It's been a very iterative year in tech. With few exceptions, big-ticket new releases in 2023, from phones to tablets to wearables to personal audio, have largely seemed like minor refinements to what we just got a year or two ago. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, available for preorder now, are a prime example of this trend: for the same $299 MSRP as 2022's QuietComfort Earbuds II, the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds offer all the same benefits (chiefly, outrageously effective ANC) with a handful of new features that probably won't matter to most people. They're not without faults, and they may not be terribly exciting coming from the last generation — but they're still great earbuds.