The king of noise-cancelling earbuds is back: Meet Bose’s all-new AirPods 4 rivals with 8.5 hours of battery life
Just before Apple’s AirPods 4 hit stores on Friday, September 20, 2024, Bose is unveiling a new pair of earbuds with an identical price tag of $179 / £179. Unlike the noise-cancelling AirPods 4, the new Bose QuietComfort Earbuds have seal-style eartips that seal around your ears, combining that feature with a promised long battery life and strong active noise cancellation.
First, a quick history lesson. While these may bear the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds name, they’re not a new generation of the QuietComfort Earbuds Ultra or an update to our pick for Best ANC, the QCE2, which are unfortunately no longer officially sold by the brand. These new QuietComfort Earbuds have a more mid-range price point and are likely the spiritual successor to the Sport Earbuds from years ago.
Furthermore, these are the entry points to the Bose earbud lineup below the $299 Ultra Open Earbuds or $299 QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds. These are most similar to the latter with a slightly oversized look and a design that incorporates earbuds. Now, if Bose’s mid-range QuietComfort earbuds have already sold them to you, they are now available to order, but below we explain what is new.
While the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds are similar in price to Apple’s AirPods 4, these earbuds take a completely different approach. Starting with the design, Bose has stuck with a slightly oversized look that protrudes from the ear and lets you proudly show off your color choice. You can choose from Black, White Smoke, or Chilled Lilac. Featuring silicone ear tips and a stability band, the QuietComfort Earbuds are definitely not open-ear and aim to create a complete seal around your ear canal.
This should help with active noise cancellation, reducing ambient sounds to silence and preventing audio leakage. You can choose from a few sizes of both tips and bands in the box. If you like to listen to music while working out or walking in the rain, you’ll know that these come with an IPX4 rating for water and sweat resistance.
The audio experience is powered by a custom Bose setup and is described as delivering a high-quality experience that can be customized in the companion Bose QC Earbuds app for Android and iOS, where you can choose from five EQ presets or create your own.
Each earbud has three microphones for voice pickup and active noise cancellation. With the latter, an onboard processor and a Bose algorithm cancel out the noise around you, keeping you quiet. We have high hopes for how well this will perform, especially given how previous Bose earbuds have tested. You can also let in some ambient noise with an “Aware” mode, similar to Apple’s Transparency mode on AirPods.
Bose QuietComfort Earbuds support multipoint pairing out of the box, which the QuietComfort Ultra lacks. These feature Bluetooth 5.3, which should ensure strong connectivity. There’s also a new feature that allows the earbuds to act as a remote shutter for taking selfies, and Bose has its own voice assistant that can be opened by saying, “Hey headphones.”
Battery life looks pretty strong. Bose promises 8.5 hours of playback on a full charge, and the case will hold 2.5 full charges for 29.75 hours of listening. That’s pretty close to the Apple AirPods 4, which claim a total of 30 hours of playtime, but you’ll only get five hours from the Apple buds before they need to be charged (which, let’s be honest, isn’t that long at their current value). Bose’s carrying case can be charged via USB-C or a wireless charging mat.
Overall, the features on paper add up to what could be an excellent pair of earbuds at a great price. It’s also clear that while Bose does offer a pair of open-ear earbuds, it’s going back to basics with a more affordable pair of earbuds that are designed to deliver strong noise cancellation in a good earbud design.
Bose is already taking orders for the new QuietComfort earbudsand according to the company’s online store, they should ship in all three colors starting September 23. So if you’re sold, you can place an order now and we’ll be back with our ideas as soon as we can get them started.
That’s not all Bose had to reveal, though. In addition to the QuietComfort Earbuds, Bose also unveiled the new Smart Soundbar which keeps the look and features of the Smart Soundbar 600, but adds an AI Dialogue Mode to adjust tone and EQ in real time. It’s available to order now for $499.99.