Apple AirPods 4 Review: Unbelievable value from Apple

I can vividly remember reviewing the first Apple AirPods, I felt like a poser wearing them, my wife laughed me when I put them on – but, the instant pairing was remarkable, the sound good and the price was brilliant – hilarious to read back that I said “AirPods are literally wire-free”. Today, AirPods are ubiquitous so there’s certainly no shame wearing them, and in 2024 we’ve got the very latest generation from Apple, the AirPods 4 and they come in two tasty flavours.

AirPods 4 are the all new entry level wireless headphones from Apple.

AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancelling are an all-new mid-level model with the addition of, as the name suggests, Noise Cancelling.

While many will go on and on about the features, honestly the big deal here is the price. AirPods 4 go on sale this Friday for $219. That’s $10 cheaper than the first AirPods seven years ago, and $60 cheaper than the outgoing 3rd generation AirPods released three years ago.

Currency fluctuations, lower R&D costs, lower production costs, you pick the potential reason for that, but I reckon it’s about the headphone market. Easily the most competitive area of consumer technology there are headphones now – “literally wire free” at ridiculously low prices. And competing head to head with Apple are some of the biggest and best audio brands in the world. So yeah I reckon Apple is pushing price to ensure they maintain solid market share, not just in the Pro market, but in your everyday headphones too.

And for “everyday” headphones the AirPods 4 are sensational. The addition of the Apple H2 headphone chip means there are some great new features and capabilities on board and they present themselves as a fantastic upgrade option for existing AirPods users, particularly from the first and second generations.

Those original AirPods had the huge long white stalk coming out of the ear – I saw someone today in KMart wearing them and all I could think was how old those AirPods must be, but in reality they’ve been on sale for many years but I suspect the target market for AirPods 4 is anyone with a long-stalk set of AirPods because you get the modern AirPod look, with your traditional “open” ended design as well as cracking new features.

That Open design doesn’t work for me personally, I just never feel like they are wedged in at all to my ear and likely to fall out with the simplest shake of the head. It’s a perception, sure, but for millions of people it’s not an issue, and these are a great fit.

So now you get that same fit, but with the smaller stalk, and the addition of new Siri Interaction, and Voice Isolation.

Siri Interactions mean you can shake your head to dismiss a call or notification or nod to answer a call. I found this worked like a charm, it is something you need to enable when pairing the AirPods 4, so don’t skip through the setup too fast. Of course it’s in settings also along with a range of other features and switches.

With the benefit of the H2 chip you’ll get personalised spatial audio, which gives you an amazing 360 degree experience putting the audio source in one fixed place in the room when you turn your head, and giving you a more immersive sound experience overall.

Another key feature of the new AirPods 4 is Voice Isolation. The idea here is that if you’re in a busy area and you’re on the phone, the person on the other end of the call won’t hear that busy noise, just you! In a demonstration Apple put on for me this was remarkable, but in my testing, calling my daughter in a simulated noisy environment I apparently sounded muffled. I adjusted some settings and it didn’t make it much better, so a bit more testing is required here.

I’ll put this to the test later this year when I do my big headphone head to head where I actually record both sides of calls to see which headphones stack up the best. For now though, I’ll call this a good idea, needs more testing.

Music is excellent, a great sound which I doubt many would fault, unless you’re an audiophile. Honestly, that’s all we need to say about the simplest most important feature of these devices.

However, spend a touch more ($80 more) and get the $299 AirPods 4 with ANC and we’re starting to really talk.

The Noise cancelling is really good for the style of earphone. Considering many great headphones with ANC rely on a level of passive noise cancelling, that is to say that just wearing them blocks out a bunch of sound, then these are open, letting it all in, and still manage to provide a level of cancellation.

Right now I’m sat at my dining table, the dishwasher is on. Activating Noise Cancelling and that becomes a bare hum and in fact I feel like I’m hearing the running of water more precisely. It’s like it’s cutting out a dull sound – I guess programmed for things like an airplane sound.

Basically, these won’t stop you hearing the nagging kids in the house, but they will give you a sense of concentration, cutting out some of the mundane sounds and hums.

Impressive, but please don’t for a second think you’re getting ANC like the AirPods Pro 2. That’s next level, as are most ANC headphones, these AirPods 4 with ANC would be on par with $150-$200 ANC if you were scanning the market.

Speaking of which, and I say this a lot, there’s better value out there. But hey, I guess there are laptops cheaper than MacBooks and Smartphones cheaper than iPhones too – but they sell like hotcakes right:)

JBL’s Live 3 series come in a Flex model which is the same open tip style, OR the Beam model which is Silicon tipped – both of them are $249 and I’d suggest will fluctuate down to $199 at key sale times.

But for an Apple lover, with more than one Apple device, it’s hard to go past the simplicity, device switching and general ecosystem compatibility of the AirPods range, AirPods 4 being the most affordable yet.

Seriously, 7 years in and we’ve got the most affordable AirPods ever in the AirPods 4, but they are feature packed. Well worth a look.

Web: Apple

For more views and reviews on the AirPods 4, check out GadgetGuy and TechGuide to get the complete Aussie perspective.