Anker Soundcore Liberty Air review
Our Verdict
The Anker Soundcore Freedom Air offers adept condolement and sound at a budget price, just the connectivity and controls could be amend.
For
- Surprisingly good sound
- Slap-up comfort and fit
- Good battery life
- Passive racket isolation
- Half the cost of AirPods
Confronting
- Design scratches hands
- Poor impact controls
- Bluetooth v.0 doesn't work well
- No companion app
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Anker Soundcore Liberty Air offers expert comfort and audio at a budget toll, but the connectivity and controls could be better.
Pros
- +
Surprisingly good sound
- +
Bully condolement and fit
- +
Good battery life
- +
Passive racket isolation
- +
Half the toll of AirPods
Cons
- -
Design scratches easily
- -
Poor touch controls
- -
Bluetooth 5.0 doesn't work well
- -
No companion app
The Anker Soundcore Liberty Air shows the value of apprehensive ancestry. From this dirt-cheap pair of AirPods clones, originally released in 2018, we at present have one of the best-value ANC buds in the Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro.
Simply the older pair of headphones isn't only good for siring an older, more advanced pair. Even in more recent times it can be a viable low-cost culling to the pricey Apple AirPods, and indeed, the white version currently sits high up our list of the best fake AirPods you can purchase. To explain why, despite a few rough edges, our original Anker Soundcore Liberty Air review continues below.
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Anker Soundcore Liberty Air review: Toll and availability
Nigh retailers sell the Anker Soundcore Liberty Air for effectually $60, though at the time of writing you lot can grab it for just $25 on Amazon.
The Soundcore Liberty Air is available in black or white, the latter clearly aping the AirPods. Anker is besides more generous with accessories, bundling four sets of tips in dissimilar sizes and a micro-USB cablevision. Apple tree only provides a Lightning cable.
Anker Soundcore Freedom Air review: Design
I understand that Anker wants to achieve the same minimalist await as the AirPods. Nevertheless, this is also on the nose of what Apple tree originally introduced, from the shape to the high-gloss finish, which attracts fingerprints and scratches hands.
That aforementioned banality carries over into the production'southward build quality. Each earbud is covered in a soft-plastic shell that is slightly sturdier than the casing on the AirPods, simply not enough to protect them from severe impairment. Both models will suspension if you step on them. The only redeeming quality is the IPX5-rated coating that makes the earbuds sweat and water resistant.
The charging instance is solid and has magnets on the inside to go on the buds locked in and protected; the look is similar to the AirPods' example, only longer and thicker. The chapeau opens easily to admission or store the buds. 3 LED lights on the front bespeak the number of charging cycles; the bottom houses a micro-USB port.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air review: Comfort and fit
Anker is known for creating light, comfortable earbuds. The Liberty Air follows this tradition — you can habiliment these for several hours on end and not worry about fatigue. The earbuds provide cracking stability and balance gently on the concha. The ear tips feel soft and fit securely as well.
No private weight has been listed for the Freedom Air, but Anker lists the production at 2.1 ounces, which places it in a college weight class than the AirPods (one.3 ounces). Apple's charging case is more travel friendly, thank you to a slimmer profile and smaller pattern, but carrying the Freedom Air around as a complete package won't weigh down your pockets or gym handbag.
Anker Soundcore Freedom Air review: Controls and setup
The Liberty Air features touch controls and has more programmed gestures than the AirPods do; yet, it's but not every bit responsive as Apple'south buds.
When looking over the control list, it's clear the Liberty Air was designed more than equally a calling headset than as wireless earbuds. Call management is controlled entirely on the right earbud. You tin answer/stop a call (1x tap), identify a call on concur (2x taps), or reject/switch/transfer calls (tap and concur for 2 seconds). Music is controlled on both earbuds; the right is used for play/pause (1x tap) and skipping a runway (tap and hold for 2 seconds), and the left for playing a previous track (tap and hold for 2 seconds). At that place are no volume controls, which meant I still had to pull out my smartphone to control the volume.
The controls take some getting used to, but getting them to work is even more of a chore. Some truly wireless earbuds are super-sensitive to touch and often fault the controls, but these buds just fail to register gestures — I had to perform them several times for the buds to recognize whatever action.
Taking the Soundcore Freedom Air out of the charging case instantly places them in Pairing Mode, but the device struggled to communicate with uniform devices. When it worked, the procedure was standard: Enter your device's Bluetooth settings, find "SoundCore Liberty Air" on the available list, and select it.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air review: Sound quality
The Liberty Air won't wow you with detailed sound like the Chief & Dynamic MW07. What information technology does is reproduce music and low-frequency sounds clearer than the AirPods.
