Comparison to the Sony WF-1000XM3

To find out how the 1MORE True Wireless ANC stand up to the competition, I compared them to almost thirty other TWS headphones I had at my disposal while testing them, both from well-known brands such as Sony, Sennheiser, Audio Technica, Cambridge Audio, Bose, JBL, Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi, as well as many less known ones, such as Tivoli, Jabees, TaoTronics, House of Marley, Canyon, and Jade Audio. In the end, the direct comparison that makes the most sense is the Sony WF-1000XM3, which seem to be a go-to choice for anyone aiming to buy the best TWS headphones on the market.

1MORE True Wireless ANC vs Sony WF-1000XM3

The Sony WF-1000XM3 ($220) are widely regarded as the best TWS headphones on the market and can be considered those 1MORE is aiming to take down with the True Wireless ANC. I'll start by mentioning their drawbacks, as there aren't many: the Bluetooth audio codec support is limited to SBC and AAC (no aptX or Sony's own LDAC codec support, which is weird) and the supplied carrying/charging case is quite bulky, certainly bulkier and less practical to carry around than that of the 1MORE True Wireless ANC. Since they're based on the MediaTek MT2811SP chipset, the Sony WF-1000XM3 don't support Qualcomm's True Wireless Stereo Plus technology, but I didn't run into any connectivity issues or lag during playback regardless.


In terms of battery life, the Sony WF-1000XM3 can last around 8 hours on a single charge and up to 6 hours when ANC (Active Noise Cancelling) is on. That's a bit longer than 1MORE's 6 hours with ANC off and 5 hours with ANC on. Both headphones support fast charging—15 minutes for 2 hours of use in 1MORE's case and 10 minutes for 1.5 hours of use in Sony's case. When doing a full charge, 1MORE is faster: an hour for the headphones and 2 hours for the case, compared to Sony's 1.5 hours for the headphones and 3.5 hours for the case. It should also be noted that the 1MORE True Wirelss ANC support wireless charging, while the Sony WF-1000XM3 don't.


The controls are better on the 1MORE headphones as well, mainly because 1MORE uses a combination of physical buttons and touch controls, while the Sony headphones are limited to touch controls. Sony released the WF-1000XM3 without an option to control the volume on the headphones, which I find bizarre. They added this feature in a recent firmware update, but implemented it in a way that assigns the entire earpiece (left or right) to volume control, meaning you can no longer use it for other functions (ANC/Ambient Sound Control or voice assistant activation).


Both headphones offer excellent sound quality. In that regard, you really can't go wrong with either. It's really hard to say which pair sounds better as there is really not much setting them apart. Both offer plenty of energy, depth, punchiness, and warmth in the bass region. The 1MORE True Wireless ANC are slightly tighter in the lowest part of the frequency spectrum. Male and female vocals sound great on both headphones. There's plenty of detail to be heard from both headphones, but the higher frequencies are where the 1MORE True Wireless ANC headphones sound a bit smoother, airier, and with better instrumental separation. This could be down to 1MORE's extra balanced armature doing its magic, or an audible difference in supported Bluetooth codecs—Sony's archaic SBC/AAC vs. 1MORE's more advanced aptX. Both headphones are definitely resolute enough to reveal the difference in Bluetooth audio codec compression (maximum supported bitrates, sample rates, and bit depth). All in all, if I had to choose, I'd pick the 1MORE True Wireless ANC headphones for their overall sound quality.


On the other hand, if I was mostly using the headphones with ANC turned on, the Sony WF-1000XM3 are the clear winner. Not because of the strength of ANC as the 1MORE True Wireless ANC headphones are absolutely on par with the Sony WF-1000XM3, but because having ANC on doesn't deteriorate the sound quality nearly as much as it does on the 1MORE True Wireless ANC, where the bass becomes heavily boosted and the mid and high-range go from clean and airy to sort of muddy. Will you care about it while trying to silence the roar of jet engines? Probably not. For other scenarios, the passive noise isolation is good enough to keep you separated from your surroundings. Sony's ANC implementation comes with annoyances of its own, as for some reason, whenever the WF-1000XM3 are connected to the smartphone, ANC is on by default and you have to go through the procedure of turning it off in their official app or by using the touch sensors, assuming you didn't assign volume and media controls to them. 1MORE's headphones stay on whatever setting you had them on last, be it ANC, Pass-through or Standard "passive" mode.

Microphone quality can be compared by listening to the following samples:




The 1MORE True Wireless ANC has a dual microphone setup, while the Sony WF-1000XM3 is equipped with a single microphone. There's not much separating them in terms of quality except for the volume: 1MORE's microphones are louder. I had no issues using either for phone calls and conversations with voice assistants (1MORE supports Siri and Google Assistant, Sony supports Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa). Both headphones support a feature where the microphones are used to reproduce sounds around you in real time, for situations where you would want to hear what is happening around you (i.e., while running). 1MORE calls it Pass-through Mode, and Sony named it Ambient Sound Mode.


Finally, Sony's offering is miles ahead with the accompanying mobile app. It has a ton of features, including automatic firmware updates, a system-wide equalizer, touch control remapping, their ambient sound control slider, and so on. 1MORE's own app, 1MORE Music, offers firmware updates, a slider to select the level of ANC, and a toggle to activate Pass-through mode. Nothing else.