Sony’s WF-1000XM5 wireless earbuds are considered among the best in their class for their noise cancellation performance—problem is, they also come with a pretty hefty price tag. Luckily for people looking at noise-cancelling earbuds, the company has another option worth considering – the Sony WF-C710N.
If noise cancellation is a must-have, the Sony WF-C710N is the most affordable earbuds you can get from the company; costing less than half the price of the WF-1000XM5. Yes, the price gap means that some features are left out. But I tell you what, the performance of these earbuds isn’t as wide as it suggests.
Design
When you’ve got the earbuds in hand, the Sony WF-C710N does feel noticeably bigger than other earbuds. There’s a slight chunkiness to the overall shape of the earbuds, and it translates over when fitting them inside your ears.
Now, that’s not to say that the earbuds are an uncomfortable fit for my ears. In fact, they are pretty snug and don’t need much adjustment to fit properly. But as with some other wireless earbuds, they start to get fatiguing the longer I wear them, and I found that it took a shorter amount of time for me to get to the stage of needing a break compared to other devices.
The pill-shaped charging case has a similar situation in that it is also bulkier than a typical wireless earbuds case. It still fits into most pockets, but does jut out ever so slightly more noticeably, especially if you’re wearing something tighter. That being said, the case feels lighter than you would expect, which somewhat balances things out.
The Sony WF-C710N comes in four colour variants – Black, White, Pink, and Glass Blue. Glass Blue is very much the most eye-catching of the bunch, with the transparent finish reminiscent of the gadgets from the 90s and 2000s. If you like the retro look, then the Glass Blue should be your first choice.
Meanwhile, we’ve got the Pink version, which has a plastic build and a matte surface finish. Despite the WF-C710N being within the midrange category, Sony did not skimp on the build quality for the charging case; it feels nice in the hand and sturdy.
I did run into an odd issue when using the earbuds though. My initial test unit’s earbuds occasionally would not turn off when I placed them back into the case, resulting in them being drained out of battery when I wanted to use them again. While I’ve not been able to find out what was causing the problem, the replacement unit did not seem to have this issue.
Performance and Features
Out of the box, the sound performance for the Sony WF-C710N was loud but otherwise remarkable. It sounds rather neutral all around; nothing in the mids and highs particularly stood out, and while it definitely has more emphasis on the lower frequencies, the bass wasn’t as hard-hitting as I would have liked.
Luckily, there is a way to tune the sound more to your liking. In the Sound Connect app, you can choose preset equaliser settings which cater more to your preferences, or if you want something specific, you can do a custom equaliser. The customisation is also decently flexible, but if you’re lazy like me, there is a ‘Find My Equalizer’ feature that creates a custom EQ in just two steps, and I found that it gets very close to the sound I wanted.
With my equaliser preferences set, the WF-C710N is now able to stand out. I lean towards a V-shape sound, and the earbuds do very well in providing that profile. Vocals are warm, but nonetheless clear, and there is good emphasis on the low end. It’s great not only for more percussion and vocal-heavy tracks like Gotye’s Hearts A Mess where you can really hear the detail in the violins and Gotye’s vocals, but also for songs like Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz, which gets your ears rumbling from the punchy bass.
Meanwhile, the ANC performance doesn’t quite measure up as well as the sound performance. The noise cancellation isn’t bad—it is just serviceable. It does an alright enough job of blocking out background noise in general, but it still does seep in. I could still hear cars that sped by and chatter from people in moderately crowded cafes. Since these are pretty much entry-level noise-cancelling earbuds, you only get a default amount of ANC; there is no way to adjust the noise cancellation level.
On the flip side, the transparency/ambient mode for the earbuds is notably louder than other wireless earbuds. It certainly isn’t as natural sounding as what you get with the Apple AirPods (which is still the best in its class), but at the very least, it’s easy to hear everything due to the sheer volume of it.
The microphone performance is of a standard quality. It isolates away background noise well while in noisy locations, but the voice pickup could be a little better as voices tend to sound slightly muffled.
Since the WF-C710N earbuds lack buttons, you’ll rely on touch controls. I’m not the biggest fan of touch controls on wireless earbuds, but the implementation here is decent. The large surface area of the earbuds is consistently responsive to my taps, and I’ve not had many issues with it detecting accidental touches whenever I’m adjusting the earbuds – which is an annoying occurrence I’ve had with others.
You get the standard touch control settings on these earbuds, with each earbud assigned either to the playback controls or the ambient/noise cancellation. There is also some customisation included, where you can change what the number of taps does.
However, there is one particular beef I have. Frustratingly, there does not seem to be a way to toggle both the noise cancellation and ambient modes off from the touch controls. As a semi-frequent cyclist, the wind pickup is very noticeable on both modes and affects the listening experience, which is why I would prefer to have both turned off. Instead, I have to take the extra step of opening the app to choose the Off option rather than conveniently toggling it through the touch controls.
If you are an Android user, the earbuds do not support the aptX or LDAC Bluetooth codec for high-quality listening, which is slightly disappointing but not surprising considering that this is a more affordable midrange device.
Battery
I’ve managed to get a more than decent amount of use from the Sony WF-C710N during my time with it. It averaged around 8.5 hours when using it with ANC. Sony also estimates 12 hours of use with ANC off.
With the charging case, you’ll get a total battery life of 30 hours with ANC off. The case charges through USB-C at the back, but unfortunately, there isn’t an option for wireless charging.
Verdict
If you are looking for ANC wireless earbuds, the Sony WF-C710N is a solid option—maybe just not for its ANC. The sound performance, when actually tuned properly, is excellent and gets close to some of the more premium options available. Battery life is also very good for its price point.
The ANC itself, while competent, definitely shows why it is a tier or two below the WF-1000XM5. I’m also rather miffed about not being able to conveniently toggle the ANC/transparency modes off, which is more of a personal nitpick.
All in all, considering the price-to-performance ratio, I still feel that the WF-C710N is quite the value package. If I didn’t have to return my review unit, it certainly would have been a contender as my daily driver.
The Sony WF-C710N earbuds are available for purchase online from Sony’s website as well as its official store on the Shopee and Lazada platforms.
Photos by Russell Loh of the DANAMIC Team.
Sony WF-C710N
Pros
- Excellent sound performance (after tuning)
- Great battery life
- Better than expected build quality
Cons
- Average ANC performance
- Touch controls not as complete
