Sony WH-1000XM3 Noise Cancelling Wireless Headphones with Mic, 30 Hours Battery Life, Quick Charge, Gesture Control, Ambient Sound Mode, with Alexa Built-in – Black

I am very happy with my purchase of Sony noise cancelling headphone (Sony WH-1000XN3). Due to the COVID-19 lockdown since last year, I have been quite happily placed under 'Hikikomori' mode in my room studying and working. The only issue has been that my room is situated on the side of the road and I have zero tolerance to noise of various kinds, which include traffic noise outside my house day and night by big lorries, noisy motorbikes and cars driving above the speed limit often blasting music out loud, people’s slamming the car doors after getting out of the car, people walking and talking (quite often loudly on mobile), screaming and shouting school kids on the road during school run, walkers with barking/yapping dogs , and many more etc. Even with the secondary glazing installed on the windows, my study/ work still gets constantly interrupted by the noise outside, which has driven me almost insane! Then I came across this noise cancelling headphone while trying desperately to find any solution to alleviate the noise issue. The headphone really works by shutting most of the unwanted noise out. It doesn’t mean it will be 100% noise free depending on where you are, but it actually takes the edge off the unpleasant noise when I wear it and it’s almost as if I were sitting in a soundproof room. The good thing is that when I wear it in my room, I no longer hear most of the noise I mentioned above and I can now concentrate on my study/ work. If you have an aversion to noise like me while trying to concentrate on your study or work in a room, this is the one for you to buy! The price mark at 200+ pounds may put off some people, but you won’t be disappointed with the product. There is also an ambient sound option too, but I would prefer not to use it as simply wearing it paired with my laptop or other device is sufficient enough for me. Battery power is long enough for me too. Having worn it over 1 week (using on average 4 – 5 hours a day), I still have 20% battery power left. In terms of the comfort level of wearing this headphone, I am quite happy wearing it over long hours (around 1 hour+ at a time). I have large ears and it has taken me a few days to get used to the headphone first, but my large ears fit into the headphone cups just about, so it doesn’t give me discomfort or pain, provided that I take a little break at regular interval. The only tiny issue could be that it may generate heat for wearing it for a long period of time. It’s not so bad in the winter time (at the time of writing this review), however I would be interested to find out the comfort level when I use it during the summer time (or the nasty heatwave). Some people may use the headphone outside, but I would very much prefer to use it indoors. I have also tried and tested listening to a variety of music (pop, rock, classical, Jazz and opera from my collection) from my laptop. The sound quality is good enough for me, after all I purchased the headphone purely for noise cancelling effect, so I am not that bothered about if it provides a mega bass sound effect etc. The headphone is a heaven sent and I have to make sure to take good care of it for the longevity.

Simply incredible. The sound quality on these is exceptional - I tested it out on some of my favourite songs and it was so good I had the hairs on my neck stand up! I mainly bought these for long haul flights. I've done 12hrs to Mauritius with these (13hr battery life so figured it was a great test) and a 9hr Chicago - both 'sleeper service' night flights on the way home. I almost bought the Bose option but didn't like the design of the newer model and felt the QCs seemed a bit dated compared to this. I tried them out in a shop before ordering on Amazon and these were the solid winners at that time. Set Up The packaging is great and the quality of the headphones are the best I've seen and hands down are built better than the Bose ones. A little frustrating to set up to begin with - you have to download 2 apps that will work with the headphones and then set them up using this. Took about 10mins or so but it had a lot of options for level of noise cancellation etc etc. Quality The headphones are crisp, clear - great on the bass and all round gives exceptional sound for movies and music Comfort Great padding around the ears, little sore after a few hours of wearing them around the top of my head where the headband bit goes. Perhaps I need to loosen the headband one more notch on each side but it was the same on both long haul sets of flights - after a few hrs it was nice to take them off a bit. Noise Cancelling Exceptional. Sat on a Boeing 777-200ER running GE90 engines and sat in the centre of the aircraft at the window looking at the engines is noisy. For the second flight I was in a Boeing 787-9 Dtreamliner (known to be a lot quieter than older aircraft so figured it was a great comparison). After takeoff I put my Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones on and left them on for at least 