Sony has refreshed its flagship wireless headphones this year, though you will be forgiven if you mistake the XM4s for a rehash of the XM3. Taking a “don’t fix it unless it’s broken” approach, Sony didn’t set out to fully remake the headphones.

The Sony WH-1000XM4 over-ear headphones combine fantastic sound quality, great battery life, and class-leading active noise cancellation to create one of the best pairs of headphones on the market.

There isn’t a lot of new features on the WH-1000XM4, but that’s because it is already very good. For existing WH-1000XM3 owners, there is little reason to upgrade, more so when the design is almost identical, providing little freshness to the new purchase.

One of the best active noise-cancelling implementations on headphones in the market; New feature "Speak-to-Chat" works magically well; Ability to custom EQ and save in the headphones; Excellent smartphone app features

Relatively marginal improvements that might not matter to many; Overall plastic design lacks the premium outlook; No aptX audio codec; although SBC did not fare poorly; Ambient sound not as open sounding

Ease of use and sound quality

These are comfortable headphones. This was the first thing I noticed when I put them on. The sound is crisp, although a little bit tinny. This could be something that could be fixed by adjusting the settings in either my phone's audio player (Audiolet) or with the Sony headphone app. Battery life is good, however. BTW I got them in the grey colour which is a cool alternative to everyone else who gets them in black.

The Sony WH-1000XM4 ups the ante in every way to challenge the Bose 700 for the title of best noise-cancelling headphones. Delivering small but significant enhancements in a familiar package, the Sony WH-1000XM4 is a strong contender for the best noise-cancelling headphones you can buy.

Excellent audio quality, Remarkable noise cancellation, Smart controls, Strong battery life, Lots of useful features

Call quality still needs work

Do not buy

The Sony WH-1000XM4 deliver excellent noise-cancellation and surprising sound quality all in a lightweight, comfortable design. While they don't look significantly different from their predecessors, a number of new features including multipoint pairing, DSEE Extreme upscaling, conversational...

Improved noise-cancellation; DSEE Extreme audio upscaling; Multipoint pairing; Auto-play/pause and conversation awareness

Imperceptible design changes; Not water-resistant; Call quality still isn’t perfect; Singing can pause the music

Our first impressions of hands-on time with Sony's new WH-1000XM4 hheadphones....

There was a mixed reaction among the TechCrunch staff when Sony’s WH-1000XM4 were announced the other week. There was excitement among those looking for new headphones and disappointment for those who’d recently purchased a different pair.