Bose offers a lot for $120 less than its flagship earbuds on the new QuietComfort Earbuds. You still get great sound and effective ANC, plus a host of handy features.

The true wireless earbud arena was already fiercely competitive, but with both Bose and Apple now launching new models aimed squarely at each other, your buying decision has got that little bit trickier. Don’t panic. We’re here to help. Below ...

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a pair of under-$200 earbuds from Bose. Until now, the company has been happy to stick with products that hover around $300, including the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (plus several predecessors) and the more recent Ultra Open Earbuds.

Bose is a brand synonymous with high quality—and typically has high prices to match. The $179 Bose QuietComfort Earbuds offer strong sound quality and active noise cancellation (ANC) at a much lower price than the $299 Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds.

Open-ear earbuds are more comfortable to wear for most, but it used to mean no active noise cancellation — until now.

So, how do they compare to the previous versions, or to AirPods pro? And should you buy them? Apple released the first AirPods in 2016 and, once we’d got used to the novelty of having white stalks sticking out of our ears,

In California, in the wake of its launch event, Apple told us how the AirPods 4 were designed and what changes have been made to achieve noise cancellation in an open-ear design.