NEW Microsoft Surface Headphones 2 - Light Gray

It's 2020, the year of USB-C, Bluetooth 5.0, sophisticated touch controls, aptX like codecs, multi-point connectivity, and of course the every improving "active" noise cancellation experimentations in high-end headphones. And just when I thought Bose would reign as the absolute supreme with NC700 with its build, touch controls, call quality, noise cancellation (Sony XM4 tad better in this department but sorry - too bass heavy for me), balanced sound stage (audiophiles, settle down, these are $250 consumer grade Bluetooth headsets, not your Planar or Grado, or tube amplifier driven Sennheiser), there came a pleasant surprise from...Microsoft!? The Surface Headphones 2 is an absolute joy to listen to and checks almost all the boxes for me. Priced at a modest $250, I am not going to say that there aren't other / better options out there, but this overall "package" from Microsoft really hit the spot for me, at least. The case: Absolute perfection. Slim profile, rugged, and looks very business-friendly. The headset: Big ears, rejoice! Perfect fit and roomy. Not too clamp heavy unless your head dimensions are inhuman. The cushion materials are very good but may attract oil / dust so best to keep them in the case when not in use, and it will need a mild wipe down every now and then. The build is solid otherwise. The controls: Absolutely amazing rotary dials and the touch controls are fine. There is a very handy mute button, too. Every once in a while they will not respond to my touch but once you kind of figure out what that touch surface likes (hint: fleshy part of your fingers - not nails), you'll be just fine. Another hint: if you want to skip to next (two taps) or previous (three taps), do those taps very quickly for them to register every single time. The sound quality: I do not believe in the concept of headphone burn-in, because let's face it, it's got almost nothing to do with the headset, but more your ears adjusting to the new headset's sound stage. A bad sounding headset is a bad sounding headset now and in a year from now. I believe in initial impression. As soon as I put these on and started my test track, it brought a smile to my face, just like its competition Bose (again, Sony XM4 was too bass heavy for me). An open, crisp, wide sound stage with very sufficient bass, and a little more emphasis on mid-frequencies, but overall very very pleasing. It is a keeper. About initial impressions, I recently I tested an AKG 371 BT and while a name brand, it was somewhat disappointing given its fit, form, and mainly sound quality as soon as the test track started, so back it went. The noise cancellation: The rotary dial is awesome for controlling noise cancellation and volume super quickly. Noise cancellation has max, medium, low, pass-through, and amplified surrounding settings, the last two great for phone calls that will require a bit of side tone (you hearing your own voice) that feels more natural. The noise cancellation is on par with Bose NC700, which is more than enough. Please do not expect either of these headsets (even XM4 for that matter) to fully drown out high pitched sounds. Noise cancellation works on low frequency continuous hum like jet engine noise and a little bit helpful for mid frequencies like reducing the harshness of people chatter. If you have a dog that barks or a baby that cries, that's on you, it's not the headset :) The call quality: Very good. No complaints unless you are taking calls standing at the top of the mountain with heavy wind or in heavy traffic. Even then, you can be heard but don't expect work meetings to go well in those situations. Moderately noisy coffee shop or home settings are perfectly fine for these. The connectivity: It's got Bluetooth 5, so its range shouldn't be an issue. No latency when watching videos. It also can connect to two devices simultaneously (say a phone and a tablet), and even if you are listening to your tablet, it'll stop whatever is playing if you get a phone call. Cool! Even Microsoft Windows 10, with its atrocious Bluetooth management, connects to this seamlessly (it'd have been shameful if it didn't). The app is OK - nothing to write home about. If you have a Windows 10 machine for work and need something that's not Jabra or Plantronics, this is highly recommended. TL;DR: This is a very 2020 generation headphone with USB-C and Bluetooth 5.0. Get it if you don't want Jabra or Plantronics for your Windows 10 ecosystem. Great call quality but won't cancel heavy winds, great sound stage with sufficient emphasis on bass, comfortable fit for big ears but may not be for overly large heads, excellent controls, case and the headset built-to-last, multi-point connectivity is A-OK, the app is alright. Side Note: Only if you have small / mid-size ears (e.g. if the original AirPods fit you very well), and do not care about noise cancellation, you may want to try Surface Buds. They didn't stay in my ears at all, so back they went.

