), it’s hard to think of a better sounding and built headphone than the 1MORE Triple Driver. That said, if you want just that little extra refinement and luxury materials, the 1MORE Quad Drivers are still a bargain at twice the price. 

There’s very little we can fault the Triple Drivers for. Its rubber cable is annoying and its remote control feels cheap but these are just nitpicks. For the money, it’s hard to do better than 1MORE's Triple Driver in-ear headphones. 

• Guess we can add these to our best in-ear headphones list...
• Prefer an over-ear design? Try the Triple Driver Over-Ears from 1MORE instead

Editor's Note

• Original review date: June 2021
• Newer Sony WH-1000XM5 now out
• Launch price: $279 / £250 / AU$449
• Official price now: $199 / £199 / AU$359

Update: January 2024. Even three years after their launch, we still rate the Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds highly among the best wireless earbuds, because price cuts over the years (and the fact that their successor, the Sony WH-1000XM5 actually came with a price rise) means they still offer fantastic value. The particular balance of noise cancellation, sound quality and features is unbeatable at the discounted price you can often find them for during sales events – we've seen them at $160 / £180 / AU$260 during Black Friday. You can't do better at that price – though obviously, these days, if you pay more you'll get a better overall package. The rest of this review remains as previously published.