Description
Whether working or relaxing at home, listen in comfort and style all day with new Surface Headphones 2. Your music and phone calls sound spectacular with enhanced Omnisonic sound. Tune out distractions with adjustable noise cancellation. Listen to almost an hour of music with just a 5-minute charge — and listen all day with up to 20 hours of battery life. Plus, use touch to control your music, calls, get assistance, and more.
From the manufacturer
The smarter way to listen
Surround yourself with spectacular Omnisonic sound for music, shows, and calls. Stay focused with adjustable noise cancellation. And, listen in comfort all day long.
Now in two colors
Light Gray and new Matte Black.
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Spectacular sound. Or peace and quiet.Experience your music, shows, and calls like never before with spectacular Omnisonic sound and 13 levels of adjustable noise cancellation. |
Designed for comfort & controlPower through your day with up to 18.5 hours of music listening time[2] or up to 15 hours of voice calling on Microsoft Teams[4]. And, listen to almost an hour of music with just a 5-minute charge. |
Get ahead with your headphonesLet your voice do the typing. Use dictation in Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint.*1 Catch up on emails with Play My Emails in the Outlook mobile app for iOS. [*1] |
Pairs with your SurfaceComplete your Surface experience with the perfect accessory to fuel your productivity. Connects effortlessly with one click via Swift Pair. [3] |
Chase S. –
A solid B+ effort.I was interested in getting a pair of bluetooth headphones, mainly for when I’m travelling but also for everyday use around the house. I’ve never had a pair of active noise-canceling ones before and that’s not a feature I would say was very important to me going into this, but I figured if I’m shelling out I might as well try out the tech.I looked at a good number of contenders, and eventually narrowed it down to these versus the Sony XM3s or XM4s. People seem to generally think the Sonys sound better and have superior battery life, but the dealbreaker for me was the widespread reports of the XM3s wonking out in cold weather conditions (I live in Alaska). It’s possible they’ve fixed that on the XM4s, but I didn’t really want to chance it. Also, the touch controls on the Sonys seemed a little troublesome to me.Anyway, I caught these Surface Headphones for a little cheaper on Prime Day, and decided to give them a shot.The quick shot on this for those just looking for a verdict is that I’ve had a mostly pleasant experience with them from day one.The headphones came almost fully charged, which is always a nice, if minor touch. They also come with their own carrying case, which has an internal mesh pocket for also carrying some cables. And speaking of cables, the headphones come with a USB-C cable and a 3.5mm cable with a mic built-in. This is important because even though these headphones have a mic for hands-free, the mic is disabled during wired usage.These are, in my opinion, comfortable headphones. The cushioning is not as large and thick as on my Status Audio CB-1s, but I don’t feel any fatigue wearing them. The headphones have a nice but significant heft to them, and look unassuming and reasonably elegant. They DO NOT fold up completely for portability, but the inclusion of a carrying case helps me overlook this.The controls are simple. For buttons, you have a power button and a dedicated mic mute button, which I appreciate. Then you have control dials. You can rotate the outer ring of each of the cans to control volume and noise-canceling. This is also simple, which I like. And then finally, the flat area on each side of the headphones is a basic touch surface for play/pause, forward/back, and the voice assistant (like Cortana or maybe Siri). This is where I have run into issues. You tap once to play/pause, twice and thrice for forward and back, respectively, and hold for the voice assistant. The single tap and hold gestures work fine, but the double and especially triple tap gestures have been pretty unreliable for me, such that I’ve stopped using them entirely. What often happens is it ends up recognizing a triple tap as some mixture of a single and double tap instead.The headphones also talk to you. When you turn them on, the first thing you get is a notification on how much battery is remaining. It also tells you when it connects to a device, using a text-to-speech engine. It also tells you when you hit the minimum or max on noise-canceling levels, which is nice because