The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds are a frustrating product. They have a great,
comfortable design and some of the best noise cancellation I've ever experienced in a set
of earbuds. Unfortunately, though, they do come with quite a few downsides. But first,
let's talk about the good things about these buds.
These buds are extremely comfortable. Bose gives you a bunch of what they call stability bands to
place around the earbuds. This allows you to get the most comfortable and stable fit.
There's a bit of a learning curve to getting them placed correctly on the buds. But once you figure
it out and put them in your ears, you'll likely find them to be quite comfortable.
Now, before switching to these buds for six months, the buds I had been wearing
were the Sony WF-1000XM4s, which I've also reviewed. And in terms of comfort,
especially when you're wearing buds for hours on end, I found that the Bose buds are considerably
more comfortable. The Bose buds go less deep into your ear than the Sony ones.
I can wear these Bose buds for hours on end. When I do, I find that they sound pretty good.
They're not as good as the Sony WF-1000XM4s, but I think you get a little bit more detail
in the music you listen to. And when I first got these, I did think their bass was a bit
much. But thankfully, they give you an EQ setting in the Bose app to make adjustments.
With my adjustments, I was able to more closely match the sound profile I'm used
to with my Sony buds. Now, part of what makes any modern-day buds sound good to me is noise
cancellation. It's canceling out all of the ambient noise around you, allowing you to hear
a wider range of frequencies that aren't being drowned out by some external noise.
And let me tell you, if you want the best noise cancellation, put in a set of buds today. I
think these buds are probably it. Their noise cancellation is very impressive. Especially if
you just go out for a walk in a city where there's a lot of noise, it just cuts everything out.
Unfortunately, there are some annoyances that I've found with these buds. During exercise,
I'll find my buds will rotate slightly, just enough for them to let in more outside noise.
So every once in a while, I have to rotate them back in, so they slide a little bit more into my
ears. I know that when they're in there a little bit more, the noise cancellation gets better.
Now, this could just be because I picked the wrong stability bands for these buds. But these were the
ones that seemed like they would fit the best. Now, another annoyance I've found with the noise
cancellation on these buds is that they don't do a great job of masking either high-pitched
noises or just really loud noises. Especially when I'm doing something like pounding out chicken.
I've got to take these buds out because they'll just let in this clipping noise
or something every time the mallet hits the chicken. And this is not something
I've experienced with other audio devices like the AirPods Max or my Sony WF-1000XM4
buds. Another thing that's pretty good with these buds is transparency mode.
I've actually got it enabled right now, and overall,
my voice sounds clear. I think this is one of the better transparency modes.
It sounds a little distant, and it doesn't sound like I'm wearing earbuds. The AirPods Max
still have the best transparency mode, where it doesn't even sound like you're wearing headphones.
Another great feature of these buds is their touch controls. Overall,
they've worked great. They not only let you play, pause, skip forward,
and skip back like you would expect with a pair of earbuds, but they also let you adjust their
volume by just swiping up and swiping down, which is a rarity in the world of earbuds.
Another standout feature that Bose did a good job with is the setup experience with the Bose app.
Bose gives you clear instructions with animations to walk you through the product. Apart from the
initial setup and the EQ adjustments, I don't really go into the Bose app all that often,
except for making sure that the firmware on the buds has been updated and troubleshooting issues.
Next, let's talk about battery life. Overall, it's been great. The buds are rated for six
hours of playback on a charge, and the case holds a further four charges, for a total of 24 hours
of playback. Just 20 minutes of charging will net you up to two hours of playback.
So that's everything I've liked about these buds over the past six months.
Now, let's talk about downsides. Unfortunately, with these buds,
there are quite a few. I guess that is the benefit of having a six-month review period. And if you
like the fact that we do reviews only after six months, make sure you subscribe to the channel.
The first and most annoying downside I've run into with these buds is that sometimes
they'll just refuse to connect to my phone. To remedy this issue, I'll have to go back
into the Bluetooth settings on my iPhone, or in the Bose app, and manually connect to the buds.
Another annoying issue I've run into with these buds are audio cutouts. This
typically happens when I'm out on a walk and I've got my phone in my pants pocket
with the case in my other pocket. I'll just get cutouts with whatever I'm listening to.
Another annoyance I've had with these buds is that when I first
put them in and I'm getting ready to listen to a podcast or something,
I'm unable to trigger it by just long pressing the left earbud. The only way I've been able
to solve this issue is to take the buds back out and then put them back in again.
Another downside I've encountered is that when I'm wearing the buds
and pick up a call on my phone, my iPhone won't automatically switch
the call over to my buds. I have to do it manually almost every time,
which is incredibly annoying. And it's something I haven't experienced as much with other buds.
Another downside I've found with the buds is the microphone quality. It's just okay. Here's a
comparison of the microphone quality of the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds (QC2s) to the standard
second-generation AirPods, the Sony WF-1000XM4, the Pixel Buds Pro, and the Galaxy Buds Pro.
As you can hear, the microphone quality of the
QC2s is just okay. It's not terrible, but it's not great either. I get the feedback
that people can't hear me very well, especially when there's traffic or other background noise.
Oddly, Bose doesn't seem to use the tips of these earbuds for microphone placement,
like Apple does with their iconic stem design. I think this is certainly an odd choice. Typically,
the closer you can get a microphone to somebody's mouth, the better the overall vocal quality is
going to be. So I'm not exactly sure why Bose didn't take advantage of that in their design.
Now, before we get to recommendations, there are a few more slides.
One downside I need to cover first is the case. It's a bit big for my taste, and I think Bose
could do some work here to try and slim it down for their next-gen buds. Also, the case doesn't
support wireless charging, which for buds that cost close to $300 USD is a bit of a letdown.
Given the high cost of these buds and the amount of downsides and issues I've had with them over
the past six months, unfortunately, I just can't recommend spending the money on them.
which really sucks because the noise cancellation solution on these is pretty much best in class.
I'll continue to check in on these buds after this review. If anything changes,
I'll leave that in a review follow-up in our free monthly newsletter, and if you
haven't done so already, I'll leave a link to sign up for it in the description below. If
you're in the market for a premium set of true wireless earbuds, Sony is rumored to be coming
out with their next generation of earbuds that will be comparable to this Bose set.
And from the leaks I've seen, they should improve on their comfort. Or if you're an Apple user,
of course, looking at the AirPods Pro makes sense. And right now you can get
these Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds on sale for a hundred dollars off at the time of recording,
which I pointed out in our free monthly newsletter where I'll sometimes post deal alerts as well.
If you want to learn more about these earbuds or any other earbuds, headphones,
and other audio devices, you can do so by clicking the playlist here. Hit
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