Sony WI-1000XM2 Industry Leading Noise Canceling Wireless Behind-Neck in Ear Headset/Headphones with mic for phone call with Alexa Voice Control, Black

These have great sound, and although I did not really need noise cancellation, the noise cancellation is really impressive for in-ear headphones. The battery life is really good, roughly the 10 hours that the box says. They don't have any in-ear detection so they waste battery if you let them out of your ears. Unfortunately, despite being USB Type-C, these do not have any type of fast charging. They seem like they take an eternity to charge fully, but at least the type-C connects much more easily than old Micro-B. The battery level is reported properly and in 10% increments even without the app. The app is fairly nice, reliable, fairly fast and featureful, and importantly it isn't required and doesn't run in the background. Bluetooth connection stability, which is the paramount reason I chose such expensive headphones, is basically bulletproof, even in the high quality mode I have no issues.Likes:- Stable Bluetooth- Quality Audio- Many Tweakable Features in App, Including Bluetooth Quality vs Stability tradeoff (which isn't really needed because its stable in both states)- Long Battery Life, Good Battery Level Reporting- Good Noise Cancelling (removes street noise and office HVAC hum and white noise)- LOTS of different eargels included (4 size of silicone and 3 sizes of foam)- Eargels attach to buds securely, shouldn't slide off when they inevitably get oily- Ambient pressure compensation ("optimization") to prevent that noise-cancelling-pressure feeling- Nice carrying case included, though it's a bit chonkyDislikes:- Charging is disproportionately slow considering the large battery capacity and Type-C connection.- No in-ear detection means music does not pause when ear buds are clasped to each other on your chest and noise cancellation continues wasting battery.Weird:- Includes an analog headphone cable (very nice and thin silicone with right angle plugs on both ends). If I ever visit 1995 I'll be prepared.- Includes a airplane headphone plug adapter. If I ever visit 1985 I'll be prepared.

I have been using Bose quitecomfort 20 for a long time (in-ear noise cancelling) that works very well. But the dongle with that and also the longevity issues of that after a few years made me look for better alternatives. After seeing Sony 1000MX series being rated high is noise cancelling, I took a chance and bought this. Within a month, I went back to my old and tottering Bose. So much disappointment.Here are the good things first:- good fit in the ear, doesn't fall off.- excellent sound quality for music (may be not perfect but for mobile use this is fine)- no issues with pairing and using with either Samsung galaxies or my windows/mac notebooksAnd the serious issues:- The android app is pretty bad. Every time I had to set it to noise cancelling. It starts with ambient noise setting always and doesn't remember my settings at all from session to session and even within a session, I have seen it switch modes while I am talking on the phone or using it.- Even with noise cancelling setting and even after letting the app train noise cancelling for the ambient noise, it doesn't work. period. The people on the other end can't hear me at all through the wind noise when I am walking outdoors, with full noise cancellation.- Noise cancellation doesn't seem to work any better than noise isolation of similar in-ear headsets in other office and such surroundings as well.- Did try a couple of times during air travel, and again the effect is pretty minimal. I could have put on a simple 15$ over the ear headset and could have got a better noise cancellation effect!May be I got a lemon, but it is too late to return this to amazon. Unfortunately, Bose has stopped making in-ear headsets other than the airpod like earbuds, and I have no other better new choice now.. Sad state of technology progress... we can have ChatGPT and AI, but can't make a decent noise cancelling in-ear headsets...