it serves as a reminder for which direction to turn the dial when you want to lower or increase noise-canceling.Also of note, the headphones automatically pause when you take them off, and resume when you put them back on. This is a nice feature I suppose, but I think it would be nice if you could disable it.Other features… It has an accompanying app, for Windows, Android, and iOS. The app lets you rename the headphones and remotely set noise-cancelling, and on Windows it is also how you set up some additional features for Office that I’m not very familiar with. Probably the most important thing the apps let you do though is update the firmware and customize the equalizer. It would be great if you could also customize the touch gestures via the apps, like change single-tap to forward or something like that. But you can’t. Also on Android, the app floats a constant notification while the headphones are connected. That’s a little annoying and redundant, so I forcibly disabled that notification via the system notification settings. There have been no negative effects from this, from what I can tell.The headphones can be used passively over a 3.5mm cable, with or without battery life. In this scenario, they become just like any other pair of detachable over-ear headphones; you cannot use the active-noise canceling, and the Bluetooth radio shuts off (in fact, you have to reboot the headphones to use them normally after connecting a cable). The volume dial still works, though.These headphones use multipoint, and to good effect. You can connect to multiple devices at the same time, and the headphones switch between them without a hitch. For example, I use these with my laptop and my phone. I can listen to a podcast on my phone, pause there, then open up a video on my laptop and the headphones will automatically switch to outputting from my laptop. It’s really good.Call quality with the mic seems good. I tested it briefly on a Discord call and everyone gave the thumbs up that they could hear me perfectly clearly, even in comparison to a dedicated boom mic that I usually use.As for noise cancelling… as I said at the beginning of the review, these are my first ANC headphones, so I don’t really have a point of comparison. But I will say, I’m impressed by the concept itself. I can see these being killer on an airplane, and when I realized that I then felt a lot of shame for killing my ears turning up the volume with standard earbuds. I look forward to the next time I get to fly with these headphones, whenever that will be. Otherwise, the two big use cases I’ve had instead are vacuuming and dish cleaning. These will effectively cancel out the noise from both, allowing me to listen to stuff from my phone or computer, and at a reasonable volume too. I’m super into that. The ambient noise amplification, by contrast, is a bit uneven/unnatural sounding, though. Somehow that doesn’t surprise me, but if I want ambient noise I kinda just end up removing the headphones a lot of the time.Obviously these are headphones, and headphones are supposed to sound good. Well sadly, this isn’t really the review you’ll want to be reading for an in-depth opinion on sound quality. I’m not an audiophile, and the things I listen to most with these (audiobooks, podcasts) are inherently not that high on bitrate anyway. I think these headphones sound great, and that’s about the most I can say on the matter.The headphones are rated to last 20hrs on a charge, which is already less than a lot of other competitors, namely the well-known Sony XM4s. But in my experience you’re more likely to get ~17hrs. It’s not terrible, but I hope they do better in their next iteration.All in all, these are easy to use, reasonably stylish headphones that tick most boxes for me. They could use some improvements here and there, like in customizing the controls and in battery life, but I enjoy using them and feel good about my purchase.Edit 5/31/2021Knocking a star off of these. They have an issue I’ve encountered recently where they often disconnect from my devices, unprompted, and go back into pairing mode. I’m not sure what’s causing it, but it happens frequently enough to annoy me.Edit 8/21/2021The disconnecting issue seems to have disappeared, but I have another issue. These SURFACE headphones made by MICROSOFT, the WINDOWS company hitch in audio constantly when playing anything from my SURFACE computer, also made by MICROSOFT, the WINDOWS company. They work flawlessly with my phone, but I can’t get them to play anything reliably from my Surface Book, even though they connect just fine.
