Apple AirPods 4  Headphones Review

The Apple AirPods 4 have an always-on Adaptive EQ that alters their sound profile, so you'll perceive bass and treble similarly regardless of how loud your volume is set. You can see how different volume settings affect the treble and bass when using the buds with an iPhone.

As a result of Apple's Adaptive EQ, we noticed differences between the frequency response obtained via our standard measurement methodology (using SBC) and that obtained over AAC while paired to an iPhone. The measurements we've listed here are taken via SBC, meaning they're not affected by Apple's adaptive EQ.

Via SBC, these earbuds have a generally warm sound. Since they don't form a seal with your ears, they lack a little thump in the low bass, but the rest of the bass and mid-range are virtually flat. A big dip in the treble gives these cans their warm sound. Whether you like it is a matter of taste. Some listeners enjoy this smooth sound; others find it a bit dull.

For anyone drawing comparisons, their frequency response is very similar to the Apple AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation. It's possible that firmware updates can change the sound profile, which we observed with the ANC version during the review period.

These have amazing frequency response consistency, which is all the more impressive considering the absence of ear tips that ordinarily ensure a predictable in-ear fit and audio delivery. They sound virtually the same between wears and on different wearers.

They have impressive bass target compliance. Basslines sound weighty and punchy, while 808 kicks have a reasonable amount of thump. A roll-off in the lowest frequencies somewhat weakens the deep throb of sub-bass, but these have a solid amount of bass, especially in the context of their veiled treble range. This bass response is one of the most notable upgrades over the Apple AirPods (3rd generation), which struggle to provide a full-sounding low-end like many earbuds without ear tips to seal your ear canals.

The earbuds have superb mid-range target compliance. Throughout the range, they match our target closely, rendering lead guitars, rhythmic keys, speech, and percussion as balanced and clear. A very slight tilt in the low-mids adds a bit of extra articulation to bass guitars without sounding busy.

Their treble does a poor job of complying with our target curve. Virtually the entire treble spectrum lacks details and clarity, resulting in a very warm, muffled tonality. Songs like The Tracks of My Tears by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles lack the detail and articulation of Robinson's falsetto and sound lispy on S and Ts. Meanwhile, the depth of the cymbal and tambourine accents is lost, reduced to somewhat muted splashes. That said, some listeners enjoy this warm sound.

Their peaks and dips performance is impressive, indicating they follow their own warm sound profile closely, so you can expect bass and mids to sound even relative to each other. The only noteworthy peaks and dips are in the upper parts of the treble range, where your ear anatomy greatly affects what you hear, anyway.

These earbuds have outstanding stereo matching. The left and right drivers are superbly well-matched in phase and amplitude right across the entire spectrum. Objects are always correctly placed in the stereo field.

Although these earbuds only receive a passable group delay score, you won't notice any issues subjectively, since they don't reproduce very low bass, anyway. Bass sounds and transients alike are all reproduced with clarity and precision.

These headphones have fantastically low harmonic distortion. Even if you push the listening level to the max, you'll hear clean and pure audio reproduction.

With your compatible iOS/iPadOS device, you gain access to two types of Apple Spatial Audio in the settings. Personalized Spatial Audio uses your ear shape, obtained via a video you take, to adjust the virtual surround soundstage to your anatomy. You can also use the Spatial Audio without going the Personalized route, and we didn't notice a big difference in terms of subjectiveness. Still, depending on the person's anatomy and media, the adaptive nature of the feature may have more significant results with different people. Plus, it's possible that updates at a later date will make a starker difference between standard and Personalized Spatial Audio.

You can also select 'Fixed' or 'Head Tracked' so the surround sound spread either stays locked in place or moves around you when you shift your head. You can also use the iOS interface's accessibility settings to set the Spatial Audio to follow the iPhone's position instead of 'Fixed' or 'Head Tracked.'

These are the settings we used to test the Apple AirPods 4. Adaptive EQ is always on. Additional features were disabled: Personalized Volume, Automatic Ear Detection, and Personalized Spatial Audio. All tests and measurements were recorded over Audio Precision while the AirPods 4 were connected to an iPhone.

