AliExpress WH-1000XM5 Bluetooth Headphones Review
https://youtu.be/w-nz5b0ZOjo
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I bought the AliExpress "WH-1000XM5 Wireless Headphone" for just £8.64p with free shipping, the Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones, which they very closely resemble, are priced at £319 on the Sony UK website. As with many products on AliExpress they are widely available from many sellers at a range of prices.
In the box, I received the headset itself, a short charging lead and a very small user guide. The headphones are lightweight but otherwise seem reasonably well made and don't look particularly cheap and nasty. The earcups and headband are quite nicely padded with a protective film over the earcup speaker grills. There is no apparent distinction between left and right earcups but one has a standard audio input port, USB-C charging port and buttons for Calls/Vol/Track Up and down, Bluetooth On/Off and another button which changes the language of the spoken alerts from English to Chinese and also invokes the phone's digital assistant. Unlike with the Sony original there are no earcup touch controls. The spoken alerts are clear and easy to understand in good English.
Charging takes around two hours and uses a USB-C port. An LED confirms charging and this is also used to indicate Bluetooth 5.2 pairing mode, which is fast and with spoken alerts to confirm the connection and power status. One charge will give me around a day of normal Bluetooth use.
The audio quality is OK it's fairly good considering the price with a decent level of bass, and clear and well defined mid tones but a high end which is rather muffled and indistinct. I also noticed some clipping and distortion at high volume levels. All in all, for the price the sound is pretty good. The microphone works pretty well and the headset does a reasonable job of call handling.
So this is certainly no Sony WH-1000XM5. There is no noise reduction, and other high end features are neither present nor claimed. The build quality, although OK, is by no means premium and the presentation is anything but high end. Their is no carry case or fancy box included and the packaging is distinctly low end.
What you get is a decent quality pair of Bluetooth headphones with pretty good but not great audio quality. You may have to move quickly to pick these up as AliExpress fakes seem to vanish instantly and at once from the marketplace when copyright claims are made. They may also be available on Temu, Wish, and other Chinese marketplace websites.
The Good
Great Price
Decent Audio Quality
Microphone
Bluetooth 5.2
Spoken Alerts
Digital Assistant Ready
The Bad
No Noise Reduction
No Touch Controls
Poor Presentation
Lightweight Build Quality
No Audio Cable
Music: YouTube Audio Library: Unicorn Heads:My
