Sennheiser's new headphones promise a whopping 60 hours of ANC playback

Sennheiser has succumbed to peer pressure in designing its Momentum 4 over-ear headphones. There’s no longer the retro appeal from the metal headband design that we saw with the Momentum 3.

Instead, Sennheiser is going with a much more conservative look with a chunky cushioned headband and ear cups, making it look more like knockoff Sony WH-1000XM4s. But, the changes were done in the name of comfort, according to Sennheiser.

Generic design aside, Sennheiser’s Momentum 4 has its competition absolutely beat with its 60 hours of playback with active noise cancellation. The comfort-first redesign starts to make a little more sense since the Momentum 4 has such a long battery life. After all, you’ll want something that’s more comfortable to wear during longer listening sessions.

Best battery life — The Momentum 4’s 60-hour battery life with ANC playback was achieved in a test conducted using an iPhone with mid-volume levels, according to Sennheiser. The headphones’ 700 mAh battery can be fast charged for six hours of use in 10 minutes, or fully charged in two hours’ time.

The Momentum 4’s battery life is much more impressive when you consider the estimated play time of other comparable models from Sony, Apple, and Bose. The Momentum 4 is double Sony’s 30-hour ANC playback time seen with its WH-1000XM5, and triple that of the AirPods Max’s 20 hours of listening time with ANC.

Outside the obvious cosmetic changes, Sennheiser made some more subtle design updates. The Momentum 4 folds flat to fit within its case, instead of folding in on itself like the Momentum 3 did. Sennheiser also removed all the physical buttons, except for the power/Bluetooth button, opting for taps and swipe gestures on the ear cups to control the audio.

Sennheiser quality — Of course, all the Sennheiser audio quality is still there since it’s built with 42 mm speakers. The Momentum 4 also has improved adaptive noise cancellation and a transparency mode that can be activated with one touch.

If you don’t mind the rather plain restyling of the Momentum 4, it’s already up for preorder on Sennheiser’s website. Sennheiser also dropped the price of the Momentum 4 to $350, which is a $50 price cut from the previous edition. The Momentum 4 will officially be out on August 22.