If you want a small in-ear pair that can genuinely double as in ear earbuds for side sleepers — low-profile buds, four eartip sizes, magnetic auto-pause — choose Beats Flex; if you need real active noise cancelling, an over-ear fit and up to 35 hours per charge, choose SONY WH-CH720N.
Beats Flex vs SONY WH-CH720N at a Glance
• Beats Flex, biggest strength: a genuinely tiny in-ear design — 0.7 oz total — with a Flex-Form cable and four eartip options, so it stays put and disappears into a pocket.
• Beats Flex, biggest trade-off: no active noise cancelling and no over-ear isolation; the cable also means you'll want to route it behind your head when you lie on your side.
• SONY WH-CH720N, biggest strength: active noise cancelling via Dual Noise Sensor technology and the Integrated Processor V1, plus up to 35 hours of battery and a 3-minute quick charge for up to an hour of playback.
• SONY WH-CH720N, biggest trade-off: it's an over-ear headphone at 192 g with full earcups — excellent at a desk or on a plane, hopeless as a pillow headphone.
• Buy Beats Flex if you want in-ear, wear-anywhere listening, you're on iPhone and want the Apple W1 chip, or sleeping on your side is a real part of how you listen.
• Buy SONY WH-CH720N if you want to shut out an office, a commute or a loud room and want the longer battery between charges.
Beats Flex is the "always with me" pair. Up to 12 hours of listening time covers a couple of workdays or a long travel day without a top-up, and the magnetic earbuds pause playback the moment you snap them together — a small thing that turns out to be the feature you use most. Class 1 Bluetooth is there for extended range and fewer dropouts, so you can leave your phone on a desk and walk to the other end of the room. The Apple W1 headphone chip handles pairing, and on-device controls cover music, calls and your voice assistant without reaching for your phone.
How We Research
We compare products from their published specs and features; the verdicts below are our independent editorial opinions.
The fit is the selling point. Four eartip options plus the Flex-Form cable mean you can size down to a shallow, low-profile seal, which is exactly what you want if you're hunting the best wireless headphones for side sleepers and don't want a hard shell pressing into the pillow. The buds are small enough that, lying on your side with the cable run behind your head, you can actually stay there. That's rare, and it's the reason this pair comes up so often in that conversation.
Who should skip it? Anyone who needs silence. There is no noise cancelling here, and the isolation is whatever your eartip seal gives you. If you fly a lot, share an office, or want to mute a noisy living room, this is not the tool. And if you're specifically shopping for the best extra bass wireless earbuds for side sleepers, be careful: the spec sheet doesn't list a bass tuning or EQ setting for Flex, so judge it on fit, battery and controls rather than assuming a particular sound signature.
The WH-CH720N is the opposite philosophy. Sony calls it its lightest wireless noise-cancelling headband yet at 192 g, and that matters more than it sounds — over-ear headphones get uncomfortable when the clamp and weight fight your head, and a slimmed-down headband with more room around the ears keeps a long session bearable. The active noise cancelling runs on Dual Noise Sensor technology with the Integrated Processor V1, and the Ambient Sound mode is adjustable across 20 levels so you can let traffic, café chatter or platform announcements back in without pulling the headphones off.
Battery is the headline for most buyers. Up to 35 hours per charge, and a 3-minute top-up gives up to an hour of playback — enough that a forgotten charge stops being a crisis. Multipoint connection pairs two Bluetooth devices at once and switches with a button press, which is the difference between taking a work call on your laptop and fumbling with Bluetooth settings mid-meeting. Calls get Precise Voice Pickup Technology with beamforming microphones, and there's a Focus on Voice mode for chatting without removing the headset. Sound is tuned for natural vocals and balance, with DSEE upscaling compressed streaming files, and the driver spec reads 7 Hz to 20 kHz at 25 ohms and 108 dB sensitivity.
Who should skip it? Side sleepers, basically. These are over-ear headphones with earcups and a headband — there is no version of lying on your side in them that ends well. It's also worth knowing the connectivity is Bluetooth with a rated 10 m range, pairing over Bluetooth 5, and the controls are touch and voice rather than buttons, which some people love and others fight with.
Side-by-Side: Which Should You Choose?
• Blocking out noise → SONY WH-CH720N. Active noise cancelling with Dual Noise Sensor tech versus passive isolation only.
• Battery life → SONY WH-CH720N. Up to 35 hours against up to 12, plus quick charging the Beats doesn't advertise.
• Long flights and open offices → SONY WH-CH720N. Noise cancelling, ambient modes and over-ear comfort are built for exactly this.
• iPhone owners → Beats Flex. The Apple W1 chip and Audio Sharing (beam audio to another pair of Beats or AirPods) are ecosystem features Sony can't match.
• Two devices at once → SONY WH-CH720N. Multipoint pairing makes laptop-to-phone switching a button press.
• Pocketability and travel bulk → Beats Flex. 0.7 oz and roughly 3 x 1.3 x 4.8 inches versus a full-size headband.
• Best value → check the current price on Amazon. Both are positioned very differently, and the winner on value flips depending on what you actually need it for.
In my opinion, if lying on your side is the reason you're reading this, buy Beats Flex. It's the only one of the two that physically works in that position, it gives you 12 hours per charge, and the magnetic auto-pause is genuinely useful. If side sleeping isn't the point and you just want a comfortable, long-lasting pair that quiets a room, I'd take the SONY WH-CH720N without hesitation — the noise cancelling and 35-hour battery are in a different class. Two good products, one clear division of labour.
They're the more workable option of these two, yes. The buds are small, there are four eartip sizes for a shallow fit, and the Flex-Form cable can be run behind your head. Just accept that you get passive isolation only, not noise cancelling.
No. The spec sheet lists no active noise cancelling, so what you hear is whatever your eartip seal blocks. If cancelling matters, that's the SONY WH-CH720N's Dual Noise Sensor system you want.
Not too heavy to wear, but wrong-shaped for sleeping. It's 192 g with full over-ear cups — fine for reclining and watching something, bad the moment you roll onto your side.
Depends on the job, not the label. For noise cancelling, battery and call clarity the Sony wins on paper; for in-ear fit, portability and iPhone-friendly pairing the Beats wins. Check the current price on Amazon for both before you commit.
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