QuietComfort Wireless Noise Cancelling Earbuds 5.3, Lifestyle Bluetooth Earbuds with Active Noise Cancellation, Up to 8.5 Hours of Battery Life, Black

Got it — here’s the simple Amazon-style review you wanted for Bose headphones: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazing sound and super comfortable These Bose headphones are brilliant. The sound is crisp, the bass is smooth without being overwhelming, and the noise-cancelling is genuinely impressive — it blocks out background noise better than most. They’re lightweight, comfy to wear for hours, and the battery lasts ages. If you want high-quality headphones that feel premium and perform well every day, these are absolutely worth it. Great value, super sound and quality. Easy to use and durable.

I'm reviewing these purely for those who need headphones for running. After my trusty Bose Sound Sport gave up the ghost I've tried the Pixel Buds 2 pro and Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 and sent both back. The Pixel Buds sounded OK but a bit of wind and they were all over the place, skipping tracks and generally misbehaving. Thought I'd give the Cambridge Audios a go given the great reviews. They did sound great when not moving but after a while the sweat drips were leaking into the ear canal and lost all the seal making the sound totally useless. Back to Amazon then before my final throw of the dice, these relatively cheap Bose Quiet Comforts. I downloaded the app and fiddled with EQ settings for a bit more bass and was ready to go. I found turning the noise cancellation to off stopped most of the intrusive wind noise whilst given you still some awareness of what's around you. What I noticed straight away was how comfortable they felt. The sign of good running headphones is when you forget your wearing them and these definitely did that over the 15 mile run. At no point did I worry they were going to fall out and they also give a great seal, no sweat leaking into the ear canals. In fact when it came to taking them out I almost had to rip then out so tight did they fit. These are Bose so no need to worry about sound quality, bass is responsive, trebles clean and mids nicely textured. Overall everything you could want from a reasonably priced pair of headphones - £129 purchase price, over £100 cheaper than the PowerBeats Pro for example. If you need them to handle long, sweaty runs these are definitely the buds to go for.

I like these more than my current Bose Quiet Comfort 2 ear buds. They sound better and the noise cancelling is at least as good as the QC 2. The Bose ANC is the best I've used so far (though I haven't as yet tried Sony earbuds). It's fun to put some loud aircraft cabin white noise on the stereo and feel the background noise but be able comfortably listen to music. The best sound quality for me is through a good pair of wired earbuds or headphones and normally that's what I use. When you're in a noisy environment though even the best passive isolation can't beat good ANC and that's where the QCE work so well. The case can sit on a flat surface with the lid open unlike the QC 2 case. The EQ is better than the QC2 giving a 5 point equaliser instead of 3. The sound quality is to my ears better than the QC 2 even without messing around with EQ. The buds seem larger but don't feel bulky in my ears and one advantage of a larger surface area for touch controls is that they seem to work better and more reliably. The app works a bit better than the QC2 app and so far connects perfectly each time (on Android that is, iPad connection is a bit flakey). The app could do with a hearing or fit test because both of those make a difference to sound quality and how well the ANC works. I know that QC 2 and QC Ultras are available at well under £300 but these QCE still undercut even discounted QC2. And that makes them a real bargain for me.

Edit: updating to 1 star because they're faulty, there was a crackling noise in the right ear that gradually got worse and worse until one day it started screeching non-stop. I got them replaced and the replacement had the EXACT SAME ISSUE that manifested just a few weeks after I received them. No damage has been done to the replacement, they have not been dropped or exposed to any harmful conditions a single time. Don't waste your money. I'm very conflicted about these. First, the good stuff: the sound quality is very good, the noise cancelling is GREAT - probably the best I've ever had. They're generally very comfortable, except the right one keeps falling out if I move more (e.g. when I do yoga or clean my flat), but I've accepted that my right ear is probably just made wrong - these are not the first earbuds that fall out of it while the left one is ok. The battery life was very good in the beginning, but then I dropped them and it became worse - again, probably my fault. Now, the bad stuff. Every time you put them in, there's a voice notification telling you how much battery is left and if they're connected or not. They can't be turned off and are really annoying. The same happens every time you change the mode, when battery gets low, etc. Also, they're very big and clunky - both the case and the earbuds. The case is much bigger than regular cases and does not comfortably fit into most female pockets (might be a problem with female pockets), and the earbuds protrude from my ears a lot, therefore I used to accidentally switch of the music by touching them, before I got used to their size. The whole structure is quite clunky and seems to be flying out of my hands more often than usual earbuds (again, might be a me problem). The case feels cheap - the lid seems to be made from some thin plastic, and it always feels like if it falls, that lid might break right off. Also, probably the biggest problem I had was that they wouldn't connect to my phone if the battery was even a bit lower than 100%, or if they had spent some time outside of their case without being used. Even the annoying notification voice was gone in these cases, as if the device was completely dead. I had to chat with customer support who told me how to fix it: turns out keeping my finger on their sensors for a few seconds wakes them up. In general, for the price I definitely expected better quality and to at least have full control of what is being spoken into my ear. However, if you're looking for great noise cancelling, I have not yet found anything better.

