Microsoft Surface Wireless Headphones Headphones Review

The Microsoft Surface Headphones are good-looking over-ears thanks to an all-light-grey design that stands out. They have wide cups and a sleek design without too many apparent buttons. They have a very similar cup design to the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9 Gen 1 Wireless, but with a thicker headband made out of plastic. Unfortunately, they don't come in any other color variants to suit your preferred style.

Update 09/01/2019: The tight fit of the surface headphones does become a bit more bothersome after extended use when compared to other headphones like the Sony WH-1000XM3 Wireless and Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9 Gen 1 Wireless. We have adjusted the comfort score to reflect this.

The Microsoft Surface Headphones are very comfortable and lightweight. The cups are well-padded and big enough for most ears. However, they could be a bit shallow for some. The headband is also well-padded and doesn’t apply too much pressure on the head. These should be comfortable enough for long listening sessions.

Update 16/06/2020: We previously reported that you could adjust the level of their talk-through setting. However, you can't adjust this setting, and it can only be turned on/off. The Controls score has not changed.

The Microsoft Surface Headphones have excellent controls. Both ear cups are touch-sensitive and allows you to play/pause music, take/end calls, and skip tracks or go backward. On top of that, there are dials on each cup; the left ear’s dial is for noise cancelling control, while the right ear is for volume control. You also get a physical button to mute the microphone and a power/pairing button as well. You also get a voice prompt and audio feedback for certain commands. Voice-enabled controls are also available thanks to the Cortana voice assistant (hands-free commands on PC app), or you can trigger your device’s voice assistant with a long press on one of the ear cups. The only downside of this control scheme is that there are multiple ANC levels, from 'Ambient Noise Amplified' to 'Maximum Noise Canceling', but the dial doesn’t give you any feedback for levels in between those two.

Like most over-ears, the Microsoft Surface Headphones aren’t the most breathable since they trap heat under the ear cups. The seal around your ears doesn’t allow for much airflow, and you should expect to sweat more while wearing these during physical activity. This shouldn’t be a problem for casual listening sessions.

These over-ears aren't very portable and have a bulky design. However, the cups swivel for the headphones to lay flat, making it easier to slide them in a bag or to fit them inside the included traveling case.

The Microsoft Surface Headphones have a nice hard case to protect the headphones from scratches, minor water exposure, and light impacts. There's still some room for the headphones to wiggle around inside the case, but on the upside, it doesn’t add too much bulk and is easy to fit in a bag.

The Microsoft Surface Headphones are well-built and feel solid enough to survive a couple of accidental drops. The cups are made of dense plastic, and the headband is reinforced by a thin metal frame but is still sufficiently flexible. The padding is also leather and feels well-made. Overall, they feel like durable headphones that will last you a while.

The Microsoft Surface Headphones are decently stable for over-ears, and you can use them for light running and sports. They have a decent clamping force that helps them stay in place on your head and don’t move around. Also, since they're wireless, you won’t have to worry about a wire getting caught on something unless you use them with the included audio cable.

• Microsoft Surface Headphones
• Carrying case
• USB-C charging cable
• 1/8" TRRS audio cable
• Manuals

The frequency response consistency is good. Similar to the Bose QuietComfort 35 II/QC35 II Wireless 2018 and Sony WH-1000XM3 Wireless, the Microsoft Surface Headphones seem to be using their noise cancelling system to check for bass consistency. In the bass range, they perform consistently across most subjects, and our test subject with glasses only experienced a small drop in bass. In the treble range, they're also consistent, showing about 3dB of deviation below 10kHz.

The Microsoft Surface Headphones' bass is decent. The LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 10Hz, which is excellent. The low-bass is fairly flat, resulting in adequate thump and rumble. However, the mid and high-bass are overemphasized, so mixes have extra body and boom. Some users may find they sound a bit muddy.

The mid-range is good. There's a bit of overemphasis coming from the bass range into the low-mid, which clutters and muddies mixes. While the mid-mid is fairly neutral, ensuring the presence of vocals and lead instruments, the dip in the high-mid weakens their intensity and clarity.

The treble response is poor. The range is underemphasized, resulting in veiled vocals and lead instruments. Sibilants like S and T sounds are also a bit dark and dull.

