Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro review | Laptop Mag
Our Verdict
The Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro are a true wireless success backed by strong audio, several features, and passable ANC.
For
- Rich, customizable audio
- Adequate ANC and ambient listening modes
- Enough of personalization features via companion app
- Stable battery life
- Excellent connectivity
Against
- Finicky controls
- Highs don't actually shine
Laptop Magazine Verdict
The Anker Soundcore Freedom Air ii Pro are a true wireless success backed by strong audio, several features, and passable ANC.
Pros
- +
Rich, customizable sound
- +
Adequate ANC and ambient listening modes
- +
Plenty of personalization features via companion app
- +
Stable battery life
- +
Excellent connectivity
Cons
- -
Finicky controls
- -
Highs don't really smoothen
Anker continues its push in the true wireless infinite with the release of its first-ever racket-cancelling wireless earbuds: the Anker Soundcore Freedom Air 2 Pro. Very similar to their predecessor, the popular Liberty Air 2, these buds share many of the same hallmarks such equally ample battery life, dynamic audio, and swell call quality. The one twist is that this new model comes equipped with agile noise cancellation, also equally fresh intuitive features that personalize the listening experience.
- Our adept picks for the best wireless earbuds, per budget and style
- Check out our Apple tree AirPods Pro review
- …and our Bose QuietComfort Earbuds review
The Liberty Air 2 Pro has some strong competition, which includes the category-leading AirPods Pro and other disquisitional darlings such as the Sony WH-1000xM3 and Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro. Even so, these buds accept something that works to their advantage: price. And for but $130, Anker's flagship buds undercut the contest, delivering a solid overall performance that places them in the aforementioned tier equally some of the other true wireless greats.
- Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro at Amazon for $129
Anker Soundcore Freedom Air two Pro: Availability and toll
The Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro are available for $130 at major online retailers, including Amazon and Best Buy, or direct from Anker. These buds are sold in four colors: Crystal Pink, Onyx Blackness, Sapphire Blue, and Titanium White. Bundled with the purchase are a wireless charging case, nine pairs of ear tips, a user guide, and a USB-C charging cable.
Anker Soundcore Freedom Air two Pro: Design
Anker has stepped upwards its aesthetics game, creating some fine-looking, well-built wireless headphones and earbuds over the by two years. Reference the Freedom Air two or recently launched Soundcore Life Q30 should yous need a reminder. The Liberty Air 2 Pro feels more premium than the AirPods Pro and looks slightly better, despite copying Apple'due south wireless stem design.
Non much has changed from the original model, except maybe ii details. The touch panels on the front blend more into the design for a unibody appearance. Likewise, Anker chose to drop the IPX rating from IPX5 to IPX4, a motion that is a scrap puzzling, equally the erstwhile offers stronger protection confronting rain, sweat, and stiff h2o splash. That leaves you with the same water resistance as the AirPods Pro. On the plus side, the all-plastic casing is resilient, so you won't have to worry virtually scratches or breaking the buds if they spill onto the ground.
Another area where the Liberty Air 2 Pro has an advantage over the AirPods Pro is the colors. You already know what Apple gives you lot (ugh, white). Anker offers four colors to choose from – Black, Blue, Pink, and White – each one bold and very attractive with a matte stop.
The charging case is redesigned this fourth dimension effectually, featuring a pebble shape with a slide-upward door that gorgeously displays the buds; notice the grip imprint to push open. Taking the buds out are as easy as dropping them in. Other details like the Soundcore logo on the superlative, LEDs for battery indication, and the pairing push button on the back are nice touches as well. I also like the instance's lightweight feel and soft-touch stop, though the cloth does scuff hands.
How do they experience on the ears? Moderately comfortable. The larger angled sound port allows the buds to rest right on the concha for a practiced amount of time before fatigue sets in. I enjoyed about 2 hours of wireless listening earlier experiencing slight soreness. The tips provided a secure fit and stiff seal, which helped with noise isolation and kept external sounds from entering the soundstage when having both listening modes turned off.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro: Controls and digital assistant
The Liberty Air two Pro support touch on gestures and motion detection, though neither operates perfectly. For starters, in that location is latency with input. Performing quick taps isn't very effective; you have to tap them gradually for the touch sensors to register. Also, on-ear detection operates on a delay, resuming/pausing playback within a 1-to-2-second time frame after removing or placing the buds back on your ears.
Anker gives y'all many programmed controls that can be assigned to each individual bud via a companion app. This includes playback, call management, voice assistant activation, volume, and cycling through the listening modes. Unfortunately, the buds are limited to two-tap and hold gestures, significant y'all'll have to be selective with the controls yous assign or swap one out for another. Cheaper ANC models like the JLab Ballsy Air Sport ANC offer more extensive command customization, so there's no reason why Anker tin't do the same.
Digital assistant support is 1 of the redeeming qualities in this section. Exterior of the latency problems when firing upward Google Assistant or Siri, Anker'southward mic-array demonstrates accurate speech recognition to hear and answer voice commands apace. But there is ane thing that is absolutely brutal to deal with: the beep noise that confirms the characteristic is on. It'south harmfully loud, no thing what volume y'all set.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro: Active dissonance cancellation and transparency mode
ANC on the Freedom Air 2 Pro is impressive for the well-nigh part. Is information technology Bose or Sony quality? No, just information technology'south skilful enough to cake out specific noises, mostly ones that you'll see indoors.
