Unbelievably happy with this product. I cannot live without out my Bose QC 35 II's (even considering a second one to keep at work). It is empowering to put these on and all the noise pollution just goes away. I bought them for home and hadn't planned on taking them to my large open floor office. I put them on and suddenly realized there was a very low and loud humm coming from the ceiling (air blowers I assume). Now gone. I sit there in my cubicle and feel sorry for everyone else because they don't have a pair of these.

I tried other brands, but they were simply not properly engineered. Once you get the pairing "dialed in" it is seamless. I have a Mac and iPhone but bought the new model (with Google voice button). I use the button's alternate function of turning on/off noise cancellation -- just for fun to remind me how great this product works. But remember.. this technology is not going to isolate voices - it is designed to remove motor noises (plane, furnace blower, road, engine, etc).

These are amazing and Bose is great! I purchased these headphones for their noise-cancellation abilities. I am an application developer and wear them at work because I am easily distracted. I don't even listen to music with them... they just cancel just about all background noise, including random chatter from the annoying marketing department. I also use them for WebEx and Skype calls with clients. The built-in microphone is great and the noise-cancellation is helpful during those calls as well. Battery life is extremely good. I can go an entire week without having to charge the headset. It comes with an 1/8" cable that will allow you to listen to music even when the batteries are dead. An added feature is that the bluetooth feature will allow you to connect to and hear audio from two sources at the same time. This is great if you want to connect to your iPhone and laptop at the same time.

After a month of use, the headphones button would no longer work to pair to a new device. It would still power on and off, just the pairing didn't function. Bose support was difficult to deal with. At first the support technician didn't think there was anything wrong with the headset. After a frustrating conversation, he relented and sent me instructions for sending them back to the manufacturer. This would mean that I would be without my precious headphones for at least two weeks. The next day prior to dropping the headphones at UPS I came across The Bose Store at Tysons Corner Mall. I had the headphones with me so I decided to speak to one of the employees there. After a very brief conversation, and even though I purchased these through Amazon, he walks over to a display, gets me a brand new set of headphones and proceeds to exchange my defective ones for the new set. No other questions asked. He just said "We like to take care of our customers". I wish customer support would have been as easy to deal with... but, things worked out.

After doing a lot of research, it ultimately came down to the Bose QC 35 and Sony 1000XM2. I tried them both for several days but in the end, the Bose QC 35 was my choice, which wasn't an easy one to make. You can't go wrong with either pair as they are both very nice headphones. The final decision for me was whether I wanted a little better quality (Sony) or better fit/comfort (Bose). I chose comfort and the Bose 1000XM2. Here are some other things I noticed...

SOUND QUALITY:
No question at all, the Sony 1000Xm2 are better sounding headphones. Don't get me wrong, the Bose are still very good. However, I really liked and preferred the bass response of the Sony over the Bose. Bose are the brighter sounding headphones but the biggest difference was how they sound with bass, which Sony does better.

FIT / COMFORT:
The Bose gets the edge on fit/comfort. They are VERY comfortable and light! The Sony 1000xm2 are fine but they fit a bit more snug than Bose. At first, I actually preferred the Sony fit. However, after having them on for an hour or longer, that's where I noticed the biggest difference... ear fatigue. Much less ear fatigue with the Bose. That all being said, what is more comfortable to me might be less comfortable to you. You just have to try them on, ideally for extended periods of time. I bought these particularly when I fly where I plan to wear them for hours at a time. Even though I prefer the sound quality of the Sony, I just couldn't get over the incredibly comfortable fit of the Bose.

BLUETOOTH CONNECTIVITY:
Both do a fine job here but the Bose were the more reliable in establishing a connection without having to fiddle around with settings. When comparing the Sony and the Bose, I often went back and forth trying when trying out the headphones. Every time that I went back to the Bose, it was fast and easy. With the Sony pair, I had to go into my Bluetooth settings a few times in order to get a connection. It really wasn't a big deal but the Bose gets the edge here because it is painless and works more reliably.

DURABILITY:
I won't give either pair the edge here because I only had them for a week BUT do keep in mind that the Sony 1000xm1 had issues with the headband cracking. Because Sony hasn't clearly stated whether they resolved the issue with the xm2's, it's anyone's guess. This alone probably wouldn't keep me from going with the XM2's but it is something to consider.

CONTROLS:
I like them both and consider this a toss up. With the Sony pair, you just swipe the headphones to control the music and volume while the Bose has hard buttons. At first, I definitely preferred the hard buttons that are on the Bose. However, after getting used to swiping on the Sony's, I found it easy enough to do. Which do I prefer? Probably the hard buttons because they are a bit more reliable than the swiping. This is very subjective though and I could see some preferring the swiping while others preferring the hard buttons. It just depends on what you like. For me, I found both to work fine. The Sony does have a feature where you can put you hand over the right headphone and it will allow you to hear outside noise without having to take them off. Cool feature? Maybe for some but for me, I didn't see any use for it. If someone approaches me while wearing big headphones like these, I'm going to take them off my head rather than keeping them on with my hand cupping the right headphone. It just seems a bit rude not to do so.

FEATURES:
They both have their pluses and minuses here. It really depends on what is most important to you. I really like how the Sony 1000XM2 allows you to customize the sound (including equalizer). It also has the ability to modify you settings depending on where you are listening to them by simply pressing a button. I don't really no what impact that has though because I only tried this a couple of times. The fact of the matter is that Sony provides a bit more customization which I like! The Bose has google assistant which I found to be a cool feature. I could live without this but it is a nice feature. The feature that I found VERY useful on the Bose is the ability to play text messages through the headphones. I was on a flight recently where we were waiting for our turn to take off. While listening to my music, I was notified that I had a text message. Instead of having to reach for my phone (Sony) the Bose pair allowed me to just push the action button to hear the text. I found this awesome. Sony does not have this feature. What headphones gets the edge? For me, it's another toss up. I really like the customization of the Sony but the Bose are very cool with being able to read my text messages (and google assistant).

LOOKS:
They both look great! I had the gold/beige Sony's and the silver Bose. I might give a slight edge to Bose as I like the silver look and the Bose logo on each headphone. However, this is very subjective.

SUMMARY:
This is one of those times where you just can't go wrong with either pair. They both have their pros and cons but in the end, for me, I prefer the Bose QC 35 by a very small margin.

OK, my personal comparison of the Sony WH-1000Xm2 and the Bose is complete. After reading all the reviews, the Sony seemed to win out, but with Amazon's generous return policy, I purchased both and did a several hour comparison yesterday. Both are great, but here's what pushed me over the edge for Bose.

1. Sound. I am not an audiophile so the terms I use in this section to describe what I experienced may be technically incorrect terms, so bear with me. The Bose sound is amazing. It is crisp and clean and full. I can hear so much more in the same music I have been listening to for years. It's hard to explain but the Sony seemed compressed while the Bose feels full. The highs are better on the Bose and the there is separation in the music. The bass on the Sony seems louder, but not crisp and clean like it does on the Bose. The Sony sound is very good but compressed and almost muddy compared to the Bose. I know reviews say the Sony sounds better, but I just don't hear it that way. I found myself cutting my Sony tests short so I could go back to the Bose.

2. Comfort. The Bose is lighter and more comfortable for me. The Sony felt heavy in comparison.

Every other feature became unimportant to me after hearing the sound and feeling the comfort. Both eliminated noise and did everything else fine.

Nothing against the Sony WH-1000Xm2 - it is an excellent product, but for me I'm keeping the Bose and sending back the Sony's.

I purchased these and the Sony WH1000XM2 to compare the two. Cnet says they both have a "9" for sound quality. I would agree, they both sound excellent. The Bose won the test for its noise cancellation, performance talking to people on the phone, comfort on my head, and sound processing.

Phone performance:
I compared how the Bose and the Sony sounded when recording and playing back my voice with a fan running in the background. The Bose sounded like I was holding an old fashioned handset and talking in a quiet room - intimate and zero background noise. The Sony sounded like I was on speaker phone, and I could hear some background noise. (As a control I also recorded using neither and it sounded like I was on speaker but also I could hear more background noise.) This feature is important to me since I spend a lot of time on the phone and prefer my clients to not hear any background noise.

Sound quality
The Bose and Sony both have excellent sound quality for playing music. I personally prefer the sound the Sony produces. The Sony iphone app lets you choose your levels on an equalizer, and I like that. However, the Bose hears what type of music you're playing and automatically optimizes the sound, and it does a really good job. While I would prefer to be able to set the levels if I so choose, I also appreciate that Bose is making it all easy for me, so I can truly listen to my music on random and not have to fuss with levels. The Bose iphone app doesn't do very much at all. It does let you "find your headset" similar to the "find my phone" app, and it will apply firmware. (I'm hoping Bose will add an equalizer into its app in the future.)

Noise cancellation
The Sony occasionally made me aware that noise cancellation was going on (with a whitenoise effect). The Bose on the other hand just stops the noise. There is no delay, no white noise, just quiet and your music.

Controls
The Bose controls are intuitive to find and to use. I like that the on-off control is a switch to flip on and off (rather than a button to find). Also, you can use this button to switch between devices, for example between your phone and ipad and your TV amplifier. The right earcup has three small buttons in a row together, and they control a lot of things. Volume, pause, and skip, rewind, answer/decline calls, etc. The left earcup only has the google assistant button, which I programmed to instead control the amount of noise cancellation (high, low, off). Song playback sounds much better with noise cancellation on high, and I don't think that has to do with noise (I was in a quiet environment); the bass sounds enhanced with noise cancellation on for some reason. (In comparison, the Sony lets you swipe the earcup itself to control volume, pause, play, skip, etc. This seems great in theory, but in practice if I bumped the earcup adjusting my glasses or whatever, the music would pause. I found the Sony to be somewhat buggy in that regard. It would stop playing at times and I had to pick up my phone to get the music re-started, which is annoying.) I found the Bose controls to be more intuitive and consistent. Also, when you switch them on a voice tells you how much battery you have left, which is handy.

Comfort
The Bose QuietComfort truly is comfortable. The earcups are soft, there is not a lot of clamping, and the top band is padded so it's less annoying on the top of the head. (In comparison, the Sony do have more clamping which was uncomfortable over glasses.) I am a pilot and wear a similar headset, so I'm familiar with how headphones feel after a few hours. On-ear are not going to be as comfortable for long term wear as earbuds would be, but I was wiling to make that trade-off to get superior sound quality.

Style
The Bose are more streamlined to my head. the Sony are bulky and look geeky.

Conclusion
Even though the Sony produces superior sound, the litany of other features (superior noise cancellation, intuitive controls, comfort, style, & phone performance) won me over to the Bose.