While it’s great to see evidence of a potential successor to the best true wireless earbuds available today, the images themselves suggest any changes could be minimal. The Walkman’s Blog notes that the headphones seem more compact overall, with a curved underside that might allow for a better fit in the ear. The position of the charging LED also seems to have moved to the front of the case. Otherwise, the design of the headphones and the charging case are very similar to previous XM4 headphones.
Unlike the XM4s, however, these images show the XM5s with a glossy plastic finish on the headphones themselves. But this may be because these are pre-production units submitted to a certification body (the source of these images) and may not represent the final version. Wireless charging and touch controls return from the XM4s, though an FCC filing from last month suggests these headphones will use Bluetooth version 5.3, a slight upgrade over the version 5.2 of their predecessor.
It’s unclear when these headphones will be officially announced, but The Walkman’s Blog previously speculated that we could see them launching between May and August this year based on the timeline of previous Sony headphone announcements. Check out all of the images here.