I have a pair for work and for home. I bought the work pair somewhere about 1.5 years ago. I don't treat my equipment gently at times and this headset has taken some abuse over the course of the time I've had it. Finally the head piece broke in half - probably from too much stretching. The leather on the ear piece is peeling off leaving the foam exposed - however this thing still cranks, and still works just fine. It's great audio quality for a daily spotify or casual gaming. Works well enough for Teams and Zoom meetings, however, there's a lack of environment cancellation into the call itself. I will say that the noise cancellation works perfectly. It worked quite well for a 10+ hour flight and I couldn't hear a thing other than my Civ game on my laptop. Couple of quirks - Audio quality dips into some "conference call mode" or something where the audio enhances people speaking. I'm not sure what this mode is or what to call it, I still haven't figured out how to disable it. Sometimes you have to disconnect and reconnect in Windows Settings. Occasionally un-pair and re-pair the device. Sometimes it connects but won't switch the sound output to the headset (This could be a Windows issue, I don' have this problem with my phone). Overall, I'll continue to buy this headset!

Update 1/27/21: a little over a month of use with the surface 2’s and I’m noticing a significant drop in battery life. At first Cortona would tell me 17 hours remaining but the past week or so that full charge notice went from 16 hours to 15 hours. I’m not sure why the battery life after being charged overnight has dropped that much especially within the first year of use. I am doing an exchange and hopefully the replacement works much better in terms of battery life. Have to drop at least a star for now. 4 1/2 stars! I’ve never been compelled to write a review within hours of receiving and owning a product but these surface 2’s made my day! I was leery of buying them b/c I never tried them on and comfort is so much about the headphone experience. Having tried on Sony, Bose, Sennheiser etc I knew what was and what was not comfortable for me. I ran the entire gamut and took months to make this decision but something about the Surface 2’s kept calling me. I am glad I bought them b/c they met all of my expectations w/ literally 2 absolutely minor caveats. Pros: absolutely comfortable. They are truly over the ear headphones w/ generous space avoiding pinching or clamping down on any part of my ears. My ears are encompassed in a perfect audio blanket. They do not make my ears hot after hours of wearing them. Zero jaw pressure and crown pinch. The form is perfect for me. Audio is great. Noise cancellation is amazing but not as good as the Sony xm4’s. It’s literally a photo finish race and the xm4’s outperformed the surface 2’s. I’m not an audiophile but I felt like I was hearing new notes and peaks w/ my music while wearing the surface 2’s. The xm4’s have better sound but I’m not complaining. Call quality is fine. Ppl can hear me just fine and I can hear them, no complaints at all. I love the ability to switch b/w two devices. So while editing on my Mac I can seamlessly transition to my iPhone and take that call and go back to work on my Mac after hanging up. The dials on these are also such a huge plus. I love power authority on volume and noise cancellation. I don’t want to go to my phone or into an app to make an adjustment. A simple turn on either side and I’m good to go. I think that’s the feature that pulled me towards the surface 2’s. No app and the ability to adjust volume and most importantly noise cancellation with a simple turn is what sold me. Look is unique and my partner says it’s awkwardly beautiful and I agree with her. The gray is pristine, I have some worry that wear will show easier but I’m tired of white and black as the only options. Cons: 18.5 hour battery life is advertised but I can only get 17. I know that’s not much but I’m left wondering why? Not a deal breaker by any means. The touch controls can be better. Tap, double tap, triple tap... not as accurate and reliable as I’d like but again not a deal breaker. Those are my only two knocks on these surface 2’s but my partner did mention one that I don’t really agree with. She says they feel flimsy. I can see what she is saying but having each cup spin 180 is great for storage. Oh and the case provided is solid! She also mentioned a slight delay in response time w/ audio commands but I don’t care too much about a second or two. I hit the lotto with these. Love them, can’t put them down and I don’t want to share lol Price is ok, I was hoping to see a sale w/ it being the holidays but I’m so happy w/ them I am cool with $250. I waited a long long time to get noise canceling headphones and I hit a grand slam on my first try!