PL –
This time it’s Microsoft for the win!It’s 2020, the year of USB-C, Bluetooth 5.0, sophisticated touch controls, aptX like codecs, multi-point connectivity, and of course the every improving “active” noise cancellation experimentations in high-end headphones.And just when I thought Bose would reign as the absolute supreme with NC700 with its build, touch controls, call quality, noise cancellation (Sony XM4 tad better in this department but sorry – too bass heavy for me), balanced sound stage (audiophiles, settle down, these are $250 consumer grade Bluetooth headsets, not your Planar or Grado, or tube amplifier driven Sennheiser), there came a pleasant surprise from…Microsoft!?The Surface Headphones 2 is an absolute joy to listen to and checks almost all the boxes for me. Priced at a modest $250, I am not going to say that there aren’t other / better options out there, but this overall “package” from Microsoft really hit the spot for me, at least.The case: Absolute perfection. Slim profile, rugged, and looks very business-friendly.The headset: Big ears, rejoice! Perfect fit and roomy. Not too clamp heavy unless your head dimensions are inhuman. The cushion materials are very good but may attract oil / dust so best to keep them in the case when not in use, and it will need a mild wipe down every now and then. The build is solid otherwise.The controls: Absolutely amazing rotary dials and the touch controls are fine. There is a very handy mute button, too. Every once in a while they will not respond to my touch but once you kind of figure out what that touch surface likes (hint: fleshy part of your fingers – not nails), you’ll be just fine. Another hint: if you want to skip to next (two taps) or previous (three taps), do those taps very quickly for them to register every single time.The sound quality: I do not believe in the concept of headphone burn-in, because let’s face it, it’s got almost nothing to do with the headset, but more your ears adjusting to the new headset’s sound stage. A bad sounding headset is a bad sounding headset now and in a year from now. I believe in initial impression. As soon as I put these on and started my test track, it brought a smile to my face, just like its competition Bose (again, Sony XM4 was too bass heavy for me). An open, crisp, wide sound stage with very sufficient bass, and a little more emphasis on mid-frequencies, but overall very very pleasing. It is a keeper. About initial impressions, I recently I tested an AKG 371 BT and while a name brand, it was somewhat disappointing given its fit, form, and mainly sound quality as soon as the test track started, so back it went.The noise cancellation: The rotary dial is awesome for controlling noise cancellation and volume super quickly. Noise cancellation has max, medium, low, pass-through, and amplified surrounding settings, the last two great for phone calls that will require a bit of side tone (you hearing your own voice) that feels more natural. The noise cancellation is on par with Bose NC700, which is more than enough. Please do not expect either of these headsets (even XM4 for that matter) to fully drown out high pitched sounds. Noise cancellation works on low frequency continuous hum like jet engine noise and a little bit helpful for mid frequencies like reducing the harshness of people chatter. If you have a dog that barks or a baby that cries, that’s on you, it’s not the headset :)The call quality: Very good. No complaints unless you are taking calls standing at the top of the mountain with heavy wind or in heavy traffic. Even then, you can be heard but don’t expect work meetings to go well in those situations. Moderately noisy coffee shop or home settings are perfectly fine for these.The connectivity: It’s got Bluetooth 5, so its range shouldn’t be an issue. No latency when watching videos. It also can connect to two devices simultaneously (say a phone and a tablet), and even if you are listening to your tablet, it’ll stop whatever is playing if you get a phone call. Cool! Even Microsoft Windows 10, with its atrocious Bluetooth management, connects to this seamlessly (it’d have been shameful if it didn’t). The app is OK – nothing to write home about. If you have a Windows 10 machine for work and need something that’s not Jabra or Plantronics, this is highly recommended.TL;DR: This is a very 2020 generation headphone with USB-C and Bluetooth 5.0. Get it if you don’t want Jabra or Plantronics for your Windows 10 ecosystem. Great call quality but won’t cancel heavy winds, great sound stage with sufficient emphasis on bass, comfortable fit for big ears but may not be for overly large heads, excellent controls, case and the headset built-to-last, multi-point connectivity is A-OK, the app is alright.Side Note: Only if you have small / mid-size ears (e.g. if the original AirPods fit you very well), and do not care about noise cancellation, you may want to try Surface Buds. They didn’t stay in my ears at all, so back they went.
