Beats Solo 4 review: playing both sides

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They look like Beats headphones. They sound like Beats headphones. The battery life can stretch to a new high of 50 hours. Those things alone all but guarantee that the new Beats Solo 4 on-ear wireless headphones will prove just as successful as their predecessors — and it'll be no time at all before you start seeing them worn by athletes and music stars at every turn. 

But there's more to these than a logo. Unlike the Solo 3, the fourth-gen cans uniquely support native software features (like one-tap pairing and Find My / Find My Device) on both Android and iOS; Beats has quietly become Apple's Android-friendly brand, in case you weren't paying attention. And for an old-school guy like me, I love that the company is putting an emphasis on wired, lossless listening over either USB-C or the 3.5mm headphone jack. Sonically, these are a world apart from Sennheiser's Momentum 4 or the Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2e headphones that I often carry — both of which are more expensive. But they're also for much different audiences. As ever, Beats is about cultural cachet, that prominent "b" logo, and enjoyable (if not mind-blowing) sound.

That's not to say Beats knocked everything out of the park. A complete lack of active noise cancellation in any $200 pair of wireless headphones is hard to overlook; the ear cushions have provided relatively good natural noise isolation in my local coffee shop and when traversing Brooklyn, but ANC is always appreciated when the clamor starts to bubble over. The short-lived Solo Pro had it, but not these, which are technically a sequel to the eight-year-old Solo 3.

So Beats' flagship Studio Pro easily win out on the ANC front. But the Solo 4 do have one thing going for them: they're passively tuned. On many wireless headphones, there's an active EQ profile running at all times that provides the fullest sound. That's all driven by the battery. Once you're out of power, some headphones will stop playing — even when wired — or will fall back to very meager audio quality until you recharge. The Solo 4 will keep playing endlessly when plugged in even if the battery is dead thanks to that passive tuning, and the sound never changes. "Unlimited wired playback" is actually one of the bullet points advertised on the back of the box. We love to see it, though this inevitably means getting out a headphone dongle nowadays.

The "pink" Solo 4s often look very neutral depending on the light.

The left Beats logo doubles as your play/pause button, with volume above and below.

On your head, the Solo 4 wear well. They're narrower, sleeker, and significantly lighter than the Studio cans. And they use the same "UltraPlush" memory foam pads as the Studio Pro, which are a key part of the comfort. Beats claims the new cover material — a failure point of some past headphones — should provide better durability and extended longevity compared to the Solo 3. There's always a moderate amount of clamping force with Beats headphones; plenty of people use them at the gym or during outdoor activities. But despite my huge noggin, I never found the pressure to reach unpleasant territory.

The memory foam ear cups help make the clamping force less noticeable.

I like the included fabric carrying case, too, but why doesn't it match the color of your headphones? Blue, pink, and black are the hardware choices at launch, but Beats has a history of churning out many other colors as time goes on. The design of the headphones is similar to past models, and so are the controls. The left-side Beats logo acts as a play / pause button, and you've got volume controls directly above and below, so using these headphones is about as simple as it gets. You can double-tap the logo to skip forward a track or triple-press to go back — all very familiar controls for Beats fans. 

Rather than integrating an Apple chip, which would make these lopsidedly appealing to iPhone owners, Beats is sticking with the same proprietary platform that has been the brains of its recent products. In practice, this means you'll get some (but not all) ecosystem software tricks, regardless of whether you're using iOS or Android. This feels like the right approach to me. Apple fans get at least one exclusive: personalized spatial audio with head tracking. But the Android crowd gets automatic device switching between Android, Chromebooks, and other devices.

The "4" is how you know these are the new ones, obviously.

I've been listening to the Solo 4 for several days, and the sound is honestly more restrained than I expected. They're not particularly bassy and avoid overemphasizing any section of the frequency range; the goal was to land on a consistent tuning that fits right across music, podcasts, work meetings / voice calls, and more. Speaking of calls, voice quality is rather decent, with Beats having trained its ML algorithm "using over 7,000 hours of exposure to real-world environments." Where the Solo 4 fall short compared to pricier headphones is in their overall richness and a fairly condensed soundstage that lacks much breadth. But for the target audience, I think they'll prove more than adequate. 

AGREE TO CONTINUE: BEATS SOLO 4

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It's impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit "agree" to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don't read and definitely can't negotiate.

You can use the Beats Solo 4 headphones out of the box without agreeing to anything by pairing them over Bluetooth as usual. However, using the Siri assistant on the iPhone or iPad means you're subject to Apple's privacy policy.

Additionally, if you install the company's Android app, you're asked if you want to automatically send analytics data to Apple. "Apple collects information about your Beats app and Beats product, such as the software versions, device rename occurrences, and device update success and fail rates, in order to improve the product." Apple says none of this data allows the company to personally identify you. Firmware can also be updated via Beats' desktop app.

The Beats app also requests background location permission so it can "connect to your Beats instantly, check battery status on the fly, and access deeper functionality."

Final tally: no mandatory agreements but several optional software agreements.

The omission of noise cancellation on the Solo 4 could be a real obstacle for some, but I don't think it'll be enough to dampen their appeal to the masses who've been cycling through Beats products for so many years now. Even if you're buying largely for the cool factor, at least these on-ear headphones are now platform-agnostic, more comfortable, and more versatile since you can just plug in if you manage to run through that 50-hour battery life. As with all Beats products, it's worth holding out until they go on sale — and the Solo 4 certainly will. 

Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge