The 20 best wireless earbuds of 2024 tried and tested, from Apple Airpods to Beats Fit Pro
- Battery life: up to 6 hours, up to 24 hours with case
- Weight: 6.24g each
- Water resistance: IPX4 (rain resistant)
- Noise cancelling: Yes
- Bluetooth codecs: Bluetooth 5.3, SBC and AAC
Reviewed by Simon Lewis
When you take Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra buds out of their charging case and put them in your ears, you hear an orchestral chime that’s not just a boot-up sound: it bounces back to the built-in microphones to build an acoustic model of your ear so that the noise-cancellation works even better. That’s how seriously they take it.
There’s no doubt it works. You can sit at work with these buds in, with no music playing, and hear almost nothing at all. They’re excellent for blocking out the world on a train or bus and would be great for sleeping on a plane if they weren’t so large.
Their size has a couple of advantages. One is that you can slide your fingertip up and down on the outside to control the volume. The other is that they grip your ear better, with a choice of three ear tips and three ‘stability bands’ – making these a reasonable choice for exercising, if the high price didn’t put you off (you’d hate to lose one in a puddle).
You don’t have to have noise-cancellation on. A long press on one bud changes it to ‘Aware’ mode, letting important sounds through. You’d hear a car approaching, but it quietens chatter at work. There are ‘commute’, ‘focus’, ‘home’, ‘music’, ‘outdoor’, ‘relax’, ‘run’, ‘walk’ ‘work’ and ‘workout’ modes, too. I can’t claim to have detected the fine distinctions between them.
This new ‘Ultra’ model is an evolution of the QuietComfort II I previously reviewed, which you can now find for under £200. What makes these worth the upgrade? The standout feature is Immersive Audio, Bose’s equivalent of Apple’s spatial audio. There are two settings. I’m not so keen on Motion, which keeps the sound of the band or orchestra in front of you when you move your head. It’s a bit of a gimmick (as it is on Apple’s earbuds).
Much better is the Still setting, which simply opens out the sound so that instruments seem to be coming from different directions and distances. It’s a lovely way of listening to music and shows off the rich, bright, punchy sounds of the Ultra. The trade-off is that Immersive Audio drains the battery more quickly.
If noise cancellation is what you’re after, there’s no doubt that Bose QuietComfort is the earbud to get. I love Immersive Audio, so I’m recommending this new Ultra model. But the QuietComfort II is now looking a bit more wallet-friendly.