Bose QuietComfort 35 II Wireless Bluetooth Headphones, Noise-Cancelling, with Alexa Voice Control – Black

I give it five stars. My wife hates them she would give it 1. I put them on and that’s it. I can’t hear her any more.

I am updating after a couple of years of use as things have changed with firmware updates to warrant adding the last star to make it 5/5, but then having issues with lack of AptX support and limited control over being connected to two devices. Something up front I think I should say about noise cancelling as there does seem to be a bit of a debate over it, is it does not block out all sounds and it does not muffle sounds equally, but for practical purposes it does do a very good job at noise cancelling striking a good balance of things and being most effective where it is needed the most to make an enjoyable listening experience. At least this is my experience using this on a daily basis in many different environments. I have noticed on airplanes I need to fine tune how the headset rests on my head for best results, but once finding the proper adjustment it is almost like I am in an isolation room. Fantastic.

Overall I am seeing this as well worth the money, a big step up over a much older generation of this product line I had been using, and definitely a huge step up over what came with my phone. I bought this right after upgrading my phone, so in the past week have found some issues were not the head phone's fault, but instead default sound settings I have since adjusted. Also been getting more adjusted to the noise cancellation, which is really a great feature of this headset.

For some things I really like about this headset:
1. I have a huge head and this fits nicely on it; even covers my large ears comfortably. Almost no over the ear headphones do this and I have looked far and wide. My head is just too big for pretty much all except this particular line of headphones / headsets. In the ear headsets irritate my ears after a while, causing my ear canals to swell up. So having something tolerable let alone comfortable to the point that I almost forget they are on is a huge plus. They also fit on my wife's normal sized head just fine, so it covers a wide range of head sizes pretty well.

2. The sound quality and frequency range is great. While I would like frequency sliders in their app, the hard coded balance across the range is pretty darn good. Some reviews say there is a different headset that sounds better, but especially after this latest update, I am having trouble finding room for improvement; it sounds excellent across the range, even deep bass. The main limit I hit is a streaming service I use defaulted back to low quality when I upgraded my phone, so deep bass was crushed a bit and overall was not sounding as good as my home computer which has been the same machine for a while now (where I got the quality options set right a while back), but resetting the values and clearing the cache has fixed this issue. Really with noise cancelling mixed in I am hearing a lot more detail that would normally get washed out from background noise and my desire to keep volume levels down in order to preserve my hearing. Have the best of both worlds now.

3. In call sound quality is reported to be good across a number of calls now, even from the datacenter floor. Especially considering this does not have a boom mic, that is pretty good. I remember in the past getting a call on the datacenter floor with a lesser headset and nobody could hear anybody. Then again they have been moving servers to the cloud and the remaining servers are running cooler with the reduced heat load on the CRACs and thus their fans have slowed a bit, bit it is still really loud in there, so both parties hearing loud and clear is pretty amazing.

4. The battery really does go the distance and I would venture to say the 20 hour rating would be for harsh use cases where my main use case is mellow office building use. I am thinking more like 25 hours in an office. I just love how my newer devices can just go and go on batteries, at least initially where in the past battery life started off too short an then quickly became frustratingly way too short. Starting off with plenty of time I have some room to do some battery life extension tricks like limiting the charge window manually. Now if this was something built into the product like what you can do with a Tesla car, that would be really nice as changing out batteries every two years or so, especially with how devices are built these days is a bit of a PITA and too often goes badly.

5. For sound cancellation, I have to say there is something to be said for pretty much all of the ambient noise just going away and it just being dead silent. Seems to weird some people out, but I think it is great. Can still hear people talk and other loud sounds, but I seems to be rather muffled. Also it seems to be good at figuring out what is white noise and clearing that out completely where some other frequencies that are more useful get through better. Also love being able to walk down a busy street and hear my music, especially without having to sacrifice my eardrums in the process, especially as a lot of really loud noise around freeways and such are really muffled down. Found in a noisy data center that if I were to go to the barber, they would work better, but still work quite well with the hair I have, just little bit of bleed through sound from the excess hair around my ears. Pressing the headphones down causes things to get a lot quieter. Plenty good for easy on the ear drum music listening while in the data center. Have used for other things like muffling noisy power tools and having my wife watch her TV next to me and not be distracted by anything at all. Beginning to think this could be the beginnings of a great relationship... Oh wait a sec.

My complaints so far are:
1. My #1 complaint is removed as it seems to have been fixed with the latest firmware update as I thought would be possible. Star added back. Thanks Bose!

2. I have noticed doors around the office that automatically slam shut while this headset muffles the higher frequencies, the lowest frequencies seem amplified and so it is like my head is getting hit with a sound pressure wave. Been thinking about this more and I have been moving in the direction of what this does muffle, it does so well that what it does not effectively muffle seems quite loud as the ears adjust to the greatly reduced sound levels hitting them overall.