3-4hrs or so. When I took them off I didn't realise how loud the aircraft actually was! It was so quiet and nicely insulated from the noise wearing the headphones that when I took them off it sounded and felt like I was hanging out the window! I had the same experience on the 787 too. The noise cancelling is exceptionally good and easily class-beating. Quirks One thing that I still don't get is every now and again when using the headphones for at least an hour I get a ding noise from the headphones - and it'll randomly turn passive hearing on or off itself. Bit random and when it happens - a little frustrating. Features It has sensors in the sides allowing you to brush the sides up, down, sideways etc to change things like volume, song, passive mode etc. Passive mode is particularly good - it activates microphones on the headphones that allow you to have a conversation with people - for example, the cabin crew - whilst leaving the headphones on. I tried it and it works really really well but the one thing I kept thinking was "I know this has passive chat but this cabin crew girl doesn't" so took them off out of fear for coming across as rude! Battery Says it'll last for about 13hrs and it sure does! Amazing battery life

Excellent sound. Bass is a mix between punchy and crispy, a type of headphones you can use for not just Dance music but Rnb and more Pop tracks. The bass is just right. Vocals aren't destorted by it as well, and are clear throughout. The best sound I've heard from headphones is these. They're a perfect all-rounder as even classical, metal, dubstep etc. that I sometimes listen to are all great. Noise cancelling is phenominal. I have had these headphones on to read a book in a living room with people chatting and a TV on and it doesn't fully block them out but certainly blocks it enough for your focus to be invested in whatever you're doing. People have said these are the best NC headphones and I can believe them. When wearing on just one ear, it does give you a bit of a headache at first because of how much difference in isolation in each ear is. That's impressive. Even without music, I can wear these. Battery life is not the best compared to some of my previous headphones but I can see I'm on max settings: NC on and 80% volume. Still lasts a fair amount. Not that I charge these up every day of anything, more like every week or one and a half. I've just had headphones that can do two weeks+. That said, quick charging is very quick and the usb-c makes it a whole lot better as my phone has the same charger. Build is great. Lightweight, comfy and durable. I have dropped these off my bed a few times and slept with them on and leant on the earcup when I'm asleep and from what I can see and feel they're not giving in in the slightest. Cushion for the top of your head is the best I've had for headphones and I rarely have to take it off my head because of the headband. Cups are nice, can get sweaty but never really uncomfortable. Design is stylish and cool, no complaints. Touch controls I have turned off because when I leant near anything, it would stop the song or replay it so I just turned it off. Can't say much on their performance otherwise. Overall, amazing headphones. Well worth the extra bit of money because these may have come out a few years ago but everything is premium and in my opinion, no corners are cut on this product.

I've just upgraded from a set of Bose QC35 (the mark 1s not the mark 2s) having seen so many amazing reviews about these headphones from Sony. In a nutshell, and for me, they're better than the Bose in virtually every way. Here's how I would compare them: COMFORT Bose wins: If anything the ear cups are very very slightly softer than the Sony's, but the difference is almost negligible. I can wear both for an hour without really noticing too much. SOUND QUALITY Sony wins: It's hard to describe why I find the sound quality better with the Sony. The biggest difference is the richness and strength of the bass with the Sony – it's incredible! The very deepest rumble is faithfully reproduced, more so than with any other headphones I've tried. It doesn't sound muddy or just bassy for bass' sake if that makes sense! Also the sound 'stage' (if that's the word) seems more expansive and impressive with the Sony – a recording of a classical music concert just has that little bit more surround sound sparkle to it, and actually makes listening to the music more engaging. BLUETOOTH Bose wins: So far the reliability and quality of the Bluetooth link is the same between the two headphones. However, for me the Bose's ability to connect to two devices and then pipe the sound through to the headphones from whichever device is outputting audio is very useful and something I miss with the Sony. With the Bose I'd leave it connected to my Macbook and my iPhone and regardless of which I wanted to listen to sound from, I'd just start the audio playing with the Bose selected as the audio output and the headphones would start playing the audio from the respective device. With the Sony, if I want to swap from the Macbook to the iPhone I have to manually click 'Disconnect' on