Sony WF-XB700 truly wireless earphones review

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The WF-XB700 are the latest in Sony's Extra Bass lineup. Not to be confused with the WH-XB700, which are full-sized circumaural headphones, the WF-XB700 that we are looking at today are a pair of truly wireless earbuds.


The WF-XB700 are a more affordable alternative to Sony's popular but expensive WF-1000XM3 earphones. These do not include the active noise-canceling and some of the more advanced features of the WF-1000XM3 but have a more standard feature set with the addition of Extra Bass sound. At $130, the WF-XB700 are a full $100 cheaper than the WF-1000XM3 and more in line with the Samsung Galaxy Buds and the standard Apple AirPods.

While not the cheapest truly wireless earphones on the market, the Sony WF-XB700 could potentially be a good choice for someone looking for a quality product from a more reputable brand rather than picking something up from Amazon's bargain bin. Let's see how well they fare, especially against established rivals.

Design

The WF-XB700 come in a now-common pill-shaped case. The case is a bit larger than what most truly wireless earphones have but the reason for that does become apparent later on when you take the earphones out.


The case is finished in matte plastic and feels quite nice. The lid is translucent, which allows you to see the status LEDs for the case, and the individual earphones inside without opening it. Having said that, the LEDs for the case and earphones point in a different direction so you can't always see them all at a glance from the same angle.

The back of the case has a USB-C connector for charging.


Opening up the lid, you notice that the case design is tilted forward, making the earphones angled towards you. The effect is similar to opening a case for a piece of jewelry but is likely done so you can see all the LEDs more clearly from outside when the lid is closed. But as we discussed before, that doesn't quite work.

Before I get to the earphones themselves, I want to mention that the lid has quite a satisfying opening and closing mechanism. It's clear Sony engineers paid some attention to the case design, and it is indeed quite a bit nicer than those you get with cheap truly wireless earphones.

Now, on to the earphones. When you pull one of these out you realize why the case is so much taller than most other truly wireless earphone cases. The earphones seem massive at first and larger than what I had anticipated based on pictures. It's an almost alien-looking enclosure, with a perfectly normal exterior and then all sorts of shapes and appendages bulging out of it. There are three layers to the design, the outer case, then a second layer that sits inside your outer ear, and then finally the part that goes in your ear.


All of this gives the WF-XB700 earphones quite a unique appearance and at first, I wasn't sure how this even goes in my ears. My initial assessment that the Sony logo on the outside would be horizontal once I wear them was wrong and the logo sits almost vertical once they are in your ears. Once you figure that out, putting them on is as easy as any other earphones.

The manual for these earphones seems to recommend that you twist them while inserting in your ears but I wouldn't quite recommend that. The earphones go in fine even without twisting and it's very easy to put excessive pressure on your ears while twisting them in so it seems a bit unsafe as well.


Both the earphones have one button each for controlling all the functions. The list of functions seems excessive at first but as you use them you get used to it. The button on the left controls volume; you press to increase and press and hold to decrease. The button on the right controls the playback; press once to play/pause, twice to skip forward, thrice to skip back. If you press and hold it activates the voice assistant on your phone. Both the left and right buttons can be pressed to pick up/end calls.

I'll say this about the buttons; Sony had the common sense to implement the buttons

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