Audio, News

One of the Biggest Flaws of the Sony WF-1000XM3 Is Finally Addressed

We recently reviewed the Sony WF-1000XM3, and while it was an excellent pair of wireless earbuds with good active noise cancellation, one of its biggest shortcomings is the inability to adjust the volume with the earbuds’ controls. Well, this is finally addressed in a new firmware update, making this a much more complete product.

Once you’ve installed the new update, you can set the touch sensor on either the left or right earbud for volume controls. It’s a pretty smart implementation too: to raise the volume, you only need to tap on the sensor. Lowering the volume, on the other hand, requires you to tap and hold on the sensor.

We’ve tried the new controls with our unit of the WF-1000XM3, and it’s really quite intuitive. Continuously tapping on the sensor increases the volume at the same pace, but reducing the volume takes a bit more time for the sensor to recognise the gesture.

On top of that, the new firmware update also allows you to check the battery level of the charging case now. However, Sony wrote that the information will only be updated the moment the earbuds are removed from the case. It’s a little peculiar, but hey, at least the feature is here now.

In order to initiate the new firmware update, you need to have Sony’s Headphones Connect app installed on your paired device; you can download it on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Once you’ve got the app installed and the WF-1000XM3 paired, it should start downloading the update.

With this updated controls, the WF-1000XM3 is that much more practical. Sure, it’s still not sweat or water-resistant – a big omission for wireless earbuds at this price point – but it offers good audio quality, excellent active noise cancellation, and very long battery life.

In our experience, we managed to get well over four to five hours of usage on a single charge with these earbuds, and that is with noise cancellation active. It’s also worth noting that the charging case can fully charge the earbuds three times.

If you’d like to learn more about the Sony WF-1000XM3 wireless earbuds, check out our review right here. Although it originally retails at RM949, you can easily get it for only RM899 now.

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