the Macbook and click 'Connect' on the iPhone in the Bluetooth preferences. It's not a big issue and it's not like I'm doing it every 5 minutes, but I don't see why the Sonys can't have the same functionality. NOISE CANCELLING Sony wins: I have yet to take the Sonys on a plane, but so far they do seem exceptionally good at blocking out background noise, particularly people talking – something which the Bose can't do quite as well. Also I love the ability to switch to pass-through mode so I can engage in conversations with people without having to remove the headphones, or listen to music whilst still being able to hear things around me. AUDIO CONTROLS Sony wins: I love the touch-sensitive pad on the right ear cup of the headphones – stroke it up / down to change the volume, left / right to skip tracks, and double tap it to play / pause. I'm still learning to be a little careful when doing this as it's quite easy to skip a track when trying to adjust the volume, but the idea is great. You can also put the palm of your hand on the whole ear cup to temporarily enable audio pass-through ... although I've felt a bit silly doing this if I'm honest! Fortunately there's also a temporary push-switch on the underside of the left ear cup which allows you to cycle through noise-cancelling, pass-through and everything (noise-cancelling and pass-through) off. POWER SWITCH / INDICATOR Bose wins: It's a minor annoyance, but I prefer the sliding power switch on the Bose – left for off, right for on, push further to the right against the spring to enable Bluetooth pairing. Also when the Bose are on there's a little green LED on the bottom of one of the cups which stays permanently lit. With the Sony, there's a single push button which you press and hold to turn the headphones on or off ... but when they're on there's nothing to indicate that they're on! If music is playing then there's a blue LED which blinks once every 4 seconds, but otherwise nothing! So it's really hard to tell whether you've remembered to turn them off or not after you've finished using them! Whilst the headphones do have auto power-off, it's only after a certain length of time after the Bluetooth connection is lost. So if you've just stopped listening to music but are still near the Bluetooth device, they'll stay on until they go flat presumably! APP Sony wins: The Sony app seems more comprehensive than the Bose app, and allows you to customise more settings. The EQ is particularly effective and allows you to customise the tone of the music to your own taste – something which no doubt contributes to the fact that I prefer the sound of the Sonys to the Bose. I haven't used the headphones whilst walking, running or in public transport, but I'm intrigued with way the app says it can detect what type of activity you're performing and adjust the sound quality to suit. Similarly I'm curious as to the difference that the 'Atmospheric Pressure Optimizing' can make when flying in an aircraft ... Overall I'm utterly thrilled with these headphones, despite the little annoyances outlined above I still much prefer them over the Bose, mainly because of the improved sound quality and awesome bass response – it's addictive!

I got these and the Bose QC35 II, ended up keeping these. The good: 1. Good sound. Not amazing, but good. I'm used to the Sony sound as I love my Sony earphones. When I first tried the Bose ones, they sounded different but also poorer quality in higher registers. These ones have the typical Sony sound, and no quality issues like the Boses had. I'd say these are not as good as the earphones, which are wired, but very nearly as good. 2. Noise cancellation. I don't know if it's any better than the Bose ones, but it's definitely good. These days my neighbour has been tearing up his extension's foundations. With the door to my room closed, and these headphones on, I can feel the jackhammer's vibration in my desk without hearing any sound. 3. Zoom calls. It's fine for that. From reading reviews it sounded like people had issues with this headset, but all I can say is that it works fine for me. I don't use them out and about, but from my home office it's perfectly fine. I would say the sound of my voice isn't crystal clear; I've heard playbacks from recorded calls, and there is always a very slight distortion on the voice, but it's slight and others think my sound is very clear. The average: 1. Comfort. They're ok but not as comfortable as the Bose headphones. I do find myself moving them around on my head from time to time as they start to annoy my head after a while. Bear in mind (a) I am bald, so that undoubtedly contributes; and (b) I wear them for about 10 hours straight most days. They're definitely not uncomfortable headphones, just that they could be better. 2. TV watching. Prior to these headphones I used a much cheaper BT headset which had Bluetooth 5.0. I never noticed any sync delays with those. With these ones I do. However it isn't consistent - sometimes I notice no delay at all, other times there seems to be a slight delay. It doesn't bother me much, especially as I mostly watch subbed anime. But if TV watching is your primary purpose for these, then I'd choose another set that has BT 5.0 or higher. 