Out: Sony WH1000-XM3 headphones

I’ve had these Sony headphones for nearly 4 years and I use them almost daily. Recently, I was browsing prices for the latest versions… the XM4s and XM5s. Someone snuck up behind my desk and exclaimed at the price tag: $300-350. But when you think about daily cost, and how much they’ve improved my quality of life in blocking out most noises in my apartment building… they are worth it.

They also rate quite well.

If you look close, you can even see the black electrical tape I’ve used to repair the headband

If I’m judging the headphones as a whole? Easy. In.

However, today I am not judging the headphones as a whole.

What’s being judged here

Today, we are looking at the headphones in order to judge the power button.

How does it work?

You can see it in the photo above, the single button above the power label. In order to use this power button, you hold it down for 1-2 seconds. Optimally, you are wearing the headphones when you do this, and you hear a female voice say, “Power off” or “power on,” depending on the current power state. There’s a blue light that blinks near the button, but it does so regardless of whether the power is being turned on or off, so it signifies nothing.

The verdict

I hate this feature. Often, my headphones are not on my head when I’m using the button. Often, I’ve put my headphones down for a few minutes and can’t remember the power status (the battery lasts for hours, so I’m not conservative about saving power), and I just want to quickly check. But this doesn’t allow for that. Instead, I’m forced to hold my earphones to my ear and listen for the voice: “power on” or “power off.”

The most frustrating thing is when I want to verify that the headphones are on, and I turn them off by accident, and have to wait and turn them on again. This is usually what I’m forced to do.

I can imagine Sony would tell me to just wear them at all times when turning them on or off. However, my rebuttal to this is that there’s a second switch near the power button (the “NC/Ambient” switch pictured above), which feels identical. So when the headphones are on your head, you can’t even feel that you’ve located the correct switch. It’s easier just to take them off and look at the button, each time.

Out.

My idea for the fix

Whatever happened to the good, old-fashioned power switch? It’s more tactile, and it’s simple to discern the status at a glance.