Jeremy –
Nice headset but do NOT buy for a windows pc.TM:DR- This is a great headset. Only has AAC and SBC codecs. I don’t recommend using them for Windows though. Read below for more details.I’ve tried all 3 recent BT headsets out there. I wanted to make sure it had BT5.0(the latest greatest BT at the time)I tried the Sony XM4, these Bose700, and even the Surface Headphone 2.To break it down:Sony’s sounded great, but good bass at a small cost to overall sound quality/sound-stage. If you’re a bass-head, go for it. If not, they’re ok but I don’t recommend for anything but bass.Bose700 best overall sound quality and pretty comfortableSurface Headphone 2, avoid like the plague, they sound AWFUL. Like listening to music through a pillow.Tbf I didn’t use any app these headphones came with. Imho if they weren’t good out of the box, aka calibrated in the factory, then I didn’t want them anyways.Onto the Bose700, good solid headset but do NOT use these(or any BT headset for that matter) with Windows10. Windows, for whatever dumba** reason, can’t play audio through the headphones and use the mic at the same time. Windows problem, not the headset. In hindsight, my dumba** should’ve bought RF headphones or just BT headphones, not headset, and use a dedicated mic for pc.This headset has a very even soundstage with decent bass. They sound good. BUT they only support aac codecs so, unless you have an audio device that supports it, you’re stuck with SBC(basic bluetooth codec that all BT devices have) and thus just sounds ok. And idk many things that support aac. most support aptx. So ymmv.These headphones are comfortable enough to keep wearing all day but the headband isn’t large enough and the headset holds heat. Thus you may sweat while wearing them if you live in a hot place(I live in the South so I have this issue but it’s not too bad). They’re just a little hot thanks to the “leather” they use on the very soft earcups and being closed back(no airflow). There’s not much plush to the earcups but it’s enough so my ears aren’t touching the fabric over the drivers.BT5.0 is kind of a joke. Sure it can pair to two+ devices but it can’t use both at same time so it has to switch between. This switch isn’t fast enough imho. What happens is I pair these headphones to my pc and my phone(so I can hear when someone calls me. Can’t hear jack with the awesome noise cancelation lol) and I’ll be playing music on pc, when I get a phone notification it cuts off my pc audio to play the phone ding, then switches back to pc. When it does this, it abruptly cuts off audio from both devices so pc audio cuts off, I hear half of the ding, and then it cuts back into the pc audio. May sound fine on paper but it’s jarring irl. Sometimes the switch is so delayed that I don’t even hear the phone ding, the audio from pc just cuts out and I check my phone out of habit now. It NEEDS to be a faster switch or best case just port the audio from the phone into the pc audio feed.For pc, the touchpad volume controls and the hold to hear battery life functions work well but the forward/back track controls do NOT work. Good enough for me though. The button to turn NC on/off works well. It has 3 stages: 100% NC, 50% NC, and off by default. You can change the steps using the app but I hate needing an app for everything. I avoid apps when I can. And this headset is good out of the box.The noise cancellation is superb. It has a downside though, I can’t hear anything else so if someone is calling me, and my phone isn’t paired to the headset, I’m NOT hearing it lol.Battery life is 20 hours. Realistically 18 though. Which isn’t a lot compared to most. So be sure to charge these after each session or they’ll definitely die on you.This headset has a female robot voice to inform you what it’s doing: “Bluetooth off” “Connected to” etc. But if you have it connected to a pc named Jerry for example, it’ll say “Connecting to J.E.R.R.Y.”(spelled out) and then “Connected to J.E.R.R.Y” If you have a long source name, it’ll get annoying fast. It’s annoying but very informative. Other headset say the name but sound super strange saying the name so it spelling it out is slightly better imo.The headset comes with a carrying case, a 2.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable for wired listening, a small usb-c to usb-a charge cable, and an app if you care to use it(I didn’t and it was great out of the box). The case has a small compartment for the cables but not much room for a charge brick so you’re stuck carrying/sourcing your own charge brick.Overall, they’re good but could’ve been better comfort-wise.