I used to love Bose. If I go back to the soundsport (fully wired and connected to the phone), I was blown away by how comfortable they were. They were the ONLY headphones I had used that didn't have cord noise going straight into your ear everytime the wire hit something. I was hooked on Bose and convinced that they had spent so much on research and development that they understood these things. And they truly did. I still have those soundsports. I got a pair for my mom too (and recently took them back from her to use on work calls). I use them because I find it's much easier to use than play around with bluetooth settings on work calls. Fast forward a decade and Bose has had some great hits like the Bose QC 35 II but since then...not so great I'd say. I've had the soundsports earbuds and they were very finicky. The eartips were comfy but thumped too much. I used the Bose Ultra Earbuds (and Headphones). I found the headphones creaked and the earbuds on paper sounded great. Touch controls and comfort. Touch controls were too sensitive and too too too many connection issues. You cannot start a work call saying "wait can you hear me? I can't hear you. wait a minute, let me put these back in". In 2024, this shouldn't be an issue. Now the Bose QC Earbuds 2024. Honestly they are great. Perfect? No but really awesome. - Comfortable (you have to play around with the eartips. Oddly, the small stabilizer rings were hurting me more than medium). You can keep them in for hours but I still find Airpods Pro more comfy. - Sound is honestly great. They sound better than APP. Maybe not as good as Sennheiser Momentum 3/4 Truly Wireless but up there and there's a 5 band EQ to get to what you wanted. The Sennheisers sounded better with a better EQ but they hurt me. I never wanted to use them. - Connectivity issues are largely but not totally fixed from the ultra's. I am currently listening to them on my iphone in the office. When my window's PC Teams will start ringing, I have no doubt these will pick up. There are some niggles still. For example you pick them up and one ear isn't working sometimes. You put back in case and it's fine. This i can deal with. - Noise Cancelling is amazing. Honestly. It's better than APP ANC and those are great too. My journey into work I barely heard anything. I ordinally got them for jogging but I don't think they're AMAZING for running although not bad. I prefer my APP for not thinking about it. Just easily connect to my apple watch and run. But for normal everyday, going to the office, these are better. My APP's don't work with windows as seamlessly. My journey in is quiet with the Bose. I can focus at work and then get calls. These things matter. I haven't used the other features like remote selfie. I honestly don't know when or why I'd ever use that but maybe I'm just not in the market for that. Versus the ultra's I do feel these sound a tad better (that's subjective though). ANC is on par to them but you can't control the level of it. But aware mode is great, you can turn the ANC off with these and you couldn't with the ultras. No one ever writes this in reviews but the Ultras were AWFUL for running. They thumped with every step. These don't and you can turn of ANC if it bothers you (the thumping was as a result of ANC). I find these superior to the ultras for my needs. To be clear, I purchased the ultras, elsewhere, open box for 139£. The price difference was minimal given I've purchased the QC's for 129£. Even when it's on almost par with price, I've chosen the QC Earbuds. For normal life, these are great. You won't regret it.

Excellent sound and even better noise cancellation. Tested today in Hollywood Bowl, Crawley with the grandchildren playing the arcade machines. The noise was horrendous, total bedlam! Then I remembered these were in my pocket - wonderful! Killed the cacophony, the music did for the residual unpleasantness. I could hear the music just fine. Just brilliant!

Moving to Bose from Apple AirPods Pro for earbuds but a happy long standing existing user of Bose Cinema speakers. Impressions are really good, fit of earbuds in ear are excellent for me and do not seem to fall out anywhere near as much as the problematic Apple AirPods Pro which despite trying all the silicone inserts found none that worked. Sound quality is what you would expect, excellent - Dolby Atmos works great. Noise cancelling works great and the "aware" mode is on par with Apple transparency mode. At time of writing inexplicably you have to have a different App to the normal BOSE app to access all the features but that's a minor niggle. There are a lot of customisation options and the touch functions options are plentiful and you can customise also the behaviour for making phone calls. They are touted as "made for iPhone/iPad"; the consideration to move away from Apple for earbuds if using a lot of Apple ecosystem is you lose the seamless handoff to all your Apple devices, though for me having the ability to pair to two devices with Bose (least limited to two I believe at time of writing) is OK for me for MacBook and iPhone use and pairing is quick and seamless as the Apple devices were. The other thing you lose is "Find My". Which was a miracle I hadn't lost the Apple buds given how much they fell out. It would be good if Bose could do some kind of tracking of lost device on their app. I don't find the voice prompts annoying/ bad quality that some other reviews mention and connectivity hasn't been an issue. Just ensure you update firmware via the app as with any new smart device purchase. Register with Bose for 2 year warranty. *update Oct 2025* - sorry to say reliability issues have caused me to return these. Persistent recharging issues for left ear piece and strange whistling sound which didn’t fix itself when following troubleshooting and cleaning guidance. Dropped from 5 star to 3 as a result.

Comfortable to wear and the sound cancellation is really good. They give out a really decent sound too. Very happy :)