3. The swipe functionality for volume and previous/next is kinda cool, but for some reason my swiping motion to put the volume up often enough does a "next" instead. Obviously the direction I'm moving my finger is the wrong angle, but I wouldn't have this issue with proper buttons, so it can be a bit annoying. The bad: 1. These headphones will connect automatically to my PC if bluetooth is enabled when they are switched on. That's the only scenario where that happens. If BT is enabled after they are switched on, they won't auto connect. If I move away from the PC and the connection drops, and I'm away for more than about 5 seconds, they won't auto connect. On my TV, in no scenario will they ever auto connect. Both the Bose and my old cheaper headphones auto connected in all those scenarios. 2. Quality. I'm on my second pair of these. The first very quickly developed this strange issue where after about 30-60 minutes of being turned on, one of the ears would start making this sound I can only describe as a gentle blowing in my ear. Not consistent, sort of as if you were listening to waves on the shore or something. Turning off and back on wouldn't get rid of it, however leaving off for a prolonged period e.g. overnight would, though it would be back not long after it was turned on again the next day. This is only an issue when noise cancelling is enabled. From reading online it appears this is an issue more than a few have experienced with this model, and there doesn't appear to be a known fix. I returned it and got another one in its place. I have actually experienced the same thing briefly a couple of times with this new headset, but that's it - the rest of the time it's been perfectly fine. So I decided to keep it, especially as my company is paying for it, but there does appear to be some underlying problem with the noise cancelling functionality of this model. So why these over the Bose QCs? 1. Sound is much better on the Sonys. Both for music and TV. 2. Zoom calls on the PC with the QCs were bizarre - as soon as the mic was enabled (i.e. any time it goes into recording mode, e.g. as soon as you join a Zoom call), it would actually play in my ears any sounds the mic picked up, instead of only transmitting them as "outgoing" audio. So on any call I'd constantly be getting an amped up "room environment" sound in my ears, any typing I did would be super loud, etc. Not a zoom issue as I could recreate it by putting them in recording mode outside of zoom. I tried to find a solution, tried various things I found online to address this, but none of it worked. Also, I never had this issue with any other headset I used on this PC, just the QCs. For those reasons I went with the Sonys.

SONY WH-1000XM3 I’ve had many wireless headphones, including Bose Soundlink, which are great but these Sony’s knock spots of all of them. On a regular train journey, with previous head phones, I could still hear announcements on intercom whilst trying to listen to my music or tv. The Sony cancelled all that out. Noise cancelling Pretty effective when activated. On train. Could vaguely hear voices and train running. I’d say 85% noise cancelling efficiency. When off, huge difference. Could hear train rumbling. Ambient sound on. When on watching movie, train and movie sound was heard. 50/50. In all fairness, this mode may well work better on a plane. For me, on a train I found it intrusive. Ambient off and Noise control off, resulting too noisy. overriding movie sound. Best result watching movies. Ambient sound off AND noise control on. VOLUME CONTROL Easy. One finger drag down/up. QUICK ATTENTION: Palm over right cup. Very impressive when activated. Clearly blocks out internal sound and external sound is exceptional. Must use palm, not fingers. MUSIC Same advice as listening for movies. Music quality: Exceptional, especially using the headphones connect app. Equaliser has some amazing effects. Superb base and high trebles. Music control: perfection Pause/play/next or previous track It’s a no brainier. You must have noise cancelling activated on all counts, otherwise you’ll get exposed to external sounds. Particularly noisy on public transport. Personally I see no point in having noise cancelling off, unless you really want to hear what’s around you. Outstanding battery performance. IN CONCLUSION 9/10 PRO’s Comfort 10/10 Noise control 9/10 Right cup control (activation) 9/10 Activated 10/10 Music app controls 10/10 Music overall sound 10/10 Tv/movies sound (noise control on)10/10 Ambient control 5/10 Volume control (*quick attention) 9/10 Volume control in general 10/10 Pause/change track 10/10 Use on transport 9/10 Use outside 9/10 Use indoors 10/10 Battery 10/10 Build Quality 10/10 Build style 10/10 Folding away 10/10 Case 10/10 Value 9/10 Cons Nominal but loses a point overall. *QUICK ATTENTION Loses a point out of ten. Needs improvement on reaction to right hand cup control for external listening. Right hand palm cover over round right side silences internal sound to hear/speak. Tricky to activate sometimes, needs a few attempts.