Win –
Love at first note (exchanged)Update 1/27/21: a little over a month of use with the surface 2’s and I’m noticing a significant drop in battery life. At first Cortona would tell me 17 hours remaining but the past week or so that full charge notice went from 16 hours to 15 hours. I’m not sure why the battery life after being charged overnight has dropped that much especially within the first year of use.I am doing an exchange and hopefully the replacement works much better in terms of battery life. Have to drop at least a star for now.4 1/2 stars!I’ve never been compelled to write a review within hours of receiving and owning a product but these surface 2’s made my day!I was leery of buying them b/c I never tried them on and comfort is so much about the headphone experience. Having tried on Sony, Bose, Sennheiser etc I knew what was and what was not comfortable for me. I ran the entire gamut and took months to make this decision but something about the Surface 2’s kept calling me.I am glad I bought them b/c they met all of my expectations w/ literally 2 absolutely minor caveats.Pros: absolutely comfortable. They are truly over the ear headphones w/ generous space avoiding pinching or clamping down on any part of my ears. My ears are encompassed in a perfect audio blanket. They do not make my ears hot after hours of wearing them. Zero jaw pressure and crown pinch. The form is perfect for me.Audio is great. Noise cancellation is amazing but not as good as the Sony xm4’s. It’s literally a photo finish race and the xm4’s outperformed the surface 2’s. I’m not an audiophile but I felt like I was hearing new notes and peaks w/ my music while wearing the surface 2’s. The xm4’s have better sound but I’m not complaining.Call quality is fine. Ppl can hear me just fine and I can hear them, no complaints at all. I love the ability to switch b/w two devices. So while editing on my Mac I can seamlessly transition to my iPhone and take that call and go back to work on my Mac after hanging up.The dials on these are also such a huge plus. I love power authority on volume and noise cancellation. I don’t want to go to my phone or into an app to make an adjustment. A simple turn on either side and I’m good to go. I think that’s the feature that pulled me towards the surface 2’s. No app and the ability to adjust volume and most importantly noise cancellation with a simple turn is what sold me.Look is unique and my partner says it’s awkwardly beautiful and I agree with her. The gray is pristine, I have some worry that wear will show easier but I’m tired of white and black as the only options.Cons: 18.5 hour battery life is advertised but I can only get 17. I know that’s not much but I’m left wondering why? Not a deal breaker by any means.The touch controls can be better. Tap, double tap, triple tap… not as accurate and reliable as I’d like but again not a deal breaker.Those are my only two knocks on these surface 2’s but my partner did mention one that I don’t really agree with. She says they feel flimsy. I can see what she is saying but having each cup spin 180 is great for storage. Oh and the case provided is solid!She also mentioned a slight delay in response time w/ audio commands but I don’t care too much about a second or two.I hit the lotto with these. Love them, can’t put them down and I don’t want to share lolPrice is ok, I was hoping to see a sale w/ it being the holidays but I’m so happy w/ them I am cool with $250.I waited a long long time to get noise canceling headphones and I hit a grand slam on my first try!
Emmah Stevens –
Pretty nice sound quality headphones but don’t lastPretty nice look and sound quality. If you do have the touch sensors on, the sound is super loud which is very annoying. I like the design a lot but after a year the cover has broken off and the right ear piece broke in half. I also have to wrap it together with a hair elastic to keep it from losing charge.
