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Apple has lots of headphones on lots of ears, and since the Cupertino-based brand acquired Beats in 2014, it's only expanded its inventory. The Beats Solo 4 headphones are the newest pair that Apple can add to its lineup of impressive audio gear. According to the brand, the Solo 3 headphones were its most popular pair to date, so it made sense that there wasn't a huge need to update something. If it ain't broke, why fix it? Eight years later, however, Beats found some things worth fixing, and that's why we're here today—to introduce you to the Solo 4 headphones.
From what we could tell, the Solo 3—released in 2016—had some pretty things going for it: long battery life, fairly good sound quality, and a moderately affordable $200 price tag. The whole Solo line was built for folks who just wanted wireless headphones and didn't want to spend a little more for noise-canceling capabilities. Beats tried that already with the Solo Pros, but those were met with some pretty meh reactions and later discontinued. So Beats went ahead and kept the Solo 4's to be non-noise-canceling, keeping the price tag the same as the old model. Now does Beats have something better on its hands? We tried out the new Beats Solo 4 headphones to find out.
Specs
- Battery Life: 50 hours (versus the Solo 3's 40 hours)
- Noise-Canceling: No
- Water Resistance: Not rated
- Weight: 7.7 ounces
- Colors Available: Matte black, slate blue, cloud pink
The Solo 4 Doesn't Cost More
As so often happens, a newer model of an existing product often costs more than its predecessor. This is not the case with the Beats Solo 4, which has the same $200 price tag as the Solo 3, which actually debuted at $300. Overall, Beats gave the Solo headphones some pretty decent upgrades, which maybe we wouldn't have been upset about paying $25 or even $50 more to get. One of the biggest differences between the two models is that the newer headphones have a 50-hour battery life, 25% longer than the Solo 3's 40 hours. Visually, these new headphones look identical to the old ones, down to the matte finish and plastic build. These are over-ear headphones, so they feel like they're squishing your ears, but the earcups have some super-plush padding that helps to soften the pressure.
Beats has always been in the bass-booming department, and there's no change to that with the Solo 4 headphones, which actually do sound much better than the previous iteration. We'd go so far as to say the headphones sound as good as the higher-end, noise-canceling Studio Pros from 2023 (not to be confused with the discontinued Solo Pros). The bass notes are very much present, and they don't get muddled with the lower or mid-tones. A song like “On the Game” by The Black Keys rings through the earcups like the arena rock sock it was meant to be, perfectly capturing the heavy bass notes and ringing guitar riff. Lesser headphones would make a tune like that seem jumbled, but not with the Solo 4. A slower song, like “Don't Forget Me” by Maggie Rogers, has a beautiful clearness to it, especially when you isolate the vocals, which give off an ethereal feel. What's more, the Solo 4 headphones now have spatial audio—but only if you have an Apple device—which tracks your head to create surround sound as if you're fully immersed in your media.
Falling a Little Far from the Apple Tree
Given its parent company is Apple, Beats' preference for pairing with Apple products makes sense. The Solo 3 used an Apple W1 chip, the same one used in all of the AirPods family of headphones, which meant that it would connect quickly to any iOS device. Not only that, but it increased the Bluetooth range and aided in preventing battery loss. In the same way that Apple prioritizes keeping things in the family (just look at the U.S. government's antitrust case against Apple for the way it stigmatizes texting non-Apple users through the use of green bubbles), the Solo 3 and other Beats headphones were best used when paired with an iPhone. However, Beats has ditched the Apple-only chip for a proprietary tech that makes it work just as well with Android phones as it does with iPhones. That means non-iPhone users now have access to one-touch pairing, automatic account setups, and Find My compatibility for those instances where you misplace your tech.
Living on the Wire
At one point, Apple was determined to kill any wired connection. Users felt like the brand was doing its best to push everyone to a wireless connection, from ditching the headphone jack on its phones to scrapping the 3.5-millimeter jack on the AirPods Maxes and the now-discontinued Solo Pros. The only way to go wired with headphones like those was to buy a pricey separate adapter. The Solo 4 headphones graciously do have a 3.5-millimeter jack—perfect for plugging into the entertainment system on a plane—and they also offer lossless audio through a USB-C connection.
For the uninitiated, lossless audio is a format of music that essentially reproduces tracks more accurately, reflecting the sound that an artist intended. New users get a six-month free trial of Apple Music, which offers its own type of lossless audio—called Apple Lossless Audio Codec—so you can differentiate between the two types of audio for free before going full-send in the audiophile lifestyle.
Beats Solo 4: The Verdict
The Solo 3 headphones reigned supreme in the Beats family for eight years. Usually, tech companies go a couple of years at most before they go messing around with their best sellers to improve them and give them a modern-day upgrade. But not for Beats, which went nearly a decade before heading into the Solo 4. Was it worth the wait? We're not going to say Beats reinvented the wheel over here, but it did finally get the Solo series into the present. We're not sure how the brand managed to keep selling the Solo 3 headphones when there were competing models around the same price that simply offered more, so this release feels long overdue. That's not to say it's too little too late.
You have $200 burning a hole in your pocket, and you'd love a new pair of headphones. Go ahead, buy the Beats Solo 4, and rest easy; you made a worthwhile purchase. From our testing, we see that these headphones perform well and bring the Solo model into the present day so that it can finally compete with non-noise-canceling headphones in the same price range, around the same $150 to $200.
They're much more non-Apple friendly than other Apple-backed headphones, which might be why you don't end up spending 50 bucks more just to get a pair of noise-canceling AirPods Pros if you're not integrated into the iOS tech-o-sphere. They sound good and fit great, and they are a hefty upgrade from their predecessor, but that's not saying much since the old tech was pretty dang old. We guess that with Beats, maybe the fourth time is the charm.