It’s been almost two years now since Sony’s WF-1000XM3 wireless earbuds were announced, and as such many of us have been waiting for the Japanese tech giants to release the next generation of their flagship wireless earbuds. Thankfully, it seems as though that time is soon, as on top of the recent leaks about the WF-1000XM4, we now get a leaked promo video of it too.
To recap, the WF-1000XM4 will be powered by a new V1 chip under the hood that would apparently provide even better Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) than before. Speaking of ANC, other reasons to believe that it’s better than before is the presence of an internal and external dual feedback noise reduction module. There’s also Sony’s DSEE Extreme audio technology with the WF-1000XM4, which uses artificial intelligence to reproduce the frequency responses of the original audio source that was lost during the compression process.
Furthermore, we get features like speak-to-chat and adaptive sound control, as well as pass-through and location-based profiles that are user-customisable, such as when you’re walking or in the airport. The video also shows off the WF-1000XM4’s hands-free functions and also bone conduction microphones that have the Precise Voice Pickup feature for improved in-call audio. Other features include IPX4 certification and support for Alexa and Google Assistant.
Of course, you can only ever listen to the quality audio if there’s battery in the buds, and according to the leaked promo video, there would be 8 hours of battery life on the buds themselves. The charging case meanwhile provides an extra two full charges to the buds as well, meaning that you should be able to get a total of 24 hours of battery life on the WF-1000XM4. And as for charging the case itself, you can do so with the usual USB Type-C cable, or wirelessly too. They also claim that with just 5 minutes of charging, you can get 60mins of use.
Of course, this all is still unofficial, with no word from Sony themselves about the WF-1000XM4 for now. Pricing as such is unconfirmed, but previous leaks suggest that the they will retail for roughly EUR279.90 (~RM1,410), making them a tad more pricy than the current WF-1000XM3 wireless earbuds.