AirPods 4: Two Month Review 🎧

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the AirPods 4 were a spec bump at first glance. But there are a lot of changes that make for a meaningfully new product. Both in terms of design and the feature set. And just as importantly, the sound. There are also two variants of the AirPods 4. Read on for my full review of Apple’s latest wireless earbuds.

Design ✨

As mentioned, visually, the AirPods 4 look quite similar to the AirPods 3 that they replace. But upon closer examination, the shape of the buds has been altered in many ways. Subtle ways. But there are numerous adjustments to the curvature of the buds. Now you might wonder why that’s such a big deal. The reason is that everybody has wildly different ear shapes. And earbuds are one size fits all for the most part. Even subtle changes can have a dramatic difference on the fit and feel in ear.

Apple claims that the AirPods 4 fit a much wider range of people, particularly for people who have a narrow antitragus. I’m quite fortunate that pretty much any earbuds seem to fit my ears and the AirPods 4 were no exception. A close friend of mine however, really struggled with the previous generation AirPods 3. They found that the larger more bulbous design didn’t stay in their ears as well as the original AirPods and AirPods 2. They tried my AirPods 4 and found the fit was a huge improvement. So much so that they felt confident to be able to use them for working out and outdoor activities. They stated that the fit seemed to be somewhere between the AirPods 2 and AirPods 3.

Fit aside, the AirPods 4 retain the iconic glossy white aesthetic. And to match them, a new, much smaller charging case. It feels quite a bit smaller than AirPods Pro and is easily the smallest charging case of any AirPods to date. This was facilitated by shorter stems at the base of the ear buds. The location of the microphones and external vents have also changed a little compared to the AirPods 3 in order to enable some new features. Speaking of…

Features 🛠️

The headline feature of the AirPods 4 is the addition of Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). What makes this such a big deal is that the AirPods 4 feature an open ear design. They don’t use silicon ear tips to create a seal with your ear canal like the AirPods Pro. Instead, the ANC relies on the new shape of the AirPods 4 to create a better seal, active noise cancelling microphones and some advanced software algorithms. I was really impressed with the active noise cancellation. As an owner of the AirPods Pro I was intrigued to see how it would stack up. It was really good! Not as effective as the AirPods Pro. But I’d say it cancelled around 60-70% of the noise that usually be cancelled out by the AirPods Pro. At least to my ears. Considering the AirPods 4 are 30% less expensive than the AirPods Pro, that seems reasonable as far as value is concerned. There are also many users who just can’t use earbuds with silicon ear tips. It’s great that there is now an option for that subset of customers.

Apple has added many features to the charging case. Including support for Apple’s Find My network which is ideal if you misplace or lose your AirPods 4. And the charging case also includes a speaker that can emit sound to help you to locate them. The case is now USB C compatible for charging. But can also be charged wirelessly. Where things get a bit more complicated is that this year, Apple has released a second variant of the AirPods 4 without ANC. They retain many of the core features of the version with ANC but you do also miss out on a wireless charging case. You’ll need to charge the case with USB C only. And while the case does support Find My, it doesn’t have the built in speaker. Accordingly here in the UK they’re £50 less expensive than the version with ANC and about half the price of AirPods 4.

Battery life was in my experience, pretty much spot on with Apple’s claims which I’ve listed below:

AirPods 4

• Up to 5 hours of listening time on a single charg
• Up to 4.5 hours of talk time on a single charge

Charging Case (USB‑C)

• Up to 30 hours of listening time
• Up to 20 hours of talk time
• 5 minutes in the case provides around 1 hour of listening time or around 45 minutes of talk time

AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation

• Up to 4 hours of listening time on a single charge with Active Noise Cancellation enabled¹⁵
• Up to 5 hours of listening time on a single charge with noise control off¹⁵
• Up to 4.5 hours of talk time on a single charge¹⁶

Charging Case (Wireless + USB‑C)

• Up to 20 hours of listening time with Active Noise Cancellation enabled
• Up to 30 hours of listening time with noise control off
• Up to 20 hours of talk time
• 5 minutes in the case provides around 1 hour of listening time or around 45 minutes of talk time

Sound 🔈

Sound quality receives a nice upgrade with the AirPods 4. They feature a new low distortion audio driver and new high dynamic range amplifier. Combined with Apple’s H2 chip and the new refined shape, the difference is notable and easy to appreciate. There’s also support for personalised Spatial Audio. It was impressive on the AirPods Pro and remains equally impressive on the AirPods 4. When Spatial Audio is switched off, audio sounds more ‘flat’ and less encompassing. For songs that haven’t been mixed with Spatial Audio, you can enable Spatialise Stereo which provides an impressive emulation. It isn’t quite as good as a dedicated mix, but it’s nice to have. It also works with a variety of sources such as YouTube, Spotify and video steaming services.

The version with ANC offers further audio features beyond noise cancellation. It also supports Apple’s fantastic transparency mode that lets other peoples voices and environmental sounds pass through. And there’s conversation awareness mode that automatically enables peoples voices to pass through when the AirPods 4 detect that you’re speaking. It achieves this with built in accelerometers. There’s also adaptive mode that creates a careful balance between active noise cancellation and transparency mode. Using machine learning, the AirPods intelligently bring in sound or block it out. It works pretty well at blocking out sounds on trains and traffic sounds while still cancelling out voices for instance. It isn’t quite as good as on the AirPods Pro but still sufficient and it’s nice to have the option.

One final thing to note is that there isn’t any lossless audio support here. The buds rely on Bluetooth 5.3. Even Apple’s high end AirPods Pro and AirPods Max don’t support lossless audio. The one exception being the AirPods Pro when paired with an Apple Vision Pro.

Summary 🎧

All in all the AirPods 4 are a fantastic user experience. Their design and improved shape should work for more people than ever. The charging case has been improved with great new features like Find My support and a more compact design. Sound quality has improved dramatically. And with the addition of active noice cancellation, there’s now a compelling, more affordable alternative to the AirPods Pro. They’re a fantastic option for gifting and there’s a version without active noice cancellation that are even more wallet friendly. A great new product and one that is easy to recommend.