If you were one of those disappointed that the Galaxy Buds+ did not come with Active Noise Cancelling, you’ll be happy to know that the newly-released truly wireless earphones from sub-brand AKG has that feature. The AKG N400 brings not just ANC but also another feature that the Buds don’t have: water resistance. It was officially announced in South Korea and is understandably more expensive than the Galaxy Buds+. No news yet if the rest of the world will get this new accessory though.
The AKG N400 has pretty neat specs aside from the ANC and the water resistance. The earphones use 8.2mm drivers and a frequency response of 10Hz-20Hz, plus an impedance of 16 ohms and sensitivity of 96 dB SPL. In case all that is gibberish to you, the other specs might make more sense to you. It uses a Bluetooth 5.0 chipset that supports SBC and AAC codecs. It also comes with several ear tips including Comply foam tips.
There are two microphones on each bud and they use beamforming technology so the voice calls you make while using the AKG N400 have better quality than your usual earphones. It also has capacitive touch controls so you can control the volume and playback just by tapping on the earbuds. Since it has microphones, you can also summon your digital assistant of choice, whether it’s Bixby, Google Assistant, or Siri. Battery-wise, they can last 6 hours on a single charge but 5 hours when using ANC. The case can add 6 more hours when charging the earbuds.
But of course the active noise cancellation would be one of the more important features. You can use the Ambient Aware feature to control the level of noise cancellation you want or you can also activate the TalkThru feature so you can still know what’s going on around you while you’re using the earbuds. The other important thing is that it has an IPX7 rating for water resistance which the Galaxy Buds+ didn’t have.
The AKG N400 comes in three colors: black, blue, and navy. It costs KRW 230,000 which is around $190. Hopefully, it will be available in other markets as well.