been using these for over a year now. here are my thoughts: (1) travelling -- these headphones are a damned life saver on a plane. Not only do I get to actually hear the film or music I'm listening to, but I don't get off the plane with hearing that doesn't recover for a few hours. It's totally comfortable to wear them on 11+ hour flights. the USB-c support means I can charge them on my laptop, phone or nintendo switch charger. I can even use my laptop as a backup battery for them using a double-ended usb-c cable. (2) exercise -- these headphones are NOT designed to be used for exercise, and not water or sweat proofed. However, I've found they work just fine in light rain and when I work out. It's great to be able to cancel out the noise around both figuratively and literally at the gym (3) taking meetings -- I had the WH100XM2s and the bose QC30s, these seem to be the best of all of these. Even in fairly windy conditions I have never gotten a complaint about wind noise. With ambient sound off, you can hear yourself pretty OK. Always a joy to be able to walk around the house when taking meetings. (4) Listening to music -- these have really good audio reproduction. For fear of getting executed by the headphone mob, the quality approaches my dt770 pros, when the Bose QCs were a clear and straight downgrade. (5) Gaming -- it's highly unfortunate, but like most bluetooth headphones out there these headphones may support AptX, but they do *not* support AptX Low Latency. That makes these only a fair choice for gaming. You can use the included cable which has no latency instead but it kinda voids the point of being wireless of course, and the cable is quite short -- I often catch it on my arm and get a huge *BANG* in my left ear as I accidentally unplug it. (6) Recording, monitoring and streaming -- I've used a mic setup with a loopback for years with a good quality mic. It's something I couldn't really go without. The delay on these headphones in AptX mode is I'd say a good quarter of a second. It's essentially impossible to use them to hear yourself talk from some external device. As mentioned previously this can be helped with the included cable, but it's highly inconvenient to say the least. (7) (open) Office work -- these will block everything out and that's a double edged sword. Not being able to even hear yourself breathe tends to feel a bit claustraphobic, even with ambient audio on. This is great for those times you want to take yourself out of a space and focus on something, but I start to feel uncomfortable after a while from the silence and / or the metallic sounding filtering the ambient audio goes through. Possibly could be fixed by tweaking the noise cancelling as you can do in the mobile app. Bugs and Issues (1) I went through quite a bit of frustration where the mic would cut out completely until I disconnected and reconnected to the call I was taking. This seems to be an issue with the way the headphones's software handles bluetooth connections. If you have multiple bluetooth pairings, walking into range of another can temporarily disable mic connection Suggestions (1) add AptX Low Latency support. Since you can get zero latency with the included cable, this is entirely a software thing. That would let me use these for everything I do, travelling gaming and all (2) I'd really like to be able to rename my headphones to make them less confusing to pair sometimes (3) Let me use the app to prioritize devices. It can be really annoying to get these headphones to connect to the right thing when I turn them on, since they just connect to the strongest signal that gets to them first, which unless I manually disable bluetooth will always be my desktop or laptop. If I want to connect my phone as I leave home, I either have to walk out of range or mash the connection button on my phone to ensure they connect first as the headphones turn on (4) add some tactile feedback to the swipe actions on the side of the headphones. The swipe actions have very strict feeling directionality, I find myself using the edge of the headphones to help ensure I swipe properly. some kind of little recess would help me gesture much more easily (5) to pair these headphones, you have to hold the power button for a whopping seven seconds, and it gets very confusing because during those seven seconds it still performs the power button action. Would be great if I could press both buttons for half the time (6) Improve the UX around having an AUX cable connected. presently, the cable can be connected with the headphones on or off, but turning them off requires connecting the cable first. If I'm using them at my desk for a long time, I sometimes want to be able to power them off to go out for the night or something and I'll often find they're still on, but totally out of battery (7) the headphones are able to detect some types of calls and enable a loopback mode that makes speaking much clearer. It would be great to be able to toggle this on when I'm using my desktop computer

