Mid-tier is where brands in general get creative in sprucing up with the right hardware and experience. When you look into the TWS space, you have numerous options to choose from. However, not all of them are great, as they all strive to be flagship earbuds at this price. Following our Sony WF-C710N review, we have earbuds that truly punch above their weight.

Sony WF-C710N Review

What’s Good

The Design

One way to win over consumers is by making a product that looks really good. While Sony has a more timeless (some might call it boring), it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. But whoever chose to cook real well at Sony made the best-looking earbuds with the WF-C710N. It looks much better than my WF-1000XM5. Like what the helly?

You might think these earbuds took a page out of the Nothing earbuds book, but please, if at all, Nothing was inspired by Sony’s early days. Sony did the transparent look in the 90s, and one of the iconic Whoopie Series Walkman, the WM-3500SP in 1994, is what I think of when I look at this Sony WF-C710N. The pill-shaped, transparent design of these earbuds and the case is just orgasmically beautiful to look at and use.

This is the Glass Blue finish, and it truly lives up to the name. The top shell of the case has a transparent finish, and the bottom has a more translucent finish to keep the components neatly tucked away. The design extends into the earbuds, and man, I just can’t help but geek out over it. That’s how much I love these earbuds and the way they look.

If you do want a more plain finish, then there’s the usual Black and White, but the Pink looks good too in my opinion.

Audio Quality

Last year, we reviewed the Sony WF-C700N, which is the predecessor to these, and those sounded good for what it is. But if you were looking for clarity, these weren’t it because the bass was heavy, treble was not up to my liking. But these Sony WF-C710N surprisingly refine the experience in the audio department for good. Now, the out-of-the-box experience with these earbuds is different.

I had to listen to the same songs I listened to when I tried the C700N, and the out-of-the-box EQ tuning is easily done right with the C710N; it doesn’t have that pitchy treble anymore, the low bass isn’t intense and overall, the song sounded great. Well presented. These earbuds are now more ideal for all sorts of songs, and to be fair, the mids in these earbuds excel.

If you were to tweak the EQ with the app, you can get the right audio experience out of it. For the first time, I reached out to these earbuds more than my trusty WF-1000XM5. If you want to listen to the songs we usually test with our earbuds, you can click here to listen.

The ANC is Surprisingly Good

One of the bigger surprises with the WF-C710N is the refined ANC – now you get all the same ANC controls with the Ambient Sound giving you options to adjust the intensity and the NC mode giving you a one-tap only control. The previous generation wasn’t up to the likes of Linkbuds or the WF-1000XM5, but this one has the potential to challenge those. With ANC on, there’s no low-end hisses, and it’s a proper, clean ANC you are hearing.

When the Ambient Sound is turned on, hearing through these earbuds sounds almost natural as hearing with your ears. I have to say, I don’t know how Sony tweaked these, but man, these are much better.

The Battery Life is Ludacrous

The major upgrade with these WF-C710N happens to be the battery life because the earbuds alone offer about 8 hours of battery life (according to our testing with ANC), and without ANC, you can go past the 8-hour mark, which is crazy. I don’t think I charged my earbuds in like a week, because the case could offer another 21-22 hours of battery life – which is pretty nuts.

With an average listening hours of 4 to 4.5 hours a day of listening for me, the battery life lasted me for a whopping 8+ days with no issues whatsoever. Moments like this, I realised, it actually lasted longer than the rated charging hours, which again is a surprise. Initially, I was concerned if Sony nuked the ability to charge for 5 minutes to get an hour worth of listening – but I am glad it’s there. I have to admit it does take a long AF to charge fully, about 3 hours or so.

Sony added the Right Features

Apart from these features, Sony has added the right features to go along with the Sony WF-C710N. And this is what makes Sony truly different from your cheaper or “value” buds maker, as they don’t factor in things like these.

For starters, support for the Sound Connect app is a blessing – this app gives you all the controls you need to make your earbuds truly yours. And you will need this app because it gives users access to features like EQ, 360 Reality Audio, and the option to choose a stable connection or audio quality.

After all, if you have ever experienced sudden drops in your audio listening at certain locations, it happens because of interference.

So, having this control accessible is neat. Under the system, you can customise the touch control and other neat customizable features, but my personal favourite feature here is the Multipoint support – no issues with connecting to two devices simultaneously.

For those who want splash and sweat-resistant earbuds, these are rated for IPX4.

What You don’t get at this price

DSEE Extreme and LDAC Support

Obviously, the WF-C710N are not a flagship earbud, which means you will miss out on some of the coolest features from the flagship – although it isn’t a huge dealbreaker. DSEE Extreme uses an AI algorithm to upscale the compressed music to a better quality. For that, you’d require the QN1 processor, which the C710N doesn’t have. The lack of LDAC feels like an oversight, but you do need a solid processor, you find in the XM series, to be present here.

Both of these features are nice to have and are not dealbreakers. Actually, if you are using these earbuds with an Apple Device, you would benefit more because of AAC and forcing Apple Music to run Lossless and High Fidelity via Settings, which does help.

Other “Flagship-esque” Hardware (Which is expected)

Apart from those two we mentioned above, there are other flagship-esque features you will miss out with these WF-C710N. To mention a few, foam eartips which come included with the WF-1000XM5 and a lot of the processors which improve the experience to “Industry Leading” cost a pretty penny. But that’s okay, too. It is the right cost-cutting measure to keep the earbuds at a more affordable price point.

Conclusion

As a WF-1000XM5 user, I can say this: I picked the WF-C710N more often than I should for its really good sound out of the box, and feature-wise, it had all the necessary features I needed, especially Multipoint. And for the price you pay, at RM 499, these are some good earbuds that do it all very well. And honestly, you don’t need to buy the WF-1000XM5 – these C710N are plenty good.

In fact, Sony Malaysia is selling these earbuds for RM 369 on their Official Sony Store – making it a no-brainer choice for users to get. At this price, you best believe these babies will sell themselves.

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