Pros: 1. Convenient control of volume and noise canceling by rotating the headphone rim. The mechanism has no end position and works very smoothly. 2. High volume level when listening to music or other content. 3. Knows how to adjust the volume in the Windows operating environment. 4. The presence of a separate Mute button for mute microphones. Microphone status indicator (yellow). When pressed, the headphones speak in a Muted / Unmuted voice. 5. The presence of a separate Surface Audio application for different OS (tested windows, android) 6. Ability to connect via Bluetooth to 8 devices, 2 of which can be active at the same time. Disconnect and reconnect other inactive devices through the Surface Audio app. 7. There is a built-in equalizer. Equalizer settings are saved directly to the headphones, they are the same for all connected devices. The settings can be changed independently from each connected device. 8. Instant inclusion and connection with devices, after a short press on the power button (1 second). Instant disconnection also after a short press on the button. 9. When turned on, the forecast of the battery life is announced by voice. Convenient to control the charge. 10. When turned on, the name of the device to which the connection was made is pronounced in a voice. Conss: 1. The volume level of phone calls depends on the restrictions in the phone. The volume is not enough for European devices. 2. There is no indication in the application or the phone / pc menu that the silence mode is on in the headphones. 3. When you press Mute, the headphones say Muted / Unmuted by voice. In this case, the phrase is pronounced slowly (2 seconds), and you cannot hear the speaker in the background. It would be convenient if this were replaced by a short beep. 4. When the microphones are muted with the Mute button, only the headphones are muted. In the call settings on the phone, the microphone remains on, which can be misleading. on the phone during a call it is not clear whether the microphone is on or not. 5. The indicator showing the state of Mute can only be seen by removing the headphones from the head. If you look at yourself in the mirror, the indicator is not visible. Perhaps it would be correct if the indicator were indicated on the side. 6. For Android phone does not control the volume on the phone. Has its own independent adjustable level. As a result, two parallel volume settings on the phone and on the headphones. 7. When listening to music at maximum volume levels, the sound breaks down, there are certain rattles. By all appearances, the speakers are not designed to meet the specified maximum level. 8. When the name of the connected device is played back by voice, the name of the device in the voice of Cortana is not very clear (naturally). 9. Even when the device is fully charged, the earbuds do not report the available nominal 20 hours of charge. They always say there are 18 hours left.

They're beautiful, they're $100 cheaper than the original, and they're cosmetically indistinguishable. Having returned the Surface Headphones 1 shortly after launch for being too expensive, I've noticed only one difference between versions 1 and 2: these will not show up in the Surface app as a Microsoft accessory alongside the Pen and Dial. Dubious versioning aside, I'm keeping them this time. The sound quality doesn't draw enough suspicion from me to test them against my Sony MDR-7506 wired studio monitors or the Samsung Galaxy Buds. The loudness is enough to make Merzbow and Whitehouse as painful as they should be. The bass is throaty enough for me to smirk my merry way through Drexciya. The soundstage is enough for me to continue not caring about soundstage. The buttons are easy to tell apart without looking, and the wheels are satisfying to twiddle. I doubt these will ever roll under a seat. The cables are too short. The Surface Audio app is redundant on Windows and boring on Android. The speed of the noise-canceling and volume wheels cannot be changed, nor can the touch controls be configured beyond "on" or "off." The soft equalizer has a mere five filters and four presets. The mute button works with Microsoft Teams despite the Surface Headphones not being listed as a Teams-Certified Device. Taking these quirks together, I can't tell if they're from Microsoft overly dogfooding their own media players or not dogfooding them enough, but either way, I expect worthwhile software from the world's foremost software company, and I'm not sure why this app exists. Overall, they're good headphones with pretty hardware for a fairer price. I don't enthusiastically recommend them, but I do recommend them.