3. The radio antenna seems to be on the right side only. Being a lefty I like putting my phone on the left side, but that just does not go well. Have to use the right side when going for a walk. People call me a 'giant', so there is a lot of body for the signal to go through, so most people will probably never notice this issue.

4. No AptX support. When connected to TV bluetooth, lips are out of sync. The delay is maybe 170ms, so the delay is in the realm of something I can accept. For those who can't stand this kind of issue, then the Sony option is for you.

5. Not much control over which source plays when connected to two devices at the same time. If two devices are playing at the same time it will just pick one it seems. Doing things like connected to phone and TV at the same time, well TV will just cut out with the slightest sound from the phone. Would be nice if the headset would mix the two sources or if I could set it to say prefer the TV and only switch to the phone when the TV stops. Also use this with my laptop and see the same deal. It is nice at least I have have a few different devices to connect to. It is just if I really want to get serious with my laptop or desktop computer, I have to use the audio cable for the previous version of this headset for a combination of dedicated sound, low latency sound, and mic support, especially in COVID-19 days where I am on video conferences all the time and the webcam mic is not nearly as good as the mic on this headset at least in terms of eliminating various room scale artifacts that annoy the hell out of people in video conferences. Would be nice if I could do this all from bluetooth, but sadly bluetooth is mainly for system sounds and music, which is still really handy when I am not on a conference call.

I left a lengthy review comparing the Jabra Evolve2 85 (E285) vs Bose Quiet Comfort 35 II (QC35II) vs Bose Noise Cancelling 700 (B700) vs Sony WH-1000XM4 (SX4) (in order of when I received them) for the E285. This is a shorter version of that review, mostly focusing on QC35II and E285. This was almost entirely written up during the week I had all four headsets for direct comparisons.

Microphone and Playback
QC35II recordings were consistently louder than the E285. But the E285 did a far better job of removing background noise, as evidenced by my recordings while drumming. Muting can be done with the QC35II but it was much more difficult than just raising/lowering the boom arm of the E285.

Audio Output - DISCLAIMER - I'm not an audiophile
E285 and SX4 audio sound better than the QC35II but primarily because I can use an equalizer and increase bass (obviously this is the most important factor). Even if the QC35II had better hardware, it’s not as accessible and therefore is a moot point. Win for SX4. Runner up is E285.

Brand
Bose: wanted my location and would ask for it every time I open the app (and wouldn’t allow usage without accepting beyond the standard Bluetooth connection process). These are headphones. You don’t need my location.

Jabra: doesn’t require my location. Instead, it lets me know if I desire to give it my location, it will use it to locate my headphones. No, but thank you for giving me an actual choice! Win for Jabra. Runner up is Sony.

ANC
When standing in front of running water, QC35II had slightly better cancellation, but not a noticeable difference without actively concentrating. When playing on a drumpad, the E285 did a noticeably better job than the other headsets. It sounds like the pad is being muffled (which is what I’m looking for), whereas the others don’t quite succeed. During testing of the QC35II, whether ANC was on/off, there was a ceaseless light static (with no audio playing). I thought it quite odd and luckily, it didn’t happen again, but I suppose it could. With the QC35II, when the drum pad was hit, there was a tang sound, like the residual sound from tapping on a pan, as opposed to the muffled thumping the E285 gives. Perhaps with a constant noise the QC35II does a slightly better job filtering, but the E285 does a better job with impact noises (or maybe it’s just higher frequencies).

In addition, the hear-through function of the E285 is awesome. With the QC35II ANC off, it sounds like the microphone is picking up sound and then replaying it in the speakers. In contrast, the E285 hear-through, which has adjustable levels, almost makes it sound like you’re not wearing them (tested at maximum hear-through). Win for E285. Runner up is SX4.

Connectivity
The E285 and SX4 have longer ranges than the QC35II. The E285, most of the time, reconnects automatically when coming back into range. QC35II, SX4, and E285 have a 3.5 mm jack. Why doesn’t the B700? Because it sucks.

Double-connection to my PC (independent of range): E285 is easier because it’s just plug-and-play, no downloads or “connecting”. The QC35II and SX4 are only Bluetooth, so you have to do the standard “add device”, etc. An added feature of the Jabra is Jabra Direct, a software you can download to better manage your Jabra. It gives you a few more options and is worth using, in this writer’s humble opinion.

Response time: the QC35II and B700 have a slightly faster response time when pausing media than the E285. The SX4 is the fastest, though we’re talking minute (not 60 seconds) differences. The E285 is on the cusp of being slow enough to be annoying, but not quite. The E285 and SX4 also have the cool feature of pausing media when the headphones are removed from your skull. Again, the E285 feel lack-luster in comparison because they take approximately 4 M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-I seconds to pause, whereas the SX4 is half that time. For the E285, I’ve noticed the ear detection only works properly when playing music from your phone and not the PC. When using it with the PC, if I remove the headphones, the music will pause as it should. But it doesn’t resume when I put them back on. If I pause the music with the button, then remove the headset, it resumes. Again, cool feature, but needs work, especially when using it with the PC.

