Bose QC45 ANC Bluetooth Wireless Headphones

This will be the third pair of Bose wireless headphones I own. I also have the QC35, QC35 II, and now the QC45. If you can believe it, all three still work. That is certainly a testament to the quality of this product line. I use one for outside work, one for my travel bag, and this one doesn’t leave my desk. Pros: - QuietComfort line are still some of the best looking, most comfortable headphones I’ve tried. - Bluetooth is excellent. Connects up to two devices and it just works. - Even better noise cancellation on the QC45s in my opinion, but at the cost of battery life. (You can adjust the NC level in the app) - Extremely comfortable pads. They are replaceable, which I have done twice on my other two pairs. Easy to do and you can pick up replacements on amazon. They last 1-2 years with everyday use. Cons: - Two different apps. For whatever reason, Bose decided to keep “Bose Connect” to control older models and introduced “Bose Music” to control the QC45s. Why?? The only thing I want to use your app for is firmware updates, settings, and maybe if I want to stream to two pairs at once. Now, we need two logins, two apps, etc. - Sound quality. I actually thought the QC35 II’s had the best sound quality. These feel like we lost mids and highs at the expense of noise cancellation and bass response. - Voice announcements. Whenever I plug this into my desktop via the 3.5 to 2.5mm cord to take a call, it takes 5-6 seconds to announce that bluetooth is off and announces what devices it disconnected from in sequence. This is really dumb, because you can’t hear anything during this time. I also prefer not to turn off voice prompts entirely because it lets you know battery level when you turn it on. - Volume override when plugged in. This one is extremely annoying. When you plug in the headphones to a jack, it overrides the system volume down to about 25% and you need to use the headphones to turn it up. I haven’t found a setting to turn this off. Come on Bose, practice some good UX and instead of deciding for the user, give them the option in the app for these “features”. - Button Mapping. Pressing the middle button to take an incoming call no longer works. Pressing the left smart button while plugged in changes the headphone from “Quiet” (noise cancelling) to “Aware” (NC off). Again, I can’t find a setting to change this in the app. A lot of these new mappings just aren’t as intuitive as the QC35 II. Things to Note: - USB C charging. Might be a good thing or a bad thing for you. I understand why they would want to make this move. Just keep in mind that the charger matters. I’ve found the charge controller can negotiate a higher voltage from bigger bricks and it will significantly cut down your charge time. - I don’t use Alexa/Google assistant so I can’t speak to its efficacy. - They make an sound when turned on that reminds me of the THX trademark. Overall, there are too many things on the QC45’s that make them frustrating for me. They took an excellent product and tried to add a few features at the expense of a great experience for an intuitive product that just worked. With the QC45, I find myself thinking about its limitations on what I’m about to do vs just turning them on and using them without having to think about it. TL;DR - Skip these and pick up the QC35 II’s on sale. They are excellent and are still the ones I use primarily.