Sony's excellent wireless noise-cancelling headphones get upgrades
Sony's MDR-1000X was feature packed. The new WH-1000XM2 is even more loaded, has better battery life and a lower price tag.
Sony's MDR-1000X is one of our favorite noise cancelling wireless headphones and this is the new enhanced version of it, the WH-1000XM2. Priced at $350 (£330, AU$499), it looks very similar to the original and also comes in beige or black, but the finish is slightly different and Sony's reduced the number of buttons on the headphone to help simplify things.
The real changes are on the inside as the headphone's already excellent noise cancelling has been upgraded with Atmospheric Pressure Optimizing, Ambient Sound Control, an Equalizer and Surround and Sound Position Control. The added features are supposed to help you better tailor the sound to your environment and the Atmospheric Pressure Optimizer, which is designed for plane use, is currently unique to this headphone. Sony's Headphones Connect app further allows you to tweak all those new features.
Shop for Sony WH-1000XM2 (Gold)
See all pricesSound quality on the original MDR-1000X was top notch for this type of over-ear Bluetooth noise-cancelling headphone. In fact, some like its sound better than the Bose QuietComfort 35 headphones.
Sony didn't change or upgrade that sound, but battery life has improved. It's now up to 30 hours with wireless and noise cancelling on or up to 40 hours if you use a wired connection. There's also a Quick Charge feature that gives you up to 70 minutes of battery life from just 10 minutes of charging.
The long and short of it is Sony has made an already excellent sounding, feature-rich headphone even more feature rich and slightly reduced its price.
I'll have a full review of the headphones in the coming weeks.