Bose sound without the Bose budget

When Bose revamped its QuietComfort line last year, a curious omission was made. Over-headphones arrived with QuietComfort and QuietComfort Ultra branding, but the smaller earbuds were only offered as an Ultra. Now, a year later, those more affordable Bose earbuds have finally arrived.

Bose is used to dominating — well, along with Sony at least — the $300 earbud market, but below $200 things get more competitive. There are more headphones from the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Google to contend with, and a hundred other audio brands trying to lock down that premium-but-not-too-premium price point.

So does Bose do enough to hold off the horde, or will the QuietComfort Earbuds simply get lost in the crowd?

Price, availability, and specs

The QuietComfort Earbuds are out now, available from Bose or Amazon and Best Buy for $179. You can get them in black, white, or lilac.

That price is a little over half what you’d pay for the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds or the Ultra Open Earbuds, both of which run up to $299.

What’s good about the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds?

It’s all in the audio

The best thing about the QuietComfort Earbuds is the most important: they simply sound great.

I’ve swapped to these from my trusty Jabra Elite 7 Pro, a similarly priced pair from a few years ago, which have been my default buds when I’m not reviewing. I’m used to enjoying the switch when I jump from those to a pricier pair, but I wasn’t expecting quite how noticeable the boost would be from the Bose.

Even using the default EQ settings, these earbuds are crisp but punchy, packed with detail, despite a fairly expansive soundstage. New albums from Jamie XX and Caribou have had me on a bit of a dance music trend recently, and here the Bass Boost preset has come into its own. The throbbing low end of Caribou’s Honey rumbles along fantastically, while Jamie XX’s Falling Together simply sounds exceptional, and there’s enough brute power here that I’ve been able to keep these well below the 50% volume mark.

The active noise cancellation (ANC) has proved just as impressive, easily the best I’ve used on buds below $200. It’s still a step below the top buds and a clear drop from the best over-ears, but the buds have comfortably kept up with the rattle and hum of London’s buses and underground. The only place they’ve fallen short is drowning out the aggressively loud music in my gym.

There’s also an Aware mode for when you’d rather hear your surroundings, which is clear enough to catch traffic noise, and just about order a coffee without removing the buds, though I still found myself missing the odd word from my barista. You’re still usually better off just taking them out if you actually need to talk to someone.

Battery life is the buds’ other obvious strength. Bose says these can go 8.5 hours between charges — covering even a pretty lengthy flight — and that’s with ANC on. (Shout-out to Bose for only quoting battery life with ANC, rather than bumping its numbers by quoting without.)

The included charging case supplies another two and a half charges, giving you 30+ hours in total, which in my case equated to a week or so of listening. Though, as I’ll explain later, you might not want to let the case actually run out. Charging comes from either USB-C or Qi wireless.

An IPX4 rating on the buds themselves gives them some light protection from rain and sweat, though this is a long way from full waterproofing — and as far as I can tell, there’s no water protection at all on the case, only the earbuds.

What’s bad about the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds?

I hope you like ‘em big

The first thing to note about the QuietComfort Earbuds is that you won’t get absolutely every feature found in the brand’s Ultra Earbuds.

At the time of writing, there’s no Immersive Audio support (Bose’s take on spatial audio), though the company says that feature will be added in an update. I obviously haven’t tried it, but if my previous experience with spatial audio is anything to go by, it’s probably a miss anyway.

What’s definitely not on the way is the brand’s CustomTune tech, which personalizes audio and ANC to suit your ears. This sort of tech does tend to make a difference, and it’s a shame it hasn’t made the cut for the QuietComfort buds.

The only other audio gripe I have is that while the ANC is generally great, wind noise is one major weak spot. It’s been a bit gusty in London recently, and on my windier runs the sound cuts right through the Bose buds, even with ANC activated. Other companies have worked on algorithms to recognize and reduce this noise, and the QuietComfort Earbuds would benefit from the same.

Perhaps the strangest choice Bose made was to ship the QuietComfort earbuds with their own Bose QCE app. That might not sound so odd, except for the fact that Bose has a perfectly good Bose app that spans just about all of its other speakers, headphones, and earbuds, including the other recent QuietComfort products.

If these are your only Bose products, then it won’t really matter to you which app you have to use — the Bose QCE app is perfectly fine, including EQ controls, button customizations, and battery monitoring. But if you own other Bose audio gear, then it’s needlessly annoying to be unable to manage these buds together with the rest.

The bigger downside to the QuietComfort buds is just that they’re large. I guess that’s how they get that hefty longevity. But these are big buds with a big charging case, the sort of bulk I’m not used to in earbuds these days.

They’re not heavy at least, but the case is large enough to be awkward to slip into a pants pocket. I feel like the buds look a little outlandishly large in my ears too, which detracts from the otherwise sleek design. Though, it does mean there’s enough space to grab the buds and adjust them without accidentally tapping the touch-sensitive surface — my frequent complaint with the old, stemless Galaxy Buds design.

As for fit, the silicone ear tips and fins offer nine different combos, so there should be a size that works for you. Unfortunately, I’ve found that the size that fits securely in my ear tends to ache a little over longer listening sessions, so I wouldn’t rate these the most comfortable buds around.

Finally, one unexpected gripe, (and the reason I cautioned against running the battery down) the buds won’t pair with my phone if there’s no battery left in the case, even if the earbuds are fully charged. They seem to need power in the case to trigger the pairing process, which effectively means that you can’t actually get the full 30+ hours of battery, as that final full charge is all but inaccessible. I’ve never come across this on earbuds before, and I absolutely hate it.

Should you buy them?

If sound quality is your priority, then yes. I’m honestly not sure if you’ll find better-sounding earbuds for $180, especially if ANC is also important to you. These sound phenomenal for the price, and I expect they’ll be my new default earbuds for that reason alone. Throw in long battery life, and there’s a lot to like here.

I do have complaints, but I think the XL size is the only one that I really think should be a factor if you’re thinking about buying these. App awkwardness and that weird case quirk annoy me, but they’re small complaints in the grand scheme of things.

Weighed up against the audio excellence, the scales still tip in Bose’s favor.