The Sony WF-C510 offers a clear, bright sound experience.
The Sony WF-C510 case has an LED light at the front
Sony WF-C510 was introduced in the Indian market in September of this year. It sits on the lower end of Sony's audio wearable products. It does not support high-end audio codecs or active noise cancellation, which seems to be a popular feature in almost all TWS earphones today. With its 6mm drivers and up to 22 hours of total battery life, are they still worth your money? They currently retail in the country at Rs. 4,990. So let's determine if you should consider them when buying your next set of everyday headsets.
The Sony WF-C510 offer a comfortable in-ear fit. The earphones come with three ear tip options in-the-box — small, medium and large. The default medium size was the most compatible one for me. The earphone's design is similar to that of the Sony Linkbuds S but slightly smaller and lighter. Instead of touch sensors, there is a physical button on the top that we can press to control volume, playback and other features.
The TWS earphones come with three ear tip size options in-the-box
They are offered in black, blue, yellow, and white matte colourways. The pill-shaped charging case of the Sony WF-C510 is small enough to fit in the palm of your end or slip into the cowboy pocket watch slot of your jeans. Weighing only 31g, it is light and easy to carry around, and because it has a flat bottom, it does not roll off the desk. However, if you are outdoors, or travelling with it, the case attracts a fair amount of dust. Usually, not much that can't be dusted off (or rubbed off on the jeans) but if you have one of the pastel shades, dust is not a good look.
The front of the Sony WF-C510 charging case has an LED light, which blinks green, amber and red, signalling the battery level. The top has the Sony branding engraved, while the back holds the USB Type-C charging port and the pairing button. Notably, there is no charging cable in the case, but that did not account for any disappointments. I was mildly relieved in fact, since we already have cables galore to deal with every day, and any old USB Type-C cable in your house powers up the case just fine.
The accompanying Sony Sound Connect app is hassle-free and easy to use. You can do the usual press gesture personalisations and battery level monitoring. While you can customise your equalisation settings, you also have several presets to choose from like Bright, Excited, Mellow, Relaxed, Vocal, Treble Boost, Bass Boost and Speech. The Find Your Equalizer feature on the app can help you personalise your EQ settings as well. With music playing in the background, this section of the app will offer you multiple EQ variations in two sets. You can choose which you enjoy the most and the app will save your selection.
The Sound Connect app allows you to access Sony's DSEE feature
The Sony WF-C510 supports 360 Reality Audio which allows users to have a more immersive stereo sound experience. You will need an extra app for this optimisation. These earphones carry 6mm drivers and support multi-point Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. Although they do not have support for any higher audio codecs aside from SBC and AAC, the Sound Connect app allows you to access Sony's DSEE. This helps increase the detailing on some compressed audio files. You can also choose to prioritise audio quality over connectivity or vice versa through the app.
The Sony WF-C510 comes with an IPX4 rating for splash resistance which makes it the perfect partner for your morning or evening run or gym visits as it can deal with a little sweat. They do not have ANC support, which helps with the battery life. However, the fit offers a decent level of passive noise isolation.
The snug fit of the Sony WF-C510 offers an adequate amount of passive noise isolation to drown out most atmospheric disturbances. Even without any music on, you may still hear the faint whirring of the fan but the TV playing in the room will not bother you as much. If you have the music or podcast on, there is not much external noise that interrupts your experience. However, there is a transparency mode called Ambient Sound that you can toggle on the app or through the button on the earphones. It uses the mic on the earphones to let atmospheric noises flow through. This is handy if you're outdoors and want to be more aware of your surroundings.
The charging connectors are placed towards the inside of the earphones
The Sony WF-C510 present you with a rich and vibrant sound experience. You can alter the sound to suit your preference using a five-band equaliser aside from the preset options. For bass lovers, there is a separate Clear Bass slider that can help hit the desirable punch in a given track. The DSEE (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) mode, can further enhance the detail of each song, especially the slightly muddy mids, albeit at the cost of some battery life. You will be able to enjoy all the intricacies of Ritchie Blackmore's guitar jam with Jon Lord on the organs in Deep Purple's Child in Time track. You get an immersive, sonic journey even with the grounded, balanced groove of Kaytranda's Witchy featuring Childish Gambino or the trappy, booming track of Agust D's Tony Montana.
Connectivity options of the Sony WF-C510 include Bluetooth 5.3 and it supports Google Fast Pairing. So as soon as you open the case near your Android device, the pairing option pops up. It is an uncomplicated process. Since they support multi-point connectivity, you need to long-press the pairing button to pair it with the second device. Make sure you have the “Connect to 2 devices simultaneously” option enabled from the Sound Connect app. Once connected, you can seamlessly switch between the two devices without any considerable lag. Notably, the earphones do not have an in-ear detection feature, so even if you take them off, the music track or video keeps playing and only disconnects once put back in the case.
Coming to battery life, I have no qualms with the Sony WF-C510 save maybe the charging case, which is claimed to offer up to 11 additional hours of usage, could give some more hours. With the Ambient Sound mode off, just the earphones can run for up to 10.5 hours on a single charge playing AAC. If you add the DSEE modification, the battery life drops to a little over eight hours. With the Ambient sound mode on, without DSEE, they offer a playback time of about six hours. The earphones support a quick charge feature which fuels up for up to an hour of usage in just five minutes. The charging case, using a USB Type-C cable can fully charge from zero in two hours and forty-seven minutes.
The magnetic charging case is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand
The Sony WF-C510 are a good pair of TWS earphones at Rs. 4,990. A lower range of Sony earphones with no ANC initially made me sceptical about the sound quality. However, the tuning of these headsets does not leave much room for complaint. Put together with the companion app, you can customise the equalisation settings, and the bass levels and even adjust and enhance the detailing with DSEE. The light and comfortable fit of these earphones goes a long way as well, especially if you intend to use them as your everyday pair. The over 10 hours of playback time on the earphones are also rare and a welcome change in the sea of ANC earphones (enabling ANC drains the battery faster). A bigger charging case could probably give us a little more additional battery life.
If ANC is one of your deal-breaker criteria, of course, you have to look elsewhere. The CMF Buds Pro 2 are a good choice, at Rs. 4,299. You will get up to 50dB of ANC, up to 43 hours of total battery life and ChatGPT integration with the companion Nothing X app. You can opt for the OnePlus Buds 3 (Review) as well, at a slightly higher price of Rs. 5,499. Alongside up to 49dB ANC and up to 44 hours of total playback time, you will also get support for LHDC audio codec and IP55 dust and water resistance.
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