Hi I’m Gidon from the technologyman.com. Today I’m taking a look as some true wireless
earbuds from Anker that aim to compete with Apple’s Airpods, but at half the price.
The Anker Soundcore Liberty Air earphones at around £80 or $80 have many similarities
to Apple’s Airpods but with an arguably more secure in-ear design, and an IPX5 water
resistance rating. Anker are a brand best known for power banks
and chargers, but they also make some very popular Bluetooth speakers, like the Soundcore
2 I reviewed a while back. These are the first earphones I’ve tried from them, so I was
keen to see how they fared. Getting started
Although half the price of the Apple Airpods, these still aren’t cheap earbuds and the
premium packaging supports their price. They’re available in both black and white - I’ve
bought the black version. In the box you get the earbuds themselves
in a charging case, a micro-USB charging cable, and some extra small, small and large ear
tips in addition to the already fitted medium tips. There’s also a thick multilingual
user manual that covers basic operation. The case weighs 57g with the earbuds and is
quite compact measuring 30mm thick by 48mm tall and 61mm wide. The black version has
a matte finish which does good job of attracting fingerprints. There’s the “soundcore”
branding across its lid. The build quality of the case is ok and its size and rounded
edges make it quite comfortable to open one-handed, or to slide into a pocket.
There’s a micro-USB port at the bottom to charge the case. The bottom of the case is
curved, so if you want to stand it up, for charging perhaps, you need to turn it upside
down on its flat top. I would have liked to have seen a USB-C port
at this price point, especially with Anker’s heritage. There’s no wireless charging,
nor fast charging - the maximum input current is 0.5A. Charging the case’s 500mAh battery
takes 1-2 hours. The case provides an additional 15 hours of
battery life on top of the built in 5 hour battery life of the earpods.
Opening and closing the lid, which has a rather satisfying mechanism, turns on the case’s
charge status lights. Three solid white LEDs indicate more than 70% of battery life remaining,
there’s two LEDs when charge is between 30% and 70%, one LED for 5%-30% and flashing
white when there’s less than 5% remaining. When you first get the earbuds you’ll need
to remove them from the case and peel off the protective film before you can charge
them. The earbuds have “soundcore” branding along their stem. The charging pins and microphones
sit at the bottom of each stem, which measures 4 cm in total.
When you put the earbuds back in the case, their white status LEDs will be solid white
while they charge and then turn off when fully charged. In use they’ll flash red every
second when the battery is low. A full charge from empty took 1 hour and 15 minutes. You
will have to open the case to check if the earbuds are fully charged.
When charging the case, the 3 LEDs go steady white for a second and then light up according
to the case’s charge level, all turning steady white when it reaches full capacity.
The earbuds themselves are held securely in the case with magnets. They do feel a little
cheap, with a glossy finish which like the case, attracts fingerprints. I would have
preferred the matte finish of the case. They are lightweight though at just under
6g each. Both earbuds have a microphone at the bottom for phone calls and voice commands.
The rounded bottom of the case is an odd design when you’re replacing the earbuds in the
case, since unless you’re holding it in your hand, it just falls over.
Pairing Pairing the earbuds is a very simple process.
When you take them out of the case, they automatically pair with each other, with both their white
LEDs flashing slowly. Then the right LED will flash quickly to indicate it’s in pairing
mode. Choose “Soundcore Liberty Air” in your Bluetooth device list. Both LEDs now
flash slowly every second or so to show they are paired to a device. You can check the
battery level, on Apple devices at least, by swiping right from the home screen.
You’re really pairing to the right earbud, which itself is connected to the left earbud.
So you can use the right earbud on its own if you like - just leave the left one in the
case. But you can’t pair to the left earbud on its own, like you can with some other true
wireless stereo or TWS earbuds. If you want to listen to just the left earbud, you’ll
need to still take them both out of the case. Unfortunately you can only pair to one device.
If I want to, say, move the pairing from my iPad to my Apple Watch, I need to first disconnect
from the iPad. The right white LED will again flash quickly to indicate pairing mode, and
I can tap on it in Bluetooth settings on the Apple Watch.
If you don’t know what device you’re paired to it’s a bit more complicated. Hold your
finger on the right earbud until a red LED lights up. Take your finger off and then hold
it down again until the white LED flashes quickly, indicating it’s back in pairing
mode. You can then select Soundcore Liberty Air in your Bluetooth device list.
If there’s a problem with the stereo connection between the earbuds and you can only hear
sound on one side, you can factory reset them. There are two methods to do this depending
on your earbuds - the instructions in my user manual were incorrect for mine.
