I tested Sony's newest earbuds – the price pleasantly surprised me

There's realistically never been a better time to be in the market for some budget-friendly but nonetheless excellent earbuds. The best in-ears have long been dominated by a few names, of whom Sony is definitely one. But pressure from new brands like Nothing has ensured that it i among the many big names diversifying with lower-cost options.

A couple of years ago, it released the WF-C700N, a very impressive pair of 'buds for just a shade under £100. Now it's back with a revised version: the WF-C710N. I've been using them for a couple of weeks to see how they compare to the competition, and to work out whether you should be spending less on your earbuds in the first place.

How cheap are Sony's C710N?

The Sony WF-C710N are available now through a wide range of retailers, having arrived at the end of March 2025. They come in a few colours, one of which is notable – a transparent blue finish called "Glass Blue" which looks extremely fetching in photos. Sadly, I was sent the more run-of-the-mill black version. There are also white and pink options for those who prefer something brighter.

The earbuds are priced at £100 / $119.99 / AU$200, which means there has been no price bump at all compared to the previous version of these earbuds. That's quite decent given 2 years of fairly steady inflation in the meantime, ensuring these remain good value.

How comfortable are Sony's WF-C710N?

While the case of the WF-C710N doesn't look all that different to last time out, opening it up and taking out the earbuds reveals that Sony has actually made some small but fairly telling design changes. The biggest is that where the WF-C700N had rounded outsides, with circular cutouts showing you where to initiate controls, but in the C710N the outer edge of each earbud is flat.

This is in line with Sony's newer hardware elsewhere, and I think it results in a slightly more mature look and feel. Certainly, the biggest benefit here is that it's much easier for your fingers to tell when they're in the right place for touch controls, since there's a clear edge to the area in question.

Beyond that, there isn't much to write home about, design-wise, since these are fairly run-of-the-mill earbuds. They're entirely made out of plastic, which is no surprise and has major upsides in terms of weight (each earbud weighs 5.2g). As always, you get a few different sizes of silicone ear tips to choose from for the best fit, too.

The case might not look much different, but it's worth a mention. It's pill-shaped with a flat bottom (although that doesn't mean there's wireless charging, sadly). Flipping it open reveals the earbuds, and there's a status light on the front to give you some intel about their battery situation. The back holds a USB-C charging port and a button to initiate pairing.

The top lid of the case remains a little flimsy to open and close, which is definitely a direct consequence of the budget the WF-C710N are aimed at. Still, the magnetic seal that locks your earbuds into place is impressively strong – I've tested substantially pricier earbuds that have felt riskier on this front.

That feeling echoes out when you consider the features that the WF-C710N offer up. The biggest inclusion is active noise cancelling (ANC), which was once unthinkable at this price but is now increasingly common. The earbuds are also now properly weatherproof, with IPX4 protection ensuring they can be splashed from any direction without issues.

Another small but telling addition is wear detection, which ensures that taking an earbud out of your ear pauses your media. Whenever this is missing I feel its absence, so I'd consider a great little bonus here.

On the connectivity side, Sony's DSEE is present and correct – or 'Digital Sound Enhancement Engine' for the full name – along with SBC and AAC codec support, although LDAC (a high-quality audio codec developed by Sony, not an acronym) is missing. The inclusion of Bluetooth 5.3 means that you can use multi-point connectivity to quickly swap between audio sources, which is useful.

What's the C710N's battery life like?

A feature list is well and good, but actual performance while in regular use is the real key to deciding whether to buy at this slightly lower budget. The WF-C710N make quite a case for themselves, too, although they can't ultimately compete with premium sonic performance.

Listening to the WF-C710N connected to my iPhone, across a range of sources but with music piped from Apple Music, the earbuds are spirited and have a decent degree of precision, something that I really value in headphones.

I found that the earbuds were most in their comfort zone when I was listening to modern, poppier material – your Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan alikes. Still, with gentler fare, there was still plenty to be said for their presentation – even if the sound stage on offer isn't massively expansive.

The bass here is also surprisingly punchy, which means these earbuds come in as a seriously impressive sonic package. For this money, you won't find many options out there that can outdo the WF-C710N.

That said, very little has changed here since the WF-C700N, so if you're still happily using a pair of those older 'buds, I wouldn't say you'll have much reason to change.

Turning to how the ANC performs for a moment. It's certainly welcome that it's included, let alone improved. This is the sort of more brute-force cancelling that you typically get at lower prices – it certainly suppresses the noise around you in a palpable way, but it's not the subtlest effect.

Pause your music, and you can practically hear it at work as a form of static, something that better exemplars, like the Technics EAH-AZ100 or Apple AirPods Pro 2, avoid. Still, this undoubtedly makes a difference if you're on a plane or a train and simply don't want to hear the hissing of outside air or the chugging of an aircon unit.

The earbuds have great battery life, too, to make them an easy sell in lifestyle terms. Turn on ANC and you can expect to get 8.5 hours of music on a single charge, while turning the setting off ups this to 12 hours. If you're on voice calls, this figure will be substantially lower, interestingly.

Still, those are great figures that mean you can realistically expect to get through a working day without ever needing to give the earbuds a break. There are at least two more charges to be had from the case, too, totalling around 40 hours without needing to actually connect anything to power. Again, there are plenty of more expensive rivals that cannot match these numbers, and that becomes telling when you actually use them.

Sony WF-C710N review: Verdict

It's hard to argue with value like this – while I've listened to better-sounding earbuds than the WF-C710N, few of those have come close to matching its price tag. That makes these earbuds a great new pick for a budget-friendly pair of in-ears, with a whole lot to like about them.

They sound great, have excellent battery life, and good connectivity, with solid features and decent ANC. That's a great package at any price, but for this low sum it's doubly impressive.

Also consider

If you like the transparency of Sony's blue version of the WF-C710N, then you might want to check out the Nothing Ear (2), which similarly has some exposed tech and transparent plastic. In fact, it really kicked off the trend in the first place, along with offering low-cost competition.

For those who remain big Sony fans, meanwhile, but who have a little more to spend on their next pair of earbuds, the WF-1000XM5 are the flagship offering. That means a big leap in terms of sound quality and design, along with build quality too.