I have a trip to Mexico planned this week for work. My current Bose headphones, QuietComfort 3, have worked well over the years but they are starting to deteriorate. Also, the more I travel the more I have been annoyed with this issue they have where there is a nasty feedback loop if I rest my head at an angle and block the microphone.
After a recommendation and demo from a coworker, I decided to purchase the Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones. These suckers are not cheap at $350, but I was so impressed by the noise canceling capabilities, wireless feature, and overall sound quality, I had to get them!
The headphones arrived from Amazon today and I was super excited to try them out.
Here is what the box looked like:
After removing the outer box, you are treated by an all black interior box. Bose has always been about simplicity in their product design, user interface, and packaging.
Upon opening the inner box there is a simple ‘quick start’ guide, along with user manual, and case. The case has the headphones and all accessories stored inside.
The headphones have a pretty neat design how they fold up to provide the most compact case possible. Inside the case there is an airplane jack, audio cable (for when wireless is not an option, or your batteries run out), USB charger, and the headphones themselves.
After unpacking the headphones here is what they look like.
One big difference from the original QuietComfort model is that there is no removable battery. This seems like a nice feature, but hopefully the battery lasts for many years.
The headphones pretty much worked out of the box. When you turn them on a voice prompt walks you through the setup process, which I thought was pretty clever.
The headphones easily pair with your phone via Bluetooth. There is a companion app which doesn’t seem to do much. The headphones have the ability to pair with multiple bluetooth devices simultaneously. It seems like the main feature in the standalone app is to download firmware updates and switch between the multiple devices.
The headphones themselves have several buttons, including power, volume control, play/pause, and skip forward+back functionality.
The headphones have 2 physical ports, 1 Micro USB for charging, and an audio jack if you decide not to do wireless.
The sound quality on these headphones is off the charts! I just can’t believe how improved the noise canceling tech is from my original model. It works so well I can’t even hear myself talk with them on.
It’s only been one night, but so far I’m very happy with this purchase. I’ll be sure to report on how the headphones did on my trip this week!
You can purchase the headphones on Amazon here:
Update: After my first plane trip with these headphones I’m totally sold! The noise cancellation works extremely well at canceling out engine noise on the plane.