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.

Overall they are fantastic and well worth the more expensive price. (I got them on sale for £129) My number 1 priority was noise cancellation. I work in a busy office and concentrating sometimes is very difficult. After a long search, and trying out the Sound Core liberty 5's and the EarFun Air Pro 4, which were both useless. I landed on these or the Apple Airpod Pro 2. After watching a lot of review videos, I was leaning towards the Apple ones, even though they were more expensive. However for every video that said they were the best noise cancelling airbuds on the market, there were counter videos saying they were nothing special. So I went with Bose instead as most of the complaints about them were to do with the app or touch buttons, not the ANC. Noise cancelling wise they are very good, they don’t block out everything though. Standard talking is almost completely blocked out but I can still hear when people cough for example or talk loudly. A couple of peoples voices in my office are more audible than others so I wonder if it’s a pitch thing. Sound quality is very good, when I go from these to my other earbuds I use at home there is a noticeable difference. Comfort wise they are ok, I can wear them for about an hour before I have to reseat them because they are digging into my inner ear. Regarding the other complaints I mentioned earlier about the app and touch buttons. The app is alright generally but first time connection was pretty useless. The app is locked until you connect your earbuds, but even after saying they were connected, the app wouldn’t move on to the next page. This isn't just on first connect either, I've sometimes had it where my earbuds are connected but the app says they aren't. Also sometimes they just don't connect, who knows why but its desperately frustrating. Earbud touch controls are also useless, touch buttons should be outlawed and replaced with normal buttons. There is also a very annoying issue whereby if the case runs out of battery, the earbuds stop working even if they still have charge in them. Since reviewing i have changed my review to be 4 star because of constant connectivity issues. Overall though, my pros outweigh the cons

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.

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!

Sound quality is great, not the tightest fit. Hopefully that will come with an adjustment to the ear tips and stability bands. Noise cancelling is very good.