Review Sony WF-C700N: Compact ANC Earbuds For An Attractive Price

Sony has several wireless earbuds in its portfolio and the Japanese manufacturer recently added the new Sony WF-C700N. In terms of price, the Sony WF-C700N falls between the high-end WF-1000XM4 and the affordable WF-C500 earbuds. In this review, we look at what the Sony WF-C700N has to offer and why you should or shouldn’t get the earbuds.

Contents
Before we discuss the design of the earbuds and the audio quality, let’s take a look at the contents of the packaging. The earbuds come in a white cardboard packaging, in which we also find a charging case, a small USB C cable, two extra sets of eartips and some paperwork in addition to the earbuds. The Sony WF-C700N is available in the colors black, white, purple and green. In this review we look at the black version.

Design and wearing comfort

One of the selling points of the Sony WF-C700N is the minimalist and compact design of the earbuds. This is also immediately noticeable when you take the earplugs out of the packaging. Weighing just 4.6 grams, the WF-C700N are Sony’s lightest ANC earbuds to date. The advantage of light earplugs is that you can wear them for longer without them starting to irritate your ears. Since many people keep their wireless earbuds in all day, this is very important.

The earplugs are small and use rubber tips that seal your ear canal well. As a result, the earbuds do not protrude far from your ear and they stay in place during a walk or a vigorous workout. The earplugs are IPX4 certified, which means that the earplugs are resistant to sweat and small rain showers.

Many earbuds have a touch-sensitive housing, but Sony has opted for a large physical button with the WF-C700N. Personally, I like the physical buttons on wireless earbuds because you can feel a feedback when you press the button and rarely accidentally pause the music when you touch the earbuds. With (often cheaper) earplugs you sometimes hear a very loud click in your ear when you press the physical button, but that is not the case with the Sony WF-C700N. The physical button is also very sensitive, so you don’t have to press the button hard. Via the Sony Headphones Connect app you can indicate which actions you want to perform with a press of the left or right button.

The Sony WF-C700N earbuds come with a pill-shaped charging case. This charging case has a simple minimalist design with a plastic housing and a flat bottom. The housing has a similar matte finish to the earbuds. The cover of the charging case uses a magnet that closes the charging case with a solid click. On the front we find a small green notification light and on the back a USB-C port and a connection button. The charging case does not have an impressive appearance, but it does feel sturdy.

Audio and features

Before you can use the earbuds, you must first connect them to a device. Fortunately, making a connection is very easy thanks to Google Fast Pair. As soon as you take the earbuds out of the charging case, the earbuds are recognized by the nearby Android smartphone. You will see a pop-up on your smartphone after which you only have to confirm the connection. The next time you take the earbuds out of the charging case, the earbuds will automatically reconnect to your smartphone. Of course you can also connect the earbuds to other Bluetooth devices, such as your laptop or iPad. Thanks to ‘Multipoint Bluetooth’ you can stay connected with two devices at the same time. The earbuds automatically switch to the device that is currently playing audio. For example, if you’re watching a movie on your laptop and you receive an incoming call on your smartphone, the Sony WF-C700N will automatically switch to the smartphone. When you hang up you can immediately continue with the film.

The Sony WF-C700N is equipped with relatively small 5mm audio drivers. Despite this small size, the earplugs deliver a clear sound. The vocals are clean, but straight out of the box the bass wasn’t powerful enough for my taste. If you don’t like the preset EQ settings, you can happily adjust the EQ settings to your liking in the Sony Headphones Connect app. If the bass isn’t powerful enough for you, you can simply turn up the low tones in the equalizer. You only have to increase the bass a little bit, because if you use an equalizer with increased bass settings, the caps will soon be overfed. Turning the bass up too high can result in the bass creaking. So we’d recommend cranking up the bass just a touch in the Sony Headphones Connect app, although this of course depends on your personal taste.

One of the biggest selling points of the WF-C700N is the noise canceling present. ANC is a feature that is not always present on more affordable earplugs, and if it is present, the quality of this function is often a bit disappointing. However, this is not the case with the Sony WF-C700N. Despite the small size of the earplugs, ambient noise is well filtered out. For example, if you compare the noise canceling of the Sony WF-C700N with that of the slightly more expensive Nothing Ear (2), the Sony earplugs emerge as the clear winner. If you don’t want to block the ambient sounds, but rather amplify them, you can switch on the Ambient Mode. In this mode, ambient sounds are passed through, which is useful if you are talking to someone or participating in traffic.

The audio quality is also more than sufficient during calls. The person on the other end of the line is clearly audible and vice versa. So the microphones in the earbuds do what they are supposed to do. The earplugs also seem to have little trouble with cracking noises that can be caused by wind when talking on the phone.

Many earplugs nowadays have a sensor that can measure whether or not you are wearing the earplugs. This will automatically pause the music when you take the earbuds out of your ear, and resume playing when you put the earbuds back in your ear. Unfortunately, this sensor is not present on the Sony WF-C700N, so the media continues to play when you take off the earbuds. This may be a small detail, but if you switch from earbuds that do have this sensor, you have to get used to the fact that you have to manually pause the music with the push of a button on the Sony earbuds.

Battery life
With ANC enabled, the Sony WF-C700N earbuds last for 7.5 hours and when you don’t use ANC you can listen to music for up to 10 hours. This is excellent and we have nothing to complain about. We are slightly less positive about the accompanying charging case. This charging case provides one extra charge, or in other words an extra 7.5 hours of listening pleasure with ANC switched on. This is somewhat less than many competing earbuds, where the charging case often gives the earbuds more than 2 full charges. The total battery life of the Sony WF-C700N therefore amounts to 15 hours (with ANC) or 20 hours (without ANC).

Conclusion (advantages/disadvantages)

The Sony WF-C700N cannot compete with Sony’s high-end earplugs, but we should not expect this if we look at the large price difference. Instead, with the WF-C700N, Sony has released a very attractive set of earbuds to compete with the mid-range segment of other manufacturers. In that respect, the Sony WF-C700N does very well. The Sony WF-C700N delivers a nice sound despite the small drivers, has ANC support that works well and with a battery life of 7.5 hours you can use the earbuds almost all day. The light weight of the earplugs also ensures that you can wear the earplugs for a long time without irritating your ear canal or auricle.

Unfortunately, there are no sensors that detect whether or not you are wearing the earbuds and the charging case only supplies the earbuds with one extra charge, but otherwise there is little to complain about and we can certainly recommend the Sony WF-C700N.

Advantages
– Clear sound
– The ANC works well
– Light and comfortable earplugs
– Attractive price tag

Cons
– No sensors for automatically pausing music when removing the earbuds
– The earbuds themselves have a good battery life, but the charging case only gives one extra charge.

The Sony WF-C700N is available from Coolblue, among others, for 119 euros. You can choose from the colors black, white, purple and green.

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