Sony WI-C200 Wireless Headphones Review

The Sony WI-C200 are fairly simple around-the-neck headphones with a soft and flexible neckband design. The cables aren't flat like the WI-C310 and are fairly long, which creates a big dangling loop when putting them in your ears. The cables are rubberized, the buds are very small, and they don’t protrude much out of your ears. Unlike the WI-C310, these headphones only come in black or white.

Like the WI-C-310, the WI-C200 are fairly comfortable for in-ears. They don't go too deeply in your ear canal and don’t apply pressure inside your ear since the buds are very small. The headphones feel lightweight, but some may be annoyed by their long cables that can be bothersome. They come with three tip sizes to help you find the most comfortable fit. However, the in-ear fit might not be the most comfortable to wear for a while.

The WI-C200 have a pretty straightforward in-line remote with a 3-button scheme. You can play/pause your music, take calls with the center button, and double-tap it to trigger your device’s voice assistant. You also have volume controls, and holding them will either skip tracks or go to the previous one. You have audio cues when skipping tracks and when reaching maximum and minimum volume. You also get a clear voice prompt during the pairing procedure, which is useful. Unfortunately, the buttons are a bit mushy, which makes tactile feedback a bit underwhelming.

Like most in-ear headphones, the WI-C200 are very breathable and won’t trap much heat inside your ears. This means you shouldn’t feel a big difference in temperature and won’t sweat more when working out with these.

Thanks to the flexible neckband design, the WI-C200 can easily be folded into a more compact format and will fit in most pockets or a bag. They are quite easy to carry around your neck as well. These headphones don’t take much space but, unfortunately, don’t come with a case to protect them when you’re on the move.

The Sony WI-C200 don’t come with a case or pouch.

Like the WI-C310, the Sony WI-C200 don’t feel like very durable headphones. The two modules feel like they’re made from thin plastic and are fairly fragile. While the cables are rubberized, they feel thin and look like they could easily be pulled from their bud housing or the modules. On the upside, the buds are magnetic, which helps with cable management when they’re dangling around your neck.

The Sony WI-C200 are stable enough for a light run or workout. However, a very small tug on the cable is enough to make the buds fall out of your ears. While their wireless design means you don’t have a wire in the way, the earbud cables are still very long, creating big dangling loops when wearing them, so be careful not to get them hooked on something.

• Sony WI-C200 headphones
• 3x tip options
• USB-C charging cable
• Manuals

The frequency response consistency is excellent. If the user can achieve a proper fit and an air-tight seal using the assortment of tips that come with the headphones, then they should be able to get consistent bass and treble delivery every time they use the headphones.

The bass performance of the Sony WI-C200 is great. Their LFE (low-frequency extension) is down to 10Hz, which is excellent. There’s a small 0.5dB underemphasis in the low-bass range, which means they may lack a bit of thump and rumble common to bass-heavy genres, but this will barely be audible. The response then gets overemphasized in the high-bass, by about 3dB, which adds a bit of boominess and muddiness to the sound. If you prefer a more bass-heavy profile, check out the Sony WI-XB400.

The mid-range response of the WI-C200 is also great. The vocals and lead instruments will be accurately reproduced. However, the small dip in mid-mid will slightly nudge them to the back of the mix, but this shouldn’t be too audible for most.

The Sony WI-C200 have very good treble performance. The response until 5kHz is well-balanced and even, but there’s a dip centered around 8kHz, followed by a sharp bump at 10kHz. This means that some frequencies will lack detail and brightness, while some other sibilants (S and Ts) will sound overly sharp and piercing. However, not everybody hears the treble frequencies the same way, so your experience may vary.

The stereo imaging is decent. Their weighted group delay is at 0.15, which is very low. The group delay graph also shows that the entire response is well below the audibility threshold. This ensures a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. However, the L/R drivers of our test unit showed a mismatch in amplitude and the right driver sounded a bit louder, skewing the stereo image. This is will have an effect on the accurate placement and localization of objects (voices, instruments, video game effects) in the stereo image. Note that these results are only valid for our unit and yours may perform differently.

The soundstage is poor. This is because creating an out-of-head and speaker-like soundstage is largely dependent on activating the resonances of the pinna (outer ear). The design of in-ears and earbuds is in such a way that fully bypasses the pinna and doesn't interact with it. Also, because these headphones have a closed-back enclosure, their soundstage won't be perceived to be as open as that of open-back earbuds like the Apple AirPods (2nd generation) Truly Wireless, or the Bose SoundSport Free Truly Wireless.

The Sony WI-C200 have a sub-par noise isolation performance. Their fit doesn’t block much lower frequencies like the rumbling of a bus engine, which means they won’t be ideal for commuting with an isolation performance of only 1dB. On the upside, they isolate by about 9dB in the mid-range, responsible for ambient chatter, which is okay. In the treble range, responsible for sharp S and T sounds and A/C fan noise, they achieved an isolation of 37dB, which is very good.

The leakage performance is excellent. These headphones don't leak in the bass and mid ranges, which results in a thin-sounding leakage. The significant portion of their leakage is between 2kHz and 5kHz, which is a relatively narrow range. Also, the overall level of the leakage is quiet. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage at 1 foot away averages at about 26dB and peaks at 38dB SPL, which is above the noise floor of an average office.

The in-line mic has a sub-par recording quality. The LFE of 523Hz results in a recorded or transmitted speech that is very thin. The HFE of 3.5kHz suggests a speech that lacks detail and presence. However, the intelligibility of speech on this microphone will still be understandable in quiet environments.

The in-line microphone of the WI-C200 is okay at noise handling. In our SpNR test, it achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of about 17dB, indicating it's best-suited for quiet and moderate environments. However, the mic will struggle to separate speech from ambient noise in loud situations.

We measured about 15 hours of battery life for a single charge of the WI-C200, which is pretty good and will last you long enough for a full work day without a problem. However, they can take a bit of time to charge with just about two hours. Unfortunately, they don’t have any power saving features, so be sure to turn them off when you’re not using them.

These headphones aren’t compatible with the Sony Headphones|Connect app and don’t have any dedicated customization options.

These headphones are Bluetooth 5.0 compatible, so you might get even better results that what we’ve measured if you source supports it as well. However, they can’t be connected to multiple devices simultaneously and don’t support NFC, which is quite rare for Sony headphones.

With 211ms of latency, the Sony WI-C200 might not be the best option to watch video content as some will notice a delay between audio and video. However, some apps and devices offer some sort of compensation, so you might not notice it as much.

The Sony WI-C200 are Bluetooth-only headphones and can’t be used with an audio cable.

The Sony WI-C200 don’t have a dock.