Some Guy Somewhere –
Disappointing in almost every aspect that I value.Many of us are dealing with the new reality of working from home. Zoom meetings take up half my day, and I’ve been on a quest to find the perfect virtual meeting headsets. My criteria are quite simple: – Excellent noise cancellation (I have a lot of background noise at home) – Microphone mute capability (if I get up to do something and have to talk to someone, or flush a toilet, I don’t want that broadcasting to everyone else on the call) – Bluetooth wireless; I don’t want to be bound to my desk, especially for those long, boring status update meetings – Comfort (literally wearing these things for hours each day – Speed/ ease of setup and use (I need to grab my headphones, turn them on, get into an impromptu meeting)This is a $200+ item, so I would expect this to meet or exceed my standards in the above 4 categories, but so far I am highly unimpressed.*Noise Cancellation*The active noise cancellation (ANC) is mediocre at best. For considerably less money I can get considerably better noise cancellation. Turning my head a few degrees in any direction can make the background sound noticeably change in volume. The “max” noise reduction setting is comparable to the “min” noise reduction in other headsets I own. It does cancel the noise reduction enough to make the virtual meetings workable, but it’s not satisfying.It also seems that the noise cancellation setting resets every Zoom meeting I enter. That is mystifying to me, and quite annoying. I literally can have my headphones on, enjoying the noise-cancelled silence, join a call, and have to re-enable noise cancelling. Whose bright idea was this?*Mute Capability*So few wireless headsets have this, and it baffles me. This one does, but it was confusing to set up; my system ended up registering 2 headphone mics: one that supported muting and one that did not. Still, once it’s set up, works as advertised. The button is easy to find with my thumb without hunting for it.However, when you mute, it doesn’t just beep or something, it says “Muted”. That would be fine, except instead of saying that over the speaker on the meeting, it literally mutes the speaker on the meeting to say it, which makes me miss a portion of what he or she is saying. Likewise when unmuting… it basically disconnects you for a couple of seconds from the conversation. Absolutely maddening, especially if the conversation is important. Super annoying to everyone always having to ask “What was that last part again?”*Bluetooth Wireless*This works well; setup was easy and I can theoretically connect to multiple BT devices which is nice. HOWEVER, when it connects to the device, it announces it as “CONNECTED TO _______”… and that would be fine, if it wasn’t for 2 things: one, it mutes the audio to tell you this, which means, until it finishes its notification, you can’t hear the other side of the call. Second, I work from a corporate laptop with a mystifying and non-english computer name, where the headphones are compelled to spell out the entire name of my laptop, letter and number by excruciating letter and number, which you can’t change because the Bluetooth name is linked to the machine name, which is controlled by corporate IT policy. So when someone asks me to jump on a call where everyone’s talking about some important, urgent topic, everyone has to wait while my headphones connect and says something like “CONNECTED TO ‘X 4 J 1 1 T B R P W 0 4 L N A'” before I can even ask what the problem is, and after you’ve heard that for the 5th time that day, you want to throw these headphones through a window.*Comfort*They’re not bad. They’re also not great. The cushions on the ears are a little stiffer than most of the other headphones I’ve worn, and I find myself adjusting them every 20-30 minutes, but it’s manageable. Still, I’d expect better for the price range.*Speed/ Ease of Use*With the exception of the above mentioned frustrations as listed above with connecting, it’s actually pretty good. The power button immediately powers up and powers down, gives you estimated battery life remaining, and just works. The button is easy to find, easy to use, and not easily mistaken for the mute button, so they got this part more or less right.*Summary*I bought this primarily because it was the cheapest Bluetooth wireless headset with with ANC and a microphone mute. It was shocking that the price tag came in over $200, but for that sort of cash I would expect a much more satisfying experience. I’m not returning these because I really need that microphone mute, but I’m not happy with my options and will keep my eyes peeled for a competitive replacement.
M. Espinoza –
Worth the upgradeThe Surface Headphones 2 fit more comfortably than the original version. Audio out of the box is horrible, but after tweaking the equalizer settings in the Surface app, everything sounds great. The settings are retained across devices, and I’m able to connect to multiple devices concurrently.Office dictation works as expected and audio is crystal clear on conference calls. These are great productivity headphones overall.
