Review: Sony WF-C710N wireless ANC earphones

Review unit provided by Shopee SG

The Sony WF-C710N is a pair of affordable wireless earphones with many convenient features that makes this a value purchase. Retail price is USD 119 or SGD 199. Here in Singapore, you can find it selling for SGD 130 - 140 on Shopee SG.

Bottom line: The Sony WF-C710N are wireless earphones I can recommend easily. There's good sound, ANC, proximity sensor, Bluetooth multi-point pairing and customisable EQ.

In the box you'll get a set of S and L ear tips, quick start guide, charging cable and the earphones inside the charging case.

Design of the earphones look good. Quite similar to the Sony WF-1000XM5 which is two times more expensive.

The earphones are available in four colours, pink, black, white and glass blue which is the one that I have.

The glass blue design features blue-tint plastic for the earphones and charging case. It's quite cool to see the circuitry inside the earphones. Here in Singapore where it's humid, moisture can get inside the earphones and cause algae to grow. Hopefully the IPX4 rating can keep out moisture well. The safer colour choices would be the opaque pink, black or white which also look good.

This is the bud-style design, not the stem design and it fits quite well and comfortably in my ear. The touch panel can be access easily. There's IPX4 rating so it can resist some water splashes, and sweat.

The charging case is compact and lightweight, and goes inside a pocket easily.

Sony advertised 8.5hours of battery life with ANC with additional 21.5 hours from the charging case. Without ANC, battery life can go up to 12hr. The battery life is quite impressive.

Sound quality is good. There's clarity, decent amount of treble and bass. There's EQ with the Sony Connect app where you can customise your own EQ. I don't think the sound quality is as good compared to more expensive earphones, but the quality is definitely more than good enough for me.

The earphones have proximity sensor so media can stop automatically when you take them out from your earphones, and play again when you put them back. This is a really convenient feature that many budget earphones do not have.

There's Bluetooth multipoint pairing up to two devices. To switch devices, you just have to pause audio from one device, and play audio from another device.

Volume control requires four taps on the touch panel so it's best to rely on volume controls from your device instead.

Active noise cancelling works well. It's not as good compared to more expensive earphones but very good for the price paid. Transparency or pass-through mode works and sound alright. Voice calls sound alright, nothing too special.

I like affordable wireless earphones because these are essentially disposable earphones. Batteries for such wireless earphones deteriorate fast so if you're unlucky, you can have battery life drop significantly after a year, and if lucky after two years. That's why I prefer affordable earphones over expensive ones even if expensive ones sound better. Nowadays even affordable earphones can sound good so they do provide more value for money compared to expensive ones.