Apple AirPods 4 review: a bit better than basic

Apple AirPods 4

MSRP $129.00

“Apple once again gives its faithful AirPods fans exactly what they want with the AirPods 4.”

Pros

• Comfy, with no silicone eartips
• Great call quality
• The best semi-open sound quality
• Fun head gestures and spatial audio

Cons

• Not great for noisy locations
• No wireless charging
• No Bluetooth Multipoint or Auracast

Apple’s AirPods are everywhere. The iconic white wireless earbuds are so popular that I’m guessing most folks won’t bother reading a review before grabbing the latest model: the AirPods 4.

I get it. At $129, they’re not cheap, but neither do they require a lot of research — especially if you’ve owned AirPods in the past. As with all previous generations, the best part about the AirPods 4 (assuming you’re an iPhone user) is their simplicity. Charge ’em up (or don’t — they come with most of a charge in the box), flip open the lid, and watch as your phone instantly recognizes them and lets you connect them with a single tap. Pop ’em in your ears and start listening. Seriously, what could be easier?

There’s a lot more to the AirPods 4 story, but before I dig into the full review, I want to offer some historical perspective.

When I reviewed the AirPods 3 in 2021, I gave them a 4.5/5. In hindsight, that was probably too generous, but two highly influential factors contributed to my enthusiasm. First, the third-gen really were a big improvement over the second-gen. Fit, sound quality, controls, spatial audio, wireless charging, water resistance … there was a lot to like. And while $179 still felt like a lot of money for what you were getting, at least it was consistent with Apple’s AirPods pricing at the time if you included wireless charging.

Second, I maintain that there are two big groups of wireless earbuds buyers: those who like (or who are at least OK with) silicone tips that seal your ear canals, and those who hate them.

If you were in that second camp in 2021, you had very few options. Semi-open models like the AirPods were hard to come by, and those that existed weren’t great (though they were often very affordable). The open-ear earbud category, which has grown by leaps and bounds, had barely begun.

Given those two realities, I concluded that even if the AirPods 3 weren’t perfect, they were the obvious choice for iPhone owners who don’t like the feeling of silicone crammed in their ears.

OK, fast-forward to 2024. If you’re upgrading from a first- or second-gen model, the AirPods 4 are a big step up in all the ways I described above, plus they offer a few more perks I’ll discuss in a moment. However, third-gen owners will be less impressed. The shape is nearly identical, sound quality is so close it’s hard to pick a winner, and you may not even notice the more significant changes like Personalized Volume, the H2 chip, and the USB-C-equipped case. OK, the case is really small — you’ll probably notice that.

My advice to third-gen owners is to stick with what you have or spend a bit more to get the AirPods 4 with ANC. They’re the only semi-open earbuds with active noise canceling that actually works — it’s quite an accomplishment. Plus you get wireless charging, something that the AirPods 4 lack.

I’d also like to point out that open-ear earbuds are a fantastic alternative to the AirPods semi-open design. Most use an earhook shape, so that could be a deal-breaker for some people, but that also makes them ideal for running or workouts. You’ll hear even more of the outside world and they won’t work themselves loose after a few minutes. I know you’ll probably end up buying the AirPods anyway, but I think you’ll be impressed by the huge variety of options.

Design and shape

At a glance, it’s nearly impossible to tell the third-gen and fourth-gen AirPods apart. Look carefully and you may notice that the AirPods 4 have slightly thicker stems, a slightly thinner in-ear profile, and that the speaker opening is aimed slightly upward when compared to the third-gen.

About the only change I noticed while wearing them is that the third-gen feels fractionally more secure thanks to its larger profile. But I can see this going the other way too, where some people find the AirPods 4 more comfortable. But we’re talking about a very small difference either way.

The new charging case, by contrast, is noticeably smaller and it now (finally) has USB-C for charging. The charging/pairing LED is still there, but now you can’t see it unless it’s lit. And Apple has removed the physical button from the rear of the case. Instead, you now tap right below that invisible LED for pairing and factory resets.

One small note: In the box, you get the AirPods and their charging case. That’s it. Apple has stopped shipping its earbuds with charging cables. Most folks, the company reasons, already own a USB-C charging cable. I’m 100% on board with that philosophy for the AirPods 4 with ANC and higher as these models have wireless charging cases. But given the standard AirPods 4 only charge via USB-C, it would be nice if Apple let you add a cable to your order for a small fee.

Controls

I really like Apple’s pinch controls — they’re the perfect balance between the seamlessness of touch controls and the tactile feedback of physical buttons. They work just as well on the newest AirPods as on the other models that use this design. Still, I’m going to chirp at Apple for not including the AirPods Pro’s swipe gesture volume control. It’s crazy that you still need to reach for your phone or talk to Siri to change the volume on the non-Pro AirPods.