Shopster –
Unique design, but needs lot of improvementsThe media could not be loaded.
Submitting my updated review again as amazon did not allow my first submission.These are my first premium earbuds and I previously other regular ear buds. I have been using these ear buds for a week now and below is my detailed review on how these earbuds are working so far. • The package is simple and contains two ear buds with charging station, charging cable (USB-C) and 3 sizes of ear buds (Small, medium and Large). Last but not least, there is an instructions manual with detailed pictures on showing how to pair and use the ear buds. • The setup was fairly easy and similar to any other kind of blue tooth device. Press the circle at the bottom of the charging station for 5 secs and open the charging station. There is a light that would blink for a moment which should be ready to pair with your device. • I have setup earbuds to pair with both of my surface pro 7 and my Pixel Phone. Both of them worked seamlessly and was able to see “Surface Earbuds” and paired.Note: You need to keep the earbuds inside the charging station during this process. Otherwise, the pairing would not work. • Once you setup the earbuds, you can use “Surface Audio” app to manage the settings of earbuds. The app does show the equalizer settings you could choose from presets like “Flat, Classical, Jazz, Pop & Rock” settings. It also provides to customize your own preset and save it. • Unlike regular earbuds which are available on market, these ear buds have some touch gestures on both left and right ear buds.Note: Both of the ear buds needs to be kept in charging station in correct way. Keeping them in other direction would show red light as an indicator on the charging base.Final thoughts:Overall, these ear buds have great sound quality, portable and compact. But, as these are 1st gen ear buds it needs some improvements.Pros: • Cool & stylish design with Portable charging station • Great sound quality & Exceptional battery life • Good Bluetooth connectivity. • Good touch sensitivity, but it comes with its own problems (See my cons)Cons: • There is no battery charging indicator on top of charging station. You need to open the lid to see if its charging or not. It would have much easy if there is any display with light as an indicator. • The ear buds needs to tuck inside the ear and twist/turn to your ear which has caused discomfort to ears sometimes. • If the lid is open even if the ear buds are inside the charging station, blue tooth connectivity is still ON. You need to close the lid to close the blue tooth connection. • There is no customization of touch controls to switch between left/right ear. For example, I would like to setup volume up/down controls to my left ear instead of right ear bud. • Very minimal settings in “Surface Audio” app. Nothing much to customize anything in the app. • When adjusting the ear buds, it keeps sending signal to wake up digital assistant which is not good experience. When listening to the songs, double tap would pause the music and at the same time if you try to adjust your ear bud to your ears, it opens digital assistant.• For some reason, my left ear bud keeps dropping sometimes. Tried changing to different sizes and has similar issue. Not sure if it was due to my ear shape and buds doesn’t tuck properly inside. Even though I liked these earbuds,Takeaway:If you are looking to try out something new model, then these are great ear buds as they are unique in shape. Otherwise, nothing much fancy as these are 1st gen ear buds and needs more improvements. I have also reduced another star from rating due to discomfort to my ears and my left ear bud not fitting properly.
