Bose Noise-Canceling Headphones 700: The New King Of The Cans? Yes & No

Bose Noise-Cancelling Headphones 700: The New King Of The Cans? Yes & No

Bose was once the only and go-to company that made the best noise-canceling headphones. If you traveled on planes and trains, the QuietComfort series is all you would see people wearing. But as time wen ton, new players came into the game and began making waves. To the point being actually competition or even besting them in that particular field.

On the heels of the competition catching up, Bose responded in full w/ the Noise-Canceling Headphones 700. These are not a part of the QC line but something entirely new. They offer an updated design, better noise-canceling features, and a more expensive price tag to go along w/ it. Armed w/ all of this newness, the Bose NCH 700s aren’t the perfect cans they should be. At least not for my tastes. We’re gonna let you know where they excel and where they fall short at.

Now most of the new headphones offer the entire panel on the outside for touch controls. On these new NCH700s, you have a lot smaller area to navigate due to the headband design. So on this more or less button-less setup, swiping is the only way to go outside of using your smartphone. This makes for a smaller area to swipe up/down for volume control, double-tap for play/pause, and swipe left/right to skip/rewind the track. It can take a little bit to get used having a smaller landscape to work it – this might be just me though.

Back to the new design, it leads to an even more comfortable pair of cans. This is not to say that the QC line was hard to wear, its just that these are just that more comfortable. Good enough to wear all day w/ glasses on and absolutely zero discomfort. This is all thanks to the synthetic protein leather that’s super-soft and super-comfy.

The Bose Music app is ideal to get the full advantage of all 11 levels of ANC but it needs serious work.

Bose has been watching the headphone market as many competitors have been catching up or surpassing the noise-canceling abilities that they’re known for. So along w/ the new look, they wanted to up their bread and butter as well. So now there’s a total of 6 mics and 11 levels of noise-canceling on board. Keep in mind that you need to utilize their app to take full advantage of all 11 levels. On the headphones themselves, you can get 1,5, & 11 w/ no in-between.

In regards to their ANC abilities, Bose is back on top. The mics do an amazing job of block out a lot as well as when taking calls on these cans. An overall noticeable improvement. Now onto the sound quality of the NCH 700s, Bose retains its balanced sound but beefs up the overall richness & clarity of it all. Still, too bass-heavy but offers enough thump while keeping the vocals nice & crisp. A slight improvement on the signature Bose sound.

The overall battery life on the NCH 700s sits in an in-between spot of the top of the line headphones. Not quite 6-to-8 hours and not as long as 30 hours either but 20 hours set closer in the middle. This got me around 1-2 charges a week for the most part. However thanks to the faster-charging USB-C port, a 15-minute charge will grant you just under 3 hours of juice. This is one of the areas that are pretty good but not as much as the competition where you can get up to 10 more hours. It would be nice if this had a super long battery life but you’ll have to deal w/ 20-hours of juice.

Bose upped their design & noise-canceling w/ the 700s but the competition is still really close.

So Bose managed to check off many boxes like great noise-canceling, good sound, modern design, and decent battery life. However, your particular tastes and enjoyment may vary. For me, I would still go w/ the Sony 1000XM3s as they excel in all areas instead of just one or 2 like these Bose cans do.

They offer better sound, longer battery life, and smarter features for $100-$150 less. Bose decided to go premium w/ the price tag at $400, and I couldn’t tell people to get these over anything else unless that’s the only thing important to you and $ is no object. That or you really need to block things/people out.