Bose quotes up to twenty-four hours of playback, and the qualifier that follows it is the interesting part: that figure is with Immersive Audio switched off. Switch on the feature the product is named for and it becomes eighteen. The quick charge behaves the same way — fifteen minutes returns two and a half hours with the feature off, two hours with it on. This is not a hidden catch; Bose publishes both numbers. It is simply the one place where reading the second line changes the comparison.
Immersive Audio is the reason to consider this headphone over the other two. It renders a fixed sound stage that stays put when you turn your head, and unlike most spatial audio implementations it needs nothing from the source: no particular phone, no particular streaming tier, no encoded track. That makes it the rare version of this feature that works on whatever you already own rather than one you can only demonstrate under laboratory conditions.
On the raw specifications this pair is closer to the Sony than the marketing on either side suggests. Both weigh 254 grams — Bose publishes 0.56 of a pound, which converts to the same figure. Both run Bluetooth 5.3. Both fold flat into their case. The codec is the clear split: aptX Adaptive here through Snapdragon Sound, LDAC and LC3 on the Sony. Which is better depends entirely on your phone, and on an iPhone the question does not arise at all.
Where the Sony is ahead on paper is the microphone array: twelve against eight. Microphone count is not a verdict on call quality, but it is the only published number that bears on it, and if calls are the reason you are buying a headphone then that is the specification to weigh rather than a reviewer’s impression of one.
One thing to check before ordering: Bose now also sells a second-generation QuietComfort Ultra. Everything on this page refers to the first-generation model, QCUH-HEADPHONEARN. The two are easy to confuse in a listing, and a retailer clearing the older stock has no reason to make the distinction obvious for you.
The honest summary is that this is a headphone bought for one feature and lived with for the rest. If Immersive Audio does not appeal, there is nothing here that the Sony does not match or better on the published numbers.