I've had my pair for a couple of days now and so I feel pretty confident in assessing the quality of them. I'm just going to get this bit out the way first. Google assistant only kind of works how they say it does. It says that Google assistant can be used via the NC and ambient sound button, which it totally can. But you cannot use that button for switching between NC and ambient sound and still use Google assistant. You have to choose (in the app) which you want. This was disappointing but not a bit issue as when I tried out Google assistant it sucked. I couldn't really tell whether it had picked up what I said and for some strange reason the ambient sound mics are turned on and you can hear your own voice which is a little annoying. Also if you were to use this on a busy road it probably won't hear what you say because of the ambient sound mics being on. My experience with the sound quality is a little different to most people. My reference point for sound quality comes from my HyperCloud XII's and they have truly amazing sound quality, better than almost any other headphones. So when I first put the Sony's on they sounded only slightly better than my other headphones. This isn't bad at all because it really shows just how good the Sony's are because they have slightly smaller drivers and so don't push as much physical air but some how still sound better than my other headphones. So yes they sound absolutely amazing. They sound just as good with NC on, which a lot of NC headphones don't. I can't compare them to Bose's offering as I haven't owned them but I have owned Sennheiser PX 550's and the Sony's sound leagues better than the 550's. Truth be told it's not even close with how much better the Sony's sound. The NC is probably what you're most interested in. The NC on these is, in my best guess, pure witchcraft. They do a fab job of keeping out the world around you and letting you focus on what you need to. I took these out which I drove to get some shopping and they were dangerously quiet. I couldn't hear my engine, the AC, my door close or anything - just pure silence. In busy households or shops they will block out peoples voices really well. They won't completely block voices out but they are quiet enough to the point that once you have music going you won't hear any voices or background noise. The ability to cup your hand over the right earcup to turn on ambient sound if you quickly need to talk to someone now handy. Not much really say about it other than that. They are seriously comfortable to wear. I experienced a little bit of pinching at the top of the head but it was so slightly you forget about it after 10 minutes. This is just a by-product of a thin headband. The pressure isn't distributed as much as say gaming headphones with a much wider band. It's nothing to worry about though. I didn't experience any discomfort from the clamping force on my jaw. My ears get a little warm but only ever so slightly. Not an issue for me. Pairing is super easy on a phone as you just tap the left earcup and boom, they're connected. But, they don't play well when connected to two devices at once. To clarify, you can connect to two devices but audio will only play out the first device connected. To switch from having sound come from your phone to your laptop or PC you have to physically go into settings and click disconnect on your phone. This doesn't mean you have to set it up again on your phone, just means they are no longer connected to you phone. This is annoying as I do this most nights in bed. If you plan to use these with a PS4 then you are Sh*t out of luck my friend. It appears that Sony (on the PS4 end) decided at some point in 2016 to stop supporting Bluetooth headphones on the PS4. So you can't connect these via Bluetooth to a PS4. Sucks but if you already having gaming headphones then it's no biggie. The battery is really good. 30 hours with NC is no joke. Will last a 20+ plane ride. Having USB-C is a god send. It means I can charge my: phone, laptop, earphones and headphones all with one cable. Overall all these are absolutely worth your £330. I paid £289. This price went back to normal within a few hours which makes me think it might have been a mistake on Amazon's end. But still, if I had paid £330 I would still be very happy with them.