The Sony WF-C500 is an easy-to-use workout and commuting partner. You might miss ANC in loud places, but good isolation helps make up for some of that, and the headphones are light enough to wear all day. Sony has made a lot of great headphones and earphones in the past, so the Sony WF-C500 is built on their shoulders. These earbuds have a long battery life, features that sound high-tech, great sound, and more, but there are a lot of similar products on the in-ear market.
The WF-C500 aren’t the most high-end headphones in Sony’s wide range, but as far as the basics go, there’s not much to complain about. The WF-C500 can connect wirelessly using Bluetooth 5.0, and it works with both SBC and AAC codecs. Once your digital audio is on board, a pair of 5.8mm neodymium full-range dynamic drivers send it to your ears. The WF-C500 earbuds have enough power to last for ten hours, which isn’t bad at all.
[content-egg-block template=offers_logo hide=price]The charging case can hold one more full charge, for a best-case-scenario total of 20 hours, which is a very average number. It’s not even close to the 45 hours or so that the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 Plus can go without being plugged in. Plug the Sonys in for just 10 minutes—a there’s USB-C to USB-A cable in the fully recyclable packaging—and the WF-C500 should work for another hour or so. Not surprisingly, there’s no way to charge wirelessly here.
The WF-C500 can be controlled in a few different ways. The “Headphones Connect” app from Sony works just as well here as it does everywhere else, and it also has a lot of features that aren’t as important as the main ones. Here, for example, you can turn on or off Sony’s “DSEE” circuitry. This Digital Sound Enhancement Engine is supposed to be able to take standard audio files and make them sound like they are “hi-res.” Luckily, you can compare it to other things to see how well it works.
The app also works with Sony’s spatial audio algorithm for 360 Reality Audio. All you have to do to use this feature is let the app take a picture of your ears. Those who don’t like to try new things can just change the EQ settings, set their Bluetooth priorities (sound quality vs. connection stability, etc.), etc.
You can also control the Sonys with Google Assistant or Siri. Both are available, but neither is built in, so you’ll have to use the big “push/push” buttons on the earbuds themselves to wake up your assistant. With an IPX4 rating for resistance to moisture and splashes, “fast pair” connectivity with Android devices, and “swift pair” connectivity with Windows 10 PCs, it’s hard to say that Sony left out anything obvious if price is your main concern.