I purchased this device to go with my Surface Pro 6. I previously owned a Beats Studio 2 headphones which I also loved. This however is a good upgrade choice. The device does all what it says it does. I looked at many reviews and I agree with all the positive things that have been said. I also use it with my Iphone 11 and it works quite well. It is easy to set and use. This is my go-to headphone. The design is well thought out and it covers my ears completely. I love the noise-cancelling feature. I can also walk some distance away from my device and not lose connectivity. I am really happy with my purchase. Thank you for your fine product.

TM:DR- This is a great headset. Only has AAC and SBC codecs. I don't recommend using them for Windows though. Read below for more details. I've tried all 3 recent BT headsets out there. I wanted to make sure it had BT5.0(the latest greatest BT at the time) I tried the Sony XM4, these Bose700, and even the Surface Headphone 2. To break it down: Sony's sounded great, but good bass at a small cost to overall sound quality/sound-stage. If you're a bass-head, go for it. If not, they're ok but I don't recommend for anything but bass. Bose700 best overall sound quality and pretty comfortable Surface Headphone 2, avoid like the plague, they sound AWFUL. Like listening to music through a pillow. Tbf I didn't use any app these headphones came with. Imho if they weren't good out of the box, aka calibrated in the factory, then I didn't want them anyways. Onto the Bose700, good solid headset but do NOT use these(or any BT headset for that matter) with Windows10. Windows, for whatever dumba** reason, can't play audio through the headphones and use the mic at the same time. Windows problem, not the headset. In hindsight, my dumba** should've bought RF headphones or just BT headphones, not headset, and use a dedicated mic for pc. This headset has a very even soundstage with decent bass. They sound good. BUT they only support aac codecs so, unless you have an audio device that supports it, you're stuck with SBC(basic bluetooth codec that all BT devices have) and thus just sounds ok. And idk many things that support aac. most support aptx. So ymmv. These headphones are comfortable enough to keep wearing all day but the headband isn't large enough and the headset holds heat. Thus you may sweat while wearing them if you live in a hot place(I live in the South so I have this issue but it's not too bad). They're just a little hot thanks to the "leather" they use on the very soft earcups and being closed back(no airflow). There's not much plush to the earcups but it's enough so my ears aren't touching the fabric over the drivers. BT5.0 is kind of a joke. Sure it can pair to two+ devices but it can't use both at same time so it has to switch between. This switch isn't fast enough imho. What happens is I pair these headphones to my pc and my phone(so I can hear when someone calls me. Can't hear jack with the awesome noise cancelation lol) and I'll be playing music on pc, when I get a phone notification it cuts off my pc audio to play the phone ding, then switches back to pc. When it does this, it abruptly cuts off audio from both devices so pc audio cuts off, I hear half of the ding, and then it cuts back into the pc audio. May sound fine on paper but it's jarring irl. Sometimes the switch is so delayed that I don't even hear the phone ding, the audio from pc just cuts out and I check my phone out of habit now. It NEEDS to be a faster switch or best case just port the audio from the phone into the pc audio feed. For pc, the touchpad volume controls and the hold to hear battery life functions work well but the forward/back track controls do NOT work. Good enough for me though. The button to turn NC on/off works well. It has 3 stages: 100% NC, 50% NC, and off by default. You can change the steps using the app but I hate needing an app for everything. I avoid apps when I can. And this headset is good out of the box. The noise cancellation is superb. It has a downside though, I can't hear anything else so if someone is calling me, and my phone isn't paired to the headset, I'm NOT hearing it lol. Battery life is 20 hours. Realistically 18 though. Which isn't a lot compared to most. So be sure to charge these after each session or they'll definitely die on you. This headset has a female robot voice to inform you what it's doing: "Bluetooth off" "Connected to" etc. But if you have it connected to a pc named Jerry for example, it'll say "Connecting to J.E.R.R.Y."(spelled out) and then "Connected to J.E.R.R.Y" If you have a long source name, it'll get annoying fast. It's annoying but very informative. Other headset say the name but sound super strange saying the name so it spelling it out is slightly better imo. The headset comes with a carrying case, a 2.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable for wired listening, a small usb-c to usb-a charge cable, and an app if you care to use it(I didn't and it was great out of the box). The case has a small compartment for the cables but not much room for a charge brick so you're stuck carrying/sourcing your own charge brick. Overall, they're good but could've been better comfort-wise.

