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Comment by dagmx | Hacker News Reader

I had the same Sony's. Pairing and reliability was a nightmare.

I switched to AirPods (Pros and Max) and a lot of my issues dissapeared.

Honestly it's a shame because the audio quality on the XM3 was better than the Airpod Pro but the software is just not there.

The AirPods aren't perfect either of course, but it's a night and day difference between the reliability of them vs the Sony.

I found the Sony was extra bad when there was either a busy area or if I took out just one ear. Often I'd start dropping connectivity to one ear and then they'd just crap out altogether till I reset them.

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Same here, I had the XM3 and the pairing issue was very frustrating. Particularly because I want to use the headphones on multiple devices (two Macs, iPad, iPhone) and pairing between devices took forever. I bought the Airpods Max and couldn't be happier. Pairing with devices almost always just works, most of the time I don't have to do anything. I walk with my phone and listen to a podcast, then I awake my Mac from sleep, hit play in Spotify, and it works. This alone is worth the steep price of the Airpods Max for me.

The only issue I had with them was that I recently tried to connect them to a Mac that wasn't in my iCloud. It is possible to do a non-iCloud paired direct bluetooth connection with them and this worked. But ~1 week later they suddenly disappeared from my main iCloud account. I'll not try that again.

I had the WF-1000XM2s and my experience was pretty similar. In particular when I used to travel into London for work, they would basically stop working when I entered a busy railway station at rush hour. But for me at least, upgrading to the XM3 solved everything. Had them for almost 18 months now and battery life is still great.

The one thing that really does piss me off about the XM3 is that the buttons are too sensitive - if I'm wearing a hood, the slightest brush against the headphones acts like a push of the button. I have to remember on rainy/windy days to turn the buttons off completely.

the XM4 adds the ability to be paired to multiple devices at a time, which seems to be the real magic of the airpods. when the headphones can be connected to both, you don't have to worry about disconnecting from one device before connecting to another lest you have your phone and your laptop fighting over your headphones.

I have the opposite of these experiences. My XM3s connect reliably and never drop, and have great battery life. My AirPod Pros have constant issues. This is with either my Mac/iPhone or Linux laptop.

That said I’ve gone back to plugging in the XM3s in an attempt to take advantage of Apple’s lossless music.

i still use my Sony 1000XM (the first gen) and have to say they're by far the most reliable headphones i've used on any android device. hardly useable on anything else though. Pairing is always a disaster on windows/linux and iOS (ipad).

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