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Last year, Microsoft spent much of its time working with high-end audio manufacturers to integrate their Cortana voice assistant with smart speakers similar to Amazon Echo or Google Home.
The first product resulting from this effort was the Harman Kardon Invoke, which has proven to be a poor contender for voice assistants from Amazon and Google. Microsoft's latest audio product, Surface Headphones, may not have much to do with Cortana, but it could be much more promising.
Inaugurated this week, the $ 349 Surface wireless headsets are certainly expensive, but their noise-canceling capabilities and exclusive pairing process with Windows devices could bring them some money back. .
For starters, headphones can connect to any Bluetooth-enabled device, whether it's an Android phone, a Mac, or an Xbox. While establishing a Bluetooth connection is often a painful process, pairing headphones with a Surface PC needs to be relatively straightforward, with support for Swift Pair, the new device auto-pairing process built into the network. latest version of Windows 10.
The large in-ear headphones are very satisfying to wear, and even with the headset turned off, they were very successful in isolating the hubbub of the cluttered high-ceilinged warehouse in which I had a brief demonstration of the helmet.
But the real magic starts when you turn on the headphones with a button on the right headset. Four noise-canceling microphones wake up immediately, offering 13 levels of noise suppression that you can adjust using a smart dial built into the left earpiece. I turned the knob forward to decrease the noise suppression and the ambient noise immediately increased. I could even hear my own voice picked up by the microphones and routed through the speakers at the lowest noise reduction level.
The audio quality seems excellent, although I did not have the chance to listen carefully during the brief moment when I wore the headphones. We will have to reserve our final judgment until we get a pair in PC Labs for more in-depth testing. I enjoyed the fact that headphones automatically detect when you remove them and pause everything you listen to.
Cortana's hands-free support lets you ask the Microsoft Assistant to view your calendar or perform other tasks while wearing your headphones. You can also check the basic status information in the Cortana Android app, such as volume, noise cancellation and battery level.
Headphones are only available in a platinum gray color that matches the color palette of the rest of the current Surface range. There is no black option like the new Surface Laptop 2 and Surface Pro 6. They weigh 0.64 lbs. But thanks to the luxurious leather headphones and the comfortable headband, they seemed to be weightless.
A full charge takes two hours, giving you 15 hours of music playback via a Bluetooth connection. If you prefer to use a wired connection, there is a USB-C port in which you can connect a cable provided, which should give you well over 15 hours of happiness without noise.
At $ 350, headphones are however competing with the high-end wireless noise suppression market, dominated by companies like Bose and Bang & Olufsen. They are comfortable and complete, of course, but maybe not enough to make up for that high price. Come back soon for our comprehensive review.
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