Apple continues its signature white stemmed design in the open-backed Apple AirPods 4, which look almost indistinguishable from the lineage of the previous Apple AirPods (3rd generation). The main differences are quite subtle, like a vent on the Apple AirPods 4 that's absent on the previous gen. Meanwhile, it's easier to differentiate the Apple AirPods 4 from the Apple AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation by noting that the non-ANC model lacks a speaker at the bottom of the case.

These are decently comfortable earbuds, but like the previous AirPods models without ear tips, their comfort and fit will depend on how closely your ear shape mirrors the manufacturer's ear modeling. Still, if they fit you, you're treated to a very lightweight, contoured, and unobtrusive-feeling design that leaves your ear canal unsealed. On the other hand, there are reports of the buds falling out, even on users who owned previous models without issue, so the slightly altered shape between generations will influence how comfortable you find them.

The Apple AirPods 4 have virtually identical controls as the AirPods 4 with ANC, except they lack noise cancellation and transparency modes. You can see their default controls, managed by refined pressure-sensitive stems that mitigate accidental commands. They don't require as much force as the Nothing Ear's pressure-sensitive stems, but they can take some getting used to. For better or for worse, the controls are somewhat limited: you can't alter the volume with the buds' controls. Perhaps the manufacturer assumes Personalized Volume (which adjusts the volume to combat how noisy your environment is) addresses loudness, but not everyone enjoys that experience, especially with music. On the bright side, the buds have in-ear detection, emit a light haptic vibration with distinctive chimes when you enter commands, and the commands cover playback and voice assistant Siri.

Entering Bluetooth pairing mode requires two taps on the case. You can also perform a factory reset by double-tapping the case three times with buds inside.

When you pair the buds with your iPhone, you're prompted to choose whether you want head gesture controls with Siri. These are pretty rudimentary, but they can be useful when your hands are full of groceries and you receive a call; simply nod your head to accept (or shake your head to reject).

Like most true wireless earbuds, these are remarkably portable. You can easily pocket them, even in that nearly useless coin pocket of your jeans. However, you may want to use their charging case because they're small enough to be misplaced easily.

The charging case is excellent. It's small, well-built, and made of glossy plastic. The hinge is sturdy without feeling loose and the lid's magnet ensures it stays shut when not in use. The internal magnets hold the buds in place so they don't fall out or stop charging, too.

Unlike the previous Apple AirPods (3rd generation), the case lacks MagSafe, and unlike the Apple AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, it won't charge wirelessly either, so you're limited to USB-C charging only, but the package doesn't include a charging cable. It also lacks a speaker on the underside of the case to help locate it using the 'Find My' feature found on the ANC AirPods 4.

The build quality of the Apple AirPods 4 is great. They're rated IP54 against dust and light water splashes. The buds' glossy plastic feels light, smooth, without annoying seams, and somewhat scratch-resistant if you drop them from not too high. However, the case is more prone to scratches than the buds. The case boasts sturdy magnets to hold the buds in place and to keep the lid closed.

Their stability is good, but it's contingent on how well they fit your ears. If they fit you well, they'll likely stay put for active workouts thanks to their balanced feather-light weight. However, if you experience in-ear fit issues with most earbuds, the lack of ear tips or stabilizers won't do you any favors. The Apple AirPods Pro 2 can supply a more predictably stable fit for a wider spectrum of ear shapes and sizes due to their ear tips.

• Apple AirPods 4 headphones
• Charging case
• Manuals

Their full-range noise isolation is bad, which is expected for open-back earbuds that don't seal your ear canals from the outside world and lack ANC. They block a small amount of very high frequencies from reaching your ears, but not enough to make a meaningful difference. You'll still hear people talking nearby, engine noise on public transit, and HVAC systems, which is fine if you want to stay aware. Rather than cancelling out your environment, enabling the Personalized Volume feature can offset the effects of some noise fluctuations in your environment by adjusting the output volume of the earbuds. This is useful for podcasts and phone calls, although it can strip your music of dynamics with a poorly timed volume change.

If you want to tame how much you hear of your environment's noise while retaining the open fit, then you'll find the Apple AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation offer more flexibility in this respect. That said, the Apple AirPods Pro 2 and their in-ear design still isolate far more noise.