On the other hand, you now get optional head gestures for answering or declining an incoming call. At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever use them, but then I received several spam calls in a row and — I’m not gonna lie — it was really satisfying to shake my head and make them go away.

As with all AirPods, the AirPods 4 have wear detection should you choose to use it. However, Apple has abandoned the skin-sensing tech it used on the third-gen earbuds, opting for the infrared version it used on the original models. Does that matter? It depends on if you like to shove your buds in a pocket (instead of the case) when you remove them from your ears. If you do, it matters.

The specs

Bluetooth quality

The AirPods 4 have Bluetooth 5.3, an upgrade from the third-gen’s 5.0. In practical terms, you probably won’t notice a difference. Bluetooth 5.3 is supposedly more stable, with fewer dropouts, but I haven’t found this to be a problem with 5.0.

Apple remains steadfastly opposed to offering Bluetooth Multipoint for simultaneous device connections. Instead, it uses its iCloud-based handoff feature for seamless switching among Apple devices. As long as you’re all-in on Apple, it’s a good alternative.

With Bluetooth 5.3, Apple could have added support for LE Audio and Auracast on the AirPods 4, but sadly, these two handy technologies are also no-shows on the new buds.

Sound quality

With the exception of the AirPods 4 with ANC (see above) there’s a physical limit to how good a set of semi-open earbuds can sound. The design will always let in some external noise, degrading detail (and usually the low-end bass frequencies) of your music.

Apple’s Personalized Volume attempts to compensate for noisy environments by adjusting the volume, but it can only do so much. If you manually push volume higher, that may help, but it comes with its own risks (noise-induced hearing loss is a very real danger).

Still, the AirPods 4 sound as good, if not better, than any other semi-open earbuds I’ve tried. Bass — typically the Achilles’s heel of semi-open designs — has a solid presence and comes across as warm and resonant. I can’t detect any meaningful difference between the third-gen and fourth-gen, so I’ll quote myself because this is still true about the Airpods 4: “As long as you’re in a quiet location, the AirPods 3 sound every bit as good as the AirPods Pro.”

Of course, if you’re not in a quiet location — gyms, public transit, coffee shops, etc. — be prepared for a less-than-hi-fi experience.

Spatial audio

Not everyone likes how spatial audio sounds (especially for music), but since it’s entirely optional, I see it as a fun extra on the AirPods 4. Again, it works exactly the same as on the AirPods 3, which is to say you can make stereo tracks sound more open and airy. Some tracks benefit from this, while others don’t — it’s a very subjective thing.

The available head tracking is a great feature, but again, it works better in some situations than others. While listening to spatial audio music, I found it distracting. But using it to make the home theater experience more realistic when watching movies on an iPhone or Apple TV 4K is really cool. And when it comes to FaceTime calls, I think head tracking is a game changer.

Call quality

Speaking of FaceTime calls, voice calling on the AirPods 4 is a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that Apple has made further improvements to its background noise cancellation algorithms. During my testing, I walked down some very busy streets, with plenty of traffic and construction. None of these sounds were captured in my recordings, so your callers may never realize you aren’t indoors. More good news: The semi-open design actually benefits you on calls because it lets you hear your own voice naturally, unmuffled by silicone eartips. However, that’s a double-edged sword. That same transparency lets in everything else too, so you may end up asking your callers to repeat themselves.

Battery life

By now, most AirPods fans know the deal when it comes to battery life. It’s fine, but it won’t win any awards for endurance. Apple says you’ll get up to 5 hours of listening time on a single charge, with up to 30 hours when you include the case’s capacity. That’s actually a little worse than the AirPods 3, which were rated for up to 6 hours on a single charge. On the bright side, the fast-charge feature works well: 5 minutes in the case buys you an extra hour of listening time.

So I’ll wrap up where I started: For a lot of folks, the AirPods 4 are a no-brainer purchase. They may not win any innovation prizes, but they’ll work seamlessly with all of your Apple devices, they’re comfortable, and if you must have a set of semi-open earbuds, they provide very good sound and call quality.

I’m annoyed that at $129, Apple couldn’t throw in wireless charging. Though I suppose — given what it was charging for the AirPods 3 ($179) as recently as August 2024 — the AirPods 4 are actually a good deal by Apple’s standards. You get almost all of the third-gen’s features (plus a few extras), minus the wireless charging, for 27% less money. In fact, maybe the AirPods 4’s price is their biggest innovation.

For everyone else, I encourage you to explore the many awesome wireless earbuds alternatives that are out there.