The first method that’ll I’ll describe here applies if you have a serial number printed
in the lid of the case like I have here. If your serial number is printed on the charging
cable you’ll need to use the second method - I’ll provide a link down below to a video
by Anker on that procedure. First off remove all pairing records. Then
remove both earbuds and insert just the right earbud into the case. When the white charging
LED is lit, tap and hold your finger on the touchpad for 7 seconds until the LED flashes
red 3 times, then release. Now do the same with the left earbud. Remove them both from
the case. The left earbud’s LED will flash white slowly and the right earbud’s LED
will flash white quickly, ready for pairing. You can then tap on Soundcore Liberty Air
in your Bluetooth device to connect. Fitting and controls
The medium ear tips are already fitted and should fit most people’s ears. There is
a L and R on each earbud but it’s difficult to see, on the black version at least.
Insert them into your ear canal and twist them slightly to get a good fit. If you need
to try different ear tips, just pull the medium tips off and push on a smaller or larger size.
I did find the medium tip fitted best, but it wasn’t that secure in my ears. They’re
ok for general use but failed miserably on a run, falling out within 5 minutes. Of course,
everyone’s ears are different so they may be fine for you.
They are comfortable though, and their light weight means you hardly notice them.
The Liberty Airs have touch controls which work pretty well. I don’t mind physical
buttons, but with these in-ear earbuds it can be a little uncomfortable pressing them
further into your ear with a button press. Tapping the right earbud twice, plays &| pauses
music, podcasts or videos. And will also answer or end a call.
Tapping the left earbud twice activates your voice assistant. It easy to get these two
controls mixed up, activating your voice assistant instead of pausing your music or vice versa.
Tapping and holding the left and right earbuds for two seconds plays the previous and next
tracks respectively. The touch controls don’t offer any feedback,
so it’s hard to know sometimes whether you’ve tapped the right spot until you realise nothing’s
happened! I could activate the touchpad with gloves on - with about a 50% success rate.
Unfortunately there’s no volume controls - you’ll have to use your device to control
volume. Or you could use your voice assistant. On my iPad, or iPhone I can double tap the
left earbud to activate Siri, wait for the confirmation double beep, which might take
a second, and then say “Turn the volume down to 50%”.
There’s also no in-ear detection, so you’ll need to pause your audio manually.
Audio quality, battery life & performance When it comes to audio quality, I think the
Liberty Air’s justify their price tag. They sound crisp and handle the mids particularly
well. Bass is not bad and will depend to some degree on how good the fit is in your ear.
They don’t go particularly loud, and the highs can sound a bit harsh if you do have
the volume at its maximum. Overall the sound quality is good and think
most people would be pretty happy with them. I didn’t find the fit as good as some other
earbuds I’ve tried, which also means sound isolation isn’t as good. That’s not necessarily
a bad thing - sometimes you want to hear what’s going on around you. There was a bit a sound
leakage at full volume, but nothing too serious. There’s no active noise reduction.
Phone calls come binaurally through both earbuds, which can sound strange especially with the
sound isolation, but you can always just use the right earbud on its own if you like. I
found voice calls just a little muffled compared to some other true wireless earbuds I’ve
tried, but still more than acceptable. The mics do a good job though - I couldn’t hear
any difference listening to a phone call with someone using the earbuds’ microphones.
They use what Anker call “Dual-mic uplink noise reduction” which basically means they
use two microphones, one for voice and one for background noise and apply some signal
processing to subtract this noise and improve the audio.
Like many Bluetooth earphones I’ve tried they is some audio delay playing games and
watching YouTube videos although this delay wasn’t perceptible on Netflix.
I tried pairing them with an Apple Watch and did get some drop outs. This didn’t happen
all the time and was better when I was outside, away from any possible interference. I didn’t
get these dropouts with my iPhone or iPad, even indoors.
As I briefly mentioned earlier, I did try using the earbuds for running with little
success. I just couldn’t get a secure fit which is a shame because they have an decent
IPX5 rating for water resistance. That rating doesn’t apply to the case though.
Battery life was above average, as true wireless earbuds go at least. I got close to the quoted
5 hours of battery life, running them at around 70% volume.
The earbuds use Bluetooth 5.0 and I found the range to be good from my iPhone and iPad.
I had no dropouts in the next room around 10 metres away.
Conclusions I got the Anker Soundcore Liberty Airs on
sale for around £50 or $50 and if you can get them for that price they are a bargain
- check the link in the description for the latest price. Even at their usual £80 or
$80, they are definitely worth considering. They offer good sound quality, battery life
is more than acceptable, especially if you’ve got the case with you, the touch controls
work pretty well and their IPX5 rating does provide some reassurance if you’re going
to be using them out and about. I didn’t find the fit secure enough for
running, for my ears at least, and I felt that the build quality particularly of the
earbuds, could be a little better for the asking price. And on that picky theme I’d
also like some volume controls. But if you’re after a cheaper alternative
to Apple’s Airpods, with decent sound, many similar features and a not hugely dissimilar
design, or if you’re just after some reasonably priced good sounding wireless earbuds, I think
you’d be more than happy with the Soundcore Liberty Airs.
If you’ve got some of these earbuds, let me know what you think of them down below.
Or if there’s a better option you’ve found I’d also love to hear. And as ever if you
have any questions, please ask - I read every comment and will do my best to respond.
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