For the last few months now I’ve been using Apple’s (AirPods 4 (ANC), but alongside those, I’ve been testing another pair of wireless earbuds as well. The Bose Ultra Open earbuds are expensive and weird, and I kinda love them — but you probably shouldn’t buy them.
Bose Ultra Open wireless earbuds
Testing two pairs of earbuds simultaneously has the benefit of giving you an easy comparison at the end of it all. But for all their similarities — both are open, so you can hear the outside world — they’re also very, very different.
That’s something most easily demonstrated by the price. Even the ANC version of AirPods 4 costs considerably less than Bose’s earbuds — $179 compared to almost $300.