KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 — Remember how everyone was pissed off at the fact that the Samsung Galaxy Buds+ didn’t have active noise cancellation (ANC)? No? That was just me? OK look, I think we can all agree that it would have been better with ANC…and a nicer sound. If you feel the same way and wished Samsung had an ANC alternative we may have the next best thing for you: the AKG N400.
AKG, as you may already know, is one of Samsung’s audio brands that the South Korean electronics giant relies on to tune a lot of their audio devices. This can range from headphones to speakers to even their AKG tuned fridge, which sounds great by the way— well, it does for a fridge. AKG also tuned Samsung’s brand new Galaxy Buds+, so it’s interesting to see them launch their own pair of AKG-branded truly wireless in-ear headphones.
The AKG N400 looks a lot like Samsung’s own Galaxy Buds but if they went over to the dark side. Y’know, they look familiar but not really identical — which I don’t really hate. The design is still very minimal and if the Galaxy Buds+ are anything to go off of, these should have a pretty good fit too. One interesting thing to note is that these headphones will apparently come with a pair of Comply premium headphone tips too.
But, the key thing is that these headphones feature active noise cancellation. Now, being a big fan of the Sony WF-1000XM3 headphones myself, I have become a sucker for headphones with active noise cancellation so I was naturally stoked that these headphones come with them. But, looking at the other elements of the N400’s spec sheet, I have to say that I’m kind of disappointed
For starters, battery life is abysmal for a pair of TWS headphones in 2020. Samsung says that it will last up to 5 hours on a single charge (6 hours, if you turn off ANC), which is already below average, but the case only holds one additional charge. That means that in the best case scenario, you’re only getting 12 hours of listening time over a Bluetooth connection. Compare that to the Sony WF-1000XM3 which packs up to 24 hours of listening time with ANC on. In fact, even the Galaxy Buds+ has 22 hours of listening time.. — SoyaCincau