David G. –
They’re alright, if you can get them on a discountI bought these a few months ago with the hopes of moving my setup to a fully Bluetooth (and therefore wireless) headphone setup. However I was sorely disappointed to find out that even though they work beautifully over Bluetooth with a Windows PC, they don’t work with the Xbox Series consoles. Xbox consoles are supposed to have better Bluetooth integration now on the next gen consoles. But no, they won’t show up on tue devices list (pretty ironic considering they’re both Microsoft devices). I figured that I might have to use them wired on my xbox, which at first wasn’t a big deal. However I was disappointed yet again when I found out that the microphone doesn’t work on the xbox (even when plugged in). The lack of compatibility with supposed native devices is disappointing.When it comes to sound, the max volume leaves a lot to be desired. The max volume on these is extremely low when compared to just about every other headphone on the market. I constantly find myself wanting ro raise the volume beyond max, only to be reminded that I am already using them at max volume. (Yes I downloaded de Surface App for PC and tweaked everything internally to make sure the volume was working properly and still nothing). The noise cancelling is alright in terms of quality. However, it still lags behind Sony’s XM4’s and Apple’s AirPods Max. Also it’s a bit ridiculous that there are like 9 noise cancelling options (like rarely do I find myself setting it between max noise cancelling or transparency. The sound quality is terrible when compared to the previously mentioned headphones. They sound like a speaker placed inside a can of coke. Too much echo and not enough clarity. They don’t sound much better plugged in too.The quality of the headphones themselves is alright, they are lightweight, easy to carry around, snd they even bring a little bag for you to carry them around in. But it’s also just cheap plastic. They feel flimsy, like I’ll break them on accident. Also I personally find that their clamping force could be a bit stronger since I feel like they’ll fall off with any sudden movement. The volume and noise cancelling being controlled by “dials” placed on both earcups is a cool mechanism, pretty ingenious, and helps save space on buttons or dials.Overall pretty disappointing headphones (specially considering that their starting price is like $350). I got mine for $150 and still regret them. Microsoft really needs to work on these and improve them on so many levels. Only reason I would recommend someone buy these is if they can get them almost for free, and if their purpose for them is zoom/teams/meet calls for work. It is literally the only category I’d see them appealing. Sound quality for music is terrible, severe lack of compatibility (even with Microsoft’s very own native devices), and overall flimsy build quality makes these a no brainer to buy (if you enjoy burning your cash purposelessly)5/10
A. BREDKOV –
Best NC headphones to buy!Pros:1. Convenient control of volume and noise canceling by rotating the headphone rim. The mechanism has no end position and works very smoothly.2. High volume level when listening to music or other content.3. Knows how to adjust the volume in the Windows operating environment.4. The presence of a separate Mute button for mute microphones. Microphone status indicator (yellow). When pressed, the headphones speak in a Muted / Unmuted voice.5. The presence of a separate Surface Audio application for different OS (tested windows, android)6. Ability to connect via Bluetooth to 8 devices, 2 of which can be active at the same time. Disconnect and reconnect other inactive devices through the Surface Audio app.7. There is a built-in equalizer. Equalizer settings are saved directly to the headphones, they are the same for all connected devices. The settings can be changed independently from each connected device.8. Instant inclusion and connection with devices, after a short press on the power button (1 second). Instant disconnection also after a short press on the button.9. When turned on, the forecast of the battery life is announced by voice. Convenient to control the charge.10. When turned on, the name of the device to which the connection was made is pronounced in a voice.Conss:1. The volume level of phone calls depends on the restrictions in the phone. The volume is not enough for European devices.2. There is no indication in the application or the phone / pc menu that the silence mode is on in the headphones.3. When you press Mute, the headphones say Muted / Unmuted by voice. In this case, the phrase is pronounced slowly (2 seconds), and you cannot hear the speaker in the background. It would be convenient if this were replaced by a short beep.4. When the microphones are muted with the Mute button, only the headphones are muted. In the call settings on the phone, the microphone remains on, which can be misleading. on the phone during a call it is not clear whether the microphone is on or not.5. The indicator showing the state of Mute can only be seen by removing the headphones from the head. If you look at yourself in the mirror, the indicator is not visible. Perhaps it would be correct if the indicator were indicated on the side.6. For Android phone does not control the volume on the phone. Has its own independent adjustable level. As a result, two parallel volume settings on the phone and on the headphones.7. When listening to music at maximum volume levels, the sound breaks down, there are certain rattles. By all appearances, the speakers are not designed to meet the specified maximum level.8. When the name of the connected device is played back by voice, the name of the device in the voice of Cortana is not very clear (naturally).9. Even when the device is fully charged, the earbuds do not report the available nominal 20 hours of charge. They always say there are 18 hours left.