Sony WF-1000XM5 Wireless The Best Noise Cancelling Earbuds, Bluetooth, in-Ear Headphones with Microphone, Up to 36 Hours Battery Life and Quick Charge, Works with iOS & Android,…

WF-1000XM5 not launched yet in India. Current rates is double than International market price. These may be resale product. So, be careful before buying it.

Coming from the previous model, the WF-1000XM4, these feel pretty familiar. Although the shape has been slimmed down, the fit is pretty similar but slightly less bulky and yet pretty comfortable.
They come with more ear tips allowing a tight seal for a wider variety of ears (SS, S, M, L) medium being the standard that come preinstalled out of the box.
The default sound signature has changed slightly, but thanks to the Sony Headphones Connect app, there’s an 5 band equalizer with presets and their iconic “Clear Bass” slider for the bass heads. These earbuds can also produce more “rich” low bass frequencies. Allowing for nice sub-bass that does not sound muddy and overpowering, but rather strong and detailed (depending on your EQ of course).
Ambient sound happens to be weaker and sounds slightly less natural compared to the AirPods Pro 2, but good enough. Noise cancelling has been improved with slightly better performance with sudden noises like bangs and clanks, and even better/noticeable improvement with voices, hums and rumbles.
(PS: Ambient sound still sucks when it’s windy due to excessive wind-flap noise. But, wind reduction during noise cancelling has been improved!)

Lastly battery. Which appears to be about the same as the last model (about 8 hours on the earbuds, 24 hrs with the charging case), but the charging of the earbuds in the case is much faster! 60 minutes of playtime from 3-5 minutes of charging is not too crazy of a claim.

Now, keep in mind that the WF-1000XM4 had problems with battery malfunction. And although Sony did usually replace the many faulty units of the previous model, this is something to watch out for as there is no way to tell if they’ve improved it until a few more months have passed.

Conclusion; If you’re currently an owner of the WF-1000XM4, I would wait for a bigger update. But if you’re upgrading from the WF-1000XM3 or even the AirPods Pro 2. This is a great product that will not leave you disappointed.

Extra Features not tested:
Multi-Device Connections, Head Gestures, Extensive Voice Call quality under difficult scenarios, In-device Voice Assistant.

I use a range of Sony headphones and earbuds, from the MDR-Z1R to the IER-M9 to consumer models like the WH-1000XM and WF-1000XM series. It all depends on where I am (at home, on the go locally, or traveling) and what equipment I’m using (a Sony digital music player with a balanced headphone output jack or Bluetooth LDAC support, or a simple iPhone that only supports the Bluetooth AAC codec).

My WF-1000XM5 pair arrived July 28, 2023 (the day before I wrote this review). After testing them and completing the initial update to the 2.0.1 firmware (by the time you read this, there may be a newer version), I found that I just left the earbuds in for the rest of the day, whether I was listening to music, making calls, or enjoying some quiet time. They’re smaller, lighter, and more comfortable than my WF-1000XM4 pair, to the point that I don’t really notice I’m wearing them.

Sound-wise, there is a noticeable improvement in bass and in the midrange. I didn’t notice much of a difference in treble, although I like less bass and more treble than the average person (hence my choice of the IER-M9 over the two alternatives in that product line).

The noise-canceling has improved across the board. As always, it’s important to try the different tips, including the possibility that you will need a different size in each ear. I was surprised to see that mentioned in the in-app tutorial!

I am used to third-party expanding foam tips for my WF-1000XM4 pair, so we’ll see whether third-party vendors offer something similar for the new model. For now, the stock tips work fine. They remind me of the alternate-texture tips that come with the IER-M9.

Now, a few flaws, worth mentioning given the price of this product…

First, Sony’s model numbering is stupid and not consumer-friendly. Normal people can get excited about “AirPods” but not about “WF-1000XM5s”.

Second, the charging case, though now significantly smaller, still lacks any sort of finding feature. It would have been a simple matter for Sony to add the ability, through the clunky Headphones Connect app, to make a pair of earbuds in the case play a loud sound so you could find the case if you’d misplaced it. Apple of course makes precisely locating its products very easy.

Third, in their hubris, product designers at Sony have made something small and lovely but forgotten about the environments in which it will be used. There is NO tactile feedback to let us distinguish the left earbud from the right. The L and R marks are tiny (just millimeters tall) and the use of dull grey for L and red for R makes them invisible in the dark. If I’m out walking in the evening without the case, have taken off the earbuds for a moment, and am putting them back on, I should not have to use my iPhone’s flash to tell left from right.

Last but not least, the Headphones Connect app is becoming an ever more elaborate trainwreck. There are just too many options and features. With no distinction between what’s essential and what’s not, you have to open three tabs in succession, scroll down, and open endless settings panels (each accessed by a gear icon) to cover everything. Pesty notifications come back every time you start the app, even if you deleted them the last time. Sony tries again and again to make you sign up for various accounts, and is of course gathering information about you, your cell phone, and your listening activity every time you use their app. Since Sony’s 360 spatial audio only works with a handful of paid, proprietary music apps (a big gap, compared to the more-or-less universal, iOS-level support for this feature with Apple wireless headphones and earbuds), I don’t even bother setting it up.

Overall, the WF-1000XM5 is an excellent pair of wireless earbuds in terms of sound, noise canceling, and comfort, and Sony could make improvements by renaming them, adding a raised plastic dot to make the right earbud distinguishable by touch, and ditching the Headphones Connect app in favor a lightweight (and ideally, data-privacy-conscious) control panel.