As I listened to Q-Tip'southward "Vivrant Matter," the bass levels were more than accentuated than on the AirPods, which provided a stronger kick and reverberation. My head was nodding in sync with the tape's infectious bassline. Percussion sounded sharp and impactful, never once compromising the rapper'due south airy vocals. Even when raising the volume to its highest level, the soundscape was balanced and distortion-gratis.
When switching to Prince'south 'Raspberry Beret," the buds showcased their mid-range exceptionally well. The Love Symbol himself allowable the soundstage over the densely layered beat, even giving the groundwork singers some shine. But much like the AirPods, highs aren't the Liberty Air's specialty, so certain instruments, like the finger cymbals and violin, went unheard, not uncommon with many instrumental-heavy records.
I tested the buds with video content as well, and was met with mixed results. In that location was some latency when watching YouTube clips. To gain a improve sense of depth, I pulled up the trailer for Jordan Peele's "Us," and noticed recessed vocals. On the plus side, the buds gave the symphony-esque score of the Luniz's "I Got 5 on It" some oomph and increased the fright factor.
Anker'south sound profile could do good from some tweaking, which is a characteristic available on some wireless earbuds via companion app. Neither Anker nor Apple tree offer an app for their corresponding devices.
Later securing a tight seal, the Liberty Air did a prissy chore of blocking out ambient noise. I was listening to music in my living room, with the Television set at a loftier volume, and wasn't interrupted past the intense debates on ESPN's "Kickoff Accept." Muting my cat's attending-seeking cries was a blessing; the buds are besides effective at silencing street sounds, such as rowdy pedestrians and truck engines; just don't expect them to melody out horns or sirens.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air review: Digital banana support
Information technology's a swing and a miss for Anker when it comes to digital assistants. The Liberty Air supports both Siri and Google Banana, only betwixt the buds' poor touch on response and spoken language recognition, they go to waste matter here. Enabling the characteristic is frustrating, peculiarly when listening to music at the same time. The buds couldn't distinguish whether I wanted to pause music or pull upwardly Google Assistant.
I had to perform the double-tap gesture a few times to activate the AI software; when I did, my voice commands were poorly translated. Using the feature outside was even more than disastrous since the loud traffic noises drowned out my phonation.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air review: Bombardment life
Anker bills the Freedom Air at 5 hours on a total charge; realistically, it's about 4 to iv.v hours depending on usage, every bit phone calls and volume levels affect overall battery life. The battery life is about the same as the AirPods 4.five hours, and longer than almost models in its price class. I used the buds for 1.5 hours daily, which was enough for iii days of listening before recharging. There's too a standby fashion programmed to automatically turn off the buds when not in use.
The charging case holds 3 charging cycles, providing 15 hours of additional playtime. It's a proficient corporeality to work with, although it doesn't match the AirPods case (24 hours). Only brand sure that the case has a decent amount of power; it won't charge the buds at the aforementioned time it's charging. Afterwards fully charging the case, the buds were at the same battery level (twoscore%) every bit they were when I commencement took them out of the box.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air review: Phone call quality and connectivity
Every bit a calling headset, the Liberty Air is serviceable. Calls sounded low, but people could hear me conspicuously and I could make out what they were proverb. I recommend using the buds indoors considering the mics are sensitive to background noise, so you won't be able to hear much in noisy settings. Nearly buds in the category only take calls in mono, but the Liberty Air lets you hear calls on both the left and right channels, similar the AirPods practise.
Almost Anker audio products support Bluetooth 5.0, including the Liberty Air; unfortunately, the buds suffer from connectivity issues. It takes longer to reconnect to a device (estimated 1 infinitesimal) and dropout happens often on the left bud. The W1 chip in the AirPods makes pairing and switching between devices a breeze, and bud-to-bud connectedness is perfect.
When it did concur a connection, I was able to stream music inside a 40-foot range. Another perk of having Bluetooth 5.0 is the option to connect to multiple devices simultaneously. The feature runs well, and I enjoyed the liberty of managing playback from my MacBook command panel while streaming Spotify on my smartphone.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air review: Verdict
For such little cash, you lot should not overlook the Anker SoundCore Liberty Air as a potential AirPods culling. These earbuds provide more than comfort, better racket isolation and even amend sound than its competitor, at half the price. But that doesn't make the Freedom Air superior to the AirPods.
In fact, at that place are other truly wireless models that besides cost fifty-fifty less than $100 while ascent above the Liberty Air – the JLab JBuds Air come up to mind. All the same, if you're an Anker fan who wants something more versatile than the AirPods and at a lower cost, you lot could do a lot worse than this pair of buds.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/anker-soundcore-liberty-air,review-6329.html
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