The Bose QuietComfort 35, better known as the QC35’s, is one of the best noise canceling over-ear headphones out there. Find out why!
Bose QuietComfort 35: Lose yourself in the music!
When you need to zone out or just want a bit of alone time in the midst of a busy city, what do you do? Get yourself a pair of noise-canceling Bose headphones.
They are comfortable to wear, looks and feels premium, offers a dynamic sound quality, and its battery life is more than practical for everyday commute.
With Apple ditching 3.5 mm audio jack, wireless headphones will be selling more than ever and there couldn’t have been a better time for the QC35 to be on the market.
Bose QC35 Design Review:
The QC35 design is very simple and to get started you don’t need to do anything too technical and you certainly don’t even need to read the manual inside.
On the right ear-cup, you have all the controls. The power button is situated on the outside and doubles up as your pairing button also. Slide right to power on, keep holding it to put into pairing mode and slide left to power off.
Towards the back of the right ear cup, you have three buttons, the top and bottom for controlling sound volume and the middle one is your multifunctional button.
The multifunctional button will allow you to change track but double tapping, play/pause, and it also works with Siri on the iPhone 7 for example.
The volume keys are slightly raised to make it easy to feel when on the move without having to look at them and just below them, you’ll see the Bluetooth and battery indicator lights.
A bit lower to the bottom of the right side, you’ll see the micro-USB port for charging, and the NFC logo embossed to let you know it’s NFC ready for quick pairing – Android users would appreciate it.
On the left ear cup, there’s an audio jack which is useful for when you run out of juice, although it’s Bose’s own audio jack size, so a regular 3.5mm audio cable will not work here if you lose it (note the other end of the cable is a 3.5mm jack).
One thing worth mentioning here is that the only qualm I have with the QC35 design is the delicate cable and how it tangles so easily.
Elsewhere, the headband is adjustable to suit different head size, and the top area is finished in leather on the outside and suede underneath.
When you wear it around your neck, the ear cups can rotate to make it comfortable to wear and the suede finish on the inside makes it less irritable if you happen to sweat while using it.
Overall a good design, it weighs just 10.9 ounces or 309 grams, making it light for travel and prolonged use, it comes with a carry case and when we get on to performance, you’ll read about its good battery life too.
How well does the QuietComfort 35 (QC35) Perform?
You’ll be pleased to know that the QC35 comes with all the ingredients for what makes the perfect pair of headphones.
It’s wireless, comes with an app for management, features two microphones, one on the inside and the other on the outside. As it’s also noise canceling, it really does block outside noise without leaking sound too.
The QC35 is also very smart in that it uses digital electronic chips to manage unwanted sounds and a new digital equalizing system.
The use of a digital equalizing system would also explain why the free app Bose created for the QC35 doesn’t have the ability to adjust sound manually.
When it comes to battery life, you can use for up to 20 hours, and considering you can go to NYC and back from London and still have a lot of battery life left, it’s definitely a good one.
With no removable battery, you will need to recharge it. You won’t be able to change the battery or carry some spares for longer trips. The silver lining is you can just use the audio cable included.
How about the sound quality? We tried it with various music genres to fully put the QuietComfort 35 to test and it handles it all well.
You can clearly discern between instruments and when it comes to songs with bass, it’s not over emphasized and almost sounds how the sound engineer or studio intended.
When listening to jazz music, it sounds breathy, with good response in the upper mids and high. HipHop/RnB songs have a clean bassy finish to it, without coming across too boomy.
One random observation is that the noise cancellation requires getting used to if it’s your first time using this feature. Once you place the QC35s on your head, everything sounds very muted and can feel uncomfortable at first.
You’ll notice this more during flight take-off or on the underground (London Tube) as air pressure changes. You’ll soon get used to it though and enjoy it.
Using it for calls is also a pleasant experience, people can hear you clearly on the other end and you can hear them clearly too.
What’s the verdict?:
I wouldn’t change much about the QC35 and that’s rare. Some may complain that it doesn’t have aptx which offers better sound quality and low latency when it comes to encoding, transmitting and decoding audio signal.
This doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing, as some audio manufacturers may use codecs for different applications, and I don’t think it makes a lot of difference with the QC35.
It’s light and comfortable to wear, offers a long battery life, looks stealth thanks to the triple black finish and falls in the category of one of the few gadgets worth their price tag.
With one of the best noise canceling capability on the market right now, offers a great set of microphones for calls, I can’t fault the QC35 and would recommend to anyone.
Go on, what’s the damage to my wallet?
If you’re planning your next vacation and need something for your trip or just for commuting and blocking out your boss at work, then it will set you back around £289 in the UK – time to lose yourself in the music.
Disclaimer: The Bose QuietComfort 35 was sent to us by Bose for an unbiased review. We used it for over two and half weeks, all opinion are UNILAD’s.
I write about all things tech!