Sound quality and comfort are as good as Bose. I use these for work every day and the application that goes with it is helpful. The only thing I dont like is when I get a Teams call and it takes too long for the Bluetooth to connect. Very comparable to Bose but I really like the controls on the surface better.

Sigo mucho a la marca Surface aunque no he logrado comprarme un dispositivo portatil (laptop o Tablet), se que algún día sucederá. Buscaba unos audífonos con las siguientes premisas: 1) Sonido Premium 2) Cancelación de Ruido Activa Eficiente 3) Conectividad Efectiva Multidispositivos Lo quería para mi trabajo y para tomar mis clases de diplomado el fin de semana. Te comparto mi opinión: 1) Sonido Premium. Seguro encuentras alternativas similares y mejores pero te puedo asegurar que Surface tiene una calidad excepcional. Un sonido potente, balanceado, con excelentes matices. Te puedo asegurar que yo no necesito mas. 2) Cancelación de Ruido. Está muy a la par o ligeramente por debajo de Bose y Sony pero a mi me funcionan perfecto. Me favorece mucho en situaciones en las que deseo aislarme del ruido para concentrarme ya sea audio en ON u OFF. Te voy a decir en que me hace la diferencia a mi: 1) Estuche Premium lo puedo llevar a todos lados y no tuve que pagar adicional. 2) Tiene un sistema de sonido audio espacial que es compatible con Microsoft te recrea una atmósfera envolvente, 3) Tiene un sistema mecánico único para controlar tu volumen y checate esto 9 niveles diferentes de Cancelación de Ruido, 4) Lo mejor es que tiene una conectividad insuperable se conecta con dos dispositivos al mismo tiempo y puedes estar trabajando en tu laptop y recibir una llamada de tu celular todo funciona automático. Para videollamadas Yo solo te recomiendo que siempre los prendas primero y despues de unos segundos te metas a tu zoom, skype, teams, Meets whatever. Porque cuando lo haces al revés generalmente no se enlaza. 5) Son compatibles vía alámbrica con mi XBOX SERIES X, ya te incluye el cable de 3.5 mm lo conectas a tu control de XBOX y Voilá. No sabes lo bien que se escucha mejor que mis Astro A40, el Mic no es tan perfecto pero es decente. Que no me gustó: 1) El color gris, es bonito pero se ensucia rápidamente y todo el tiempo siento que se me van a manchar de algo que no se le quite, hay una versión en Negro pero no quise gastar ese sobre precio. 2) Autonomía según son de 20 horas pero la verdad duara menos quizá 15 horas a mi me duraron 2 días de trabajo sin usarlo la joranada completa. 3) La banda que los sostiene de la parte alta de tu cabeza no es tan cómoda o le faltó relleno o la pudieron hacer de otro material mas cómodo al inicio sientes que algo anda mal pero rápidamente te acostumbras, 4) Los Earpads no son reemplazables asi que cuando se te dañen Goodbye Headphones. El precio fue justo y se agradece que aún y cuando no sea un producto lanzado en México Amazon te de esa oportunidad de adquirirlos. Lástima que los de color negros estén bastante mas caros.

Amazing quality and sound premium feel and comfort

Muy buena calidad de producto. Lo unico que no me gusta es que no escucho mi propia voz cuando entra una llamada.

Magnificos