It's fair to say we were pretty surprised to see the Sony WH-1000XM4 hit a new all-time low price of £180 at Amazon yesterday. But what if I were to tell you I've spotted the price for the midnight blue and silver finishes has dropped even further, to just £171?
These amazing headphones started life at £350 and have been knocking around for four years now. They're a fantastic alternative if you can't stretch to the newer Sony WH-1000XM5 (currently £260 at Amazon), and we'd suggest you would do well to snap up Sony's former flagships at this unprecedented price now before Amazon puts their price back up during its post-Amazon Prime Day deals reset.
They may be considered veterans in today's ever-evolving headphone space, but they still boast modern features and a sound and ANC performance that are very rare to come by in the mid-price market.
The five-star WH-1000XM4 were, until the launch of their WH-1000XM5 successors in 2022, Sony's top-of-the-range wireless noise-cancelling over-ear headphones. The former What Hi-Fi? Award winners may no longer be the best-sounding over-ears in the market due to the arrival of such newer competition, but we can't think of another pair that costs £171 and sounds as good as them. The same goes for their noise-cancelling performance. In fact, during our testing of the new XM5, our review experts noted that while the new model "adds more mics and some clever tech "in certain day-to-day environments we would still choose the XM4".
Throw in a 30-hour battery life (38 hours without ANC on) and a design and comfort factor that also remain competitive today, and the XM4 are hard to beat at this discounted price.
You get useful features that elevate the user experience, too, such as ‘Speak to Chat’, which allows you to talk to someone while the headphones are still on your head. Bluetooth Multipoint lets you connect two Bluetooth devices to them so you can switch between them easily, while ‘Wearing Detection’ automatically pauses playback when you remove the headphones, and then automatically starts again when you put them back on.
All in all, it's a well-rounded spec sheet that doesn't give away their age. The fact you can get that as well as competitive sound and ANC quality for just £171 at Amazon is, quite frankly, staggering.
MORE:
See all the best Prime Day in October deals on TVs, headphones and hi-fi
Read our Sony WH-1000XM4 review
See how they compare: Sony WH-1000XM5 vs WH-1000XM4
Here's what we can expect from the next Sony WH-1000XM6