These earbuds do a poor job of isolating noise in common scenarios. You'll hear every keystroke in the office, traffic driving by on the street, and the low ambient din of an airplane cabin. You can use the Personalized Volume feature with your iOS device so the buds' output volume dynamically adjusts to combat competing external noises, but arguably, this just adds more noise for your brain to parse.

The earbuds have great leakage performance. Even though they're open-backed and don't seal your ear canal, in most situations, your audio won't disturb those around you. They mainly leak upper frequencies, so what escapes sounds very thin and bright.

The mic system's recording quality is passable. The buds use beam-forming microphones, and within iOS settings, you can choose which side you want them to use. We set it to 'Automatic' so that the system will prioritize whichever side yields better mic fidelity. Voices are comprehensible but come across as thin, uneven, and boxy.

The microphone system's noise handling is okay. In scenarios with consistent background noise, the sounds are still present, albeit quieter, but the mic still prioritizes your speech without strongly affecting its clarity. With more sporadic background noise, the mic differentiates between you and voices in the backdrop well. However, it's overwhelmed by sudden and overpowering sounds like subway cars. It also doesn't attenuate the volume of these noises well, which can be painful for the caller on the line.

Their battery performance is satisfactory. In testing, they reached 6.7 hours of continuous playback, and they're advertised to last five hours of listening time (or 4.5 hours on a call). Their case holds an extra four recharges—one fewer than the previous Apple AirPods (3rd generation). They fully recharge in 30 minutes, which is pretty quick and possibly helps to offset the middle-of-the-road continuous battery life.

They have a few useful tools to conserve battery life, such as Optimized Battery Charging, which stops charging at 80% to extend the battery's lifespan by adapting to your usage habits; this was disabled via iOS settings for testing. When you remove the buds (and don't place them back in the case), they enter a standby mode.

The Apple AirPods 4 don't have a dedicated app but instead rely on the iOS interface's settings to access their features and firmware updates. iOS 18 or newer provides mostly on/off features like Personalized Volume, Automatic Ear Detection, Optimized Battery Charging, and Head Gesture Controls. You'll use these settings to configure Personalized Spatial Audio and toggle it on/off. You also have basic control over the call commands—one or two presses. You can control the connections via settings, too. Unlike the Apple AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, you can't track their case using the 'Find My Network,' and due to the lack of ANC, there aren't additional listening modes on the standard AirPods 4.

Their Accessibility menu via the iOS settings adds some customization for the earbuds' sensor sensitivity, mic settings, L/R channel balance, and visual aids such as LED flashing for alerts. While they don't have a conventional equalizer, you can use one of the three presets (set to 'Balanced Tone' by default) under the Headphones Accommodations sub-menu. There's also a compressor slider that 'boosts' softer sounds—set to 'Slight' by default. In all, there's a lot of menu diving because some of these features are exclusive to the AirPods 4, while others are settings you can configure within iOS for any headphones.

These are wireless Bluetooth earbuds only. They don't include a cable, but you'll need to supply your own USB-C cable for charging their case.

The Apple AirPods 4 have decent Bluetooth connectivity. They're Bluetooth 5.3 with the brand's proprietary H2 chip, which allows seamless device switching between Apple devices on the same iCloud account. If Automatic Ear Detection is enabled, audio can continue playing back even when swapping from your iPhone to MacBook, for instance. However, there's no multi-device pairing with non-Apple devices or if you've not registered an Apple device on the same iCloud account.

Their codecs include AAC and SBC. In testing, we noted that the range is slightly better with an iPhone than with an Android device. Generally, the Apple ecosystem defaults to the AAC codec, and subjectively, we didn't notice a significant lag between audio and video with an iPhone. However, this can vary with different devices, and we don't measure latency via AAC. In contrast, our SBC latency measurement indicates a high enough lag that your audio will have a noticeable lipsync mismatch, but most people are likely to use an iOS device with these buds.

You can only connect the earbuds to your computer via Bluetooth for full audio and mic support.

The carrying case can only charge via its USB-C port, and you'll need to provide your own USB-C cable. It can supply you with an additional four full charges. It's not MagSafe compatible or able to charge wirelessly, though the Apple AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation Truly Wireless can charge wirelessly.