The Microsoft Surface Headphones have great imaging. Their weighted group delay is 0.23, which is very good. The graph also shows that the entire group delay is below our audibility threshold. This ensures a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. Additionally, the L/R drivers of our unit were well-matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response, which is important for the accurate placement and localization of objects (voices, instruments, video games effects) in the stereo image. However, these results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently.

Their soundstage, like most other noise cancelling headphones, is sub-par. The PRTF response shows a good amount of pinna activation, which suggests a relatively large size for the soundstage. However, the low accuracy of the response suggests a soundstage that may feel a bit unnatural. Also, there's not a notch in the 10KHz region, which could result in the soundstage being perceived as located inside the head.

Their active noise isolation performance is excellent and they actually block out slightly more noise than their second-generation counterpart, the Microsoft Surface Headphones 2 Wireless. While they're okay at cutting down bass noise like the rumble of bus and plane engines, they do an excellent job of reducing mid-range noise like speech. They also do an outstanding job at blocking out higher-pitched sounds like the hum of an A/C unit.

They have a good leakage performance. A significant portion of their leakage is spread over the mid-range, resulting in a leakage that is fuller-sounding compared to that of in-ears and earbuds. The overall level of the leakage is relatively low. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage at 1 foot away averages at 37dB SPL and peaks at 50dB SPL, which is about the same as the noise floor of an average office.

The recording quality of the microphone is disappointing. LFE (low-frequency extension) of 180Hz suggests that speech recorded/transmitted with this mic will sound relatively thin. The HFE (high-frequency extension) is at 3.5kHz, resulting in speech lacking detail and sounding a bit muffled, which is expected on most Bluetooth headphones microphones.

The noise handling of the integrated microphone is sub-par. This mic achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of 7.5dB in our SpNR test, indicating it's best suited for quiet environments and may struggle to fully separate speech from ambient noise even in moderately loud situations.

The Microsoft Surface Headphones have a decent 13-hour battery life that should last you for a whole day of listening. They also take less than two hours to charge, and you get a quick charge feature that gives you an hour of playback for only five minutes of charging. Also, if you take the headphones off your head, your music will automatically be paused, and ANC will be turned off, extending the battery life (up to 50 hours according to Microsoft’s specs sheet) until you put them back on and everything resumes.

If you leave them in their standby mode for 20 minutes, they will automatically turn off. You can also use them when charging, which can be useful at the office. If you plug them in using the analog audio cable, they'll turn on and activate ANC, but you can then turn them off to not use any battery life, meaning you can still use the headphones if the battery is dead. Another nice addition is that when powering on the headphones, the voice prompt will tell you the remaining battery life in hours of playback left.

Update 05/11/2020: The Cortana app has been discontinued and we've changed this box to better reflect the new replacement app.

The Microsoft Surface Wireless have a great companion app called Surface Audio, which is available on Windows, iOS, and Android. You can easily customize the way these headphones sound with either the 5-band graphic EQ or presets, and you can check up on your battery life. This app also lets you adjust the level of active noise cancelling (ANC), see all your paired devices, and even change the voice assistant's language. However, the ANC feature can't be controlled directly from the mobile app main page, which may be a small inconvenient for some.

These headphones are Bluetooth compatible and support version 4.2. They can also connect simultaneously to two devices, which is useful if you often switch from your computer and phone. Unfortunately, they don't support NFC for an easier and quicker pairing with devices, but their pairing procedure is already simple.

Like most Bluetooth headphones, the Microsoft Surface Headphones have a bit too much latency to watch video content or gaming as what you will see won’t match what you will hear. They also don't support any lower latency codecs.

These headphones have a 1/8” TRRS connection, meaning they will support audio and microphone when used wired on consoles and PCs. You’ll also benefit from the better in-line microphone. Also, when used with the audio cable, the ANC feature can still be on if the battery isn’t dead yet. If it's dead, you’ll still be able to listen to these headphones passively without the noise cancelation.

The Microsoft Surface Headphones don't have a base/dock. If you want a versatile headset with a base that you can also use wired, check out the Astro A50 Gen 3 Wireless 2017.