App connectivity: some issues with E285. Some issues with SX4. Some issues with QC35II (Bose Connect). LOTS of issues with B700 (Bose Music). Unfortunately, apps are prone to some bugs every now and then. I can’t say which of the two (Sony/Jabra) had more, so neither bothered me much. Win for SX4 (better media response time). Runner up is E285.

Voice Assistant
Couldn’t even get B700 to work. First off, I have to change the “action” button from ANC control to activate voice assistant (so you can’t have both functionalities at the same time). However, once button mapping was adjusted accordingly, I click the button and it says “open your Google Assistant settings”, with no further instructions. I open the Home app, and once again, no further instructions, so I didn’t get it working. I didn’t spend anymore time on it because in contrast, the E285 and SX4 worked exactly as expected. No setup or anything, I just pushed the button and my assistant came up. The caveat for the E285 is you have to pull down the boom arm to use the feature (you can still press the action button with the boom arm up and have the assistant prompt, but because the arm is up, the microphone is off so it’s pointless). Perhaps Bose has better functionality when used with Alexa, but I use Google so I’m not bothering with testing that. Tie between E285 and SX4.

I know this is extremely nit-picky, but the Bose assistant’s voice is far more annoying than Jabra or Sony. She sounds like an actual robot as opposed to someone I wouldn't mind meeting.

Controls
The QC35II and E285 have essentially the exact same button layout and functionality. The key difference is the action button on QC35II. It can be EITHER for voice assistant or cycling through ANC. On the other hand, you can access both functionalities on the E285, with the caveat of lowering the boom arm first for the voice assistant. The other difference is placement of the power button. On the QC35II, it’s a lateral switch on the side of the right ear cuff. On the E285, it’s a vertical switch on the bottom of the left ear. I literally don’t have a preference between the two. However, I do have a preference for the other buttons. While in the same place (the action button on the QC35II is in the same place as the ANC cycling button on the E285), the QC35II has a much more noticeable difference between the volume buttons and the play/pause, which I like better. All the buttons are bigger and more defined, plus the volume buttons are slightly raised, making it even easier to know what you’re pressing. On the E285, the buttons take up less surface area and are rather flat.

Muting is definitely easier with the E285 because you simply raise or lower the boom mic. Though it also takes a little longer. The QC35II is more annoying because you have to press two buttons at the same time (the volume buttons). Win for SX4 (touchless controls are better). Runner up is E285.

Comfort and Style
I prefer the QC35II. Though I’ve been wearing the E285 for a little over an hour and was so comfortable, I had to look to my left to see which headset I wasn’t wearing. So both are very comfortable, but for comparison’s sake, it’s a win for QC35II. Runner up is E285/SX4 (just as comfortable).

Extra
The E285 has the hear-through feature, which I really like because I use ANC only when there are sounds I actively don’t want to listen to, like from mine or my roommate’s drumming, running water, laundry, phone call, or pooping with the fan on. Other than those times, I want some awareness of my surroundings because there’s nothing more frustrating than trying to get the attention of someone with headphones on (especially at work). In addition, the E285 and SX4 have ear detection (discussed previously). The E285 has a great way of handling multiple calls with its huge button on the right cuff. You can switch between two phone calls by putting one on hold and accept/end/reject calls using it. This is RARELY used, but it's cool.

Issues
My biggest issue was trying to connect QC35II with my Google Assistant. Besides that, functionality of the QC35II was pretty much flawless. Speaking of Google Assistant, there’s some variability with functionality with the E285. At the very least, the action button on the arm activates the assistant. But sometimes the input for said assistant is on the phone rather than the arm. Most of the time it works as expected. I think the additional connection to the PC adds complexity that needs to be vetted out for seamless functionality for the E285.

Final verdict, best to worst: E285, SX4 (killer - no mute function, worse hear-through), QC35II (killers - older BT connection, worse audio, poor ANC). Literally wouldn't buy B700.

UPDATE: It's been several weeks since I returned all but the Jabra Evolve2 85 (I use it 3-10 hours every single day) and my final rating is four stars while the QC35II I gave two. When the E285 works, it's great. But it doesn't work all the time, unfortunately. Even so, the E285 is better in just about every way. Stronger connection, more functionality, better app, better audio, better background noise removal (though the QC35II you could maybe argue is better at ANC, but not during a call). As far as functionally using the QC35II, I would give it three stars. But I give it two because the Bose app REQUIRES your location and that is absolutely ludicrous. It's a pair of headphones. You don't need my location. Note - if muting yourself directly from your headset isn't important to you and you're not typically in a noisy environment during calls, then I would honestly recommend the Sony WH-1000XM4.