The Apple AirPods 4 review was very well received

Why the AirPods 4 is a Good Option for Music-Playing Devices? The Case of the n-Antenna Control

The ability to keep the volume sliders at a sensible spot in the AirPods 4 is a reason why they are a good option over the AirPods Pro. The ANC did not put up much of a fight in a crowded bar, but I have been pleasantly surprised by how useful the feature has been.

The ANC proves its worth once the music starts, because you will always hear a lot of ambient sound if you are not listening to anything. I can keep the volume at around 50 percent and just ignore anything that messes with it. I usually find myself cranking the volume with the old and non-ANC AirPods. You won’t need to deal with the battle between the ANC and the AirPods 4, so you should be listening more than not. One unfortunate downgrade compared to the AirPods Pro is that you can’t adjust volume directly on the earbuds; there are no swipe gestures like on Apple’s flagship buds.

Apple’s basic AirPods are my least favorite tech product, and I see them everywhere. They’re not good earbuds in either specs or design anymore, and even with a new H2 chip and noise canceling added to the higher end of the AirPods 4, they’re still not great.

Battery life is rated at four hours of playback time with noise cancellation or five hours with it off. Add in the charging case and you get a total of 20 and 30 hours, respectively. (The cheaper AirPods 4 obviously get the longer numbers since there’s no ANC.) I haven’t used them long enough to extensively verify those estimates, but they’ve seemed on point so far. Sadly, Apple still hasn’t made repairability a priority with the AirPods 4, so inevitably, there will come a time when that endurance starts to wane.

Head Gestures: The Importance of the AirPods 4 for the Interstellar Evolution of Apple’s Audio System and Is It Worth Trying?

On top of these new features, you get the usual slew of Apple ecosystem tie-ins like audio sharing, automatic switching between devices, hands-free “Hey Siri” commands, Apple TV integration, and more. I still wish Apple would include genuine multipoint support so you could pair to two products at the same time, but at this point the decision to leave it out seems like a philosophy that isn’t going to change.

Head gestures are a new capability you get with both sets of the AirPods 4. When toggled on, you can respond to Siri by nodding your head up and down to engage with notifications or answer a call; shaking your head side to side will also dismiss them. In my brief tests, my head movements were detected even when they were small, because I am not a person who likes having my earbuds bothering me with notifications. Some people might really come to like this way of dealing with Siri, but I’ll be sticking with the more traditional methods.

I still have to be intentional and twist these AirPods into my ears just right if I want them to stay put. Even when I try to catch a train at the subway station, they are snug once they are in. With the AirPods Pro, I can just sort of cram them in without giving it any thought. But even I can admit that the AirPods 4 are more comfortable over long listening sessions.

If your AirPods case is lost you can use your phone to find it by looking at Apple’s Find My tech. You can’t tell the difference between the hardware because the features are not available on the $129 AirPods 4.

The first AirPods deserved praise simply because they were among the first wireless earbuds to actually work—earlier models from various other brands were plagued by connection woes. The problem Apple created by removing the headphone jack was solved by the AirPods, but it wasn’t perfect.

The tipless design had many flaws but one benefit—you didn’t need to remove earbuds to chat with people, because they didn’t seal out the world. In the years since, newer wireless earbuds don’t just work well and sound great, they have fixed said transparency issue. Every pair from JLab’s $60 Jbuds ANC to Apple’s own AirPods Pro have eartips, noise canceling, and a transparency mode so you can chat without adjusting your buds.