Anker engineered iv different ANC modes: Transport, Indoor, Outdoor, and Custom. The outset three were fabricated for specific environments, while Custom lets you adjust the noise reduction levels via an on-screen dial. I didn't play around too much with it, but I got some great apply out of Indoors during work hours, which helped cancel out voices and mid-frequency sounds. Distractions like my married woman's Zoom conferences and family members barging into my office were muted. My newborn was also quiet for the virtually part, at least until he started crying at the summit of his lungs; no fashion was capable of silencing him so.
When listening to music outside, I got some decent ANC performance. Transport actually provided better dissonance neutralization than Outdoor, minimizing typical droning noises similar car engines, along with ambulance sirens and barge construction. It didn't completely block out the fracas, but, over again, it minimized information technology well enough to not pull me away from music.
What really stood out was the Transparency Mode. Information technology does a fantastic job of picking upward ambient sounds to increase ecology awareness. Also, Anker takes the feature a footstep further with two different modes: Fully Transparent to hear all ambient sounds and Vocal to brand voices more prominent. Mainly those with detailed hearing volition pick up on the performance differences between the two, but you lot'll definitely hear them when enabling Vocal around a chatty crowd.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air ii Pro: audio quality
Anker'south efforts to raise its sound signature oasis't gone unnoticed. Every new release in the Liberty lineup has produced dynamic results, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Liberty Air 2 Pro stay on-tendency. The visitor'due south PureNote Driver engineering science helps to achieve a rich, punchy audio that lends itself well to well-nigh music genres.
Every bit a hip-hop fanatic, at that place was no better identify for me to kickoff than with some DMX. Blasting "What's My Proper noun" at max volume was an adrenaline rush, as the pounding drums weren't besides boomy and maintained a bouncy resonance that stimulated neck-breaking caput nods. While the low end is emphasized on Anker'south sound signature, the bass was well balanced on this track and blended nicely with X's furious vocals for an energetic listen. Much of those vibes carried over onto Green Day's "Basket Case," with the crashing cymbals and snares having an impactful presence.
Switching over to Jazz, I picked upwards on a few of the Liberty Air ii Pro's sonic deficiencies. Highs were lacking, as exhibited on pianoforte solos like Mal Waldron's "All Alone," which weren't as pleasant-sounding as on the AirPods Pro and WF-1000xM3. The keys sounded a fleck hollow, and high-pitched notes weren't striking enough for my taste.
Video content sounds really good on these buds. Watching the latest The Falcon and Winter Soldier trailer was exciting, with sound effects like explosions and Falcon soaring through the skies being clear and detailed. Dialogue-heavy clips were too audible, though you will desire to gear up the volume to the max because they can sound very low.
Anker Soundcore Freedom Air ii Pro: App and special features
The Anker Soundcore app is one of the best in the category, offering multiple ways to extend functionality, from audio customization to optimized fit. There is much to play with.
Most users will immediately flock to the EQ, which tin can be manually tweaked to your hearing and comes with 22 music presets that accommodate specific content and music genres. You would exist doing yourself a disservice past non sticking with the default (Soundcore Signature), merely the majority of these do perform well and are worth checking out, depending on what y'all're listening to. At that place is likewise the HearID feature that will map and clarify your hearing sensitivity at multiple levels to create a sound contour. Personally, I didn't discover it necessary to utilize, but information technology could come in handy for those with hearing issues.
Next up is the Tip Fit Exam, Anker's answer to Apple'southward Ear Tip Fit Test. According to my results, the standard tips provided a "good seal" on both ears. And then again, several other tip sizes said the same thing, so I have to question the feature's validity. I didn't expect it to exist as accurate as Apple tree's test, and even that isn't perfect. Still, Anker'south version is a work in progress that can be useful with some fixes.
Something else Anker recently integrated into its app is the LÜM music service that offers listeners admission to thousands of independent artists. It's an interesting partnership, as well as a dainty bonus for those who dearest discovering new musicians.
Rounding out the app are bombardment level indicators for each bud, toggle controls for wearing detection and voice prompts, firmware updates, and live chat/telephone support if you lot crave troubleshooting assistance. The only affair missing is a Detect My Buds feature, something nosotros promise could be added in a hereafter update, or at least Google Find My Device support.
Anker Soundcore Freedom Air 2 Pro: Battery life and charging case
Anker rates battery life at 6 hours with ANC on, 6.5 hours with Transparency mode on, and 7 hours with both modes disabled. Realistically, all playtimes are near 35 minutes shorter than advertised, which is even so longer than the AirPods Pro (4.5 hours) and Sony WF-1000xM3 (6 hours) with ANC on. Using the buds for 2 hours daily, I got nearly iii days' worth of entertainment before having to toss them into the charging case.
Speaking of which, the charging case holds up to 26 hours, equating to 3 total charges. Quick charging is also bachelor and expedites the process by generating upward to iii hours of apply on a xv-minute charge. Anker claims the case supports wireless charging, though I couldn't get it working on my Qi-enabled wireless pad. That isn't to say the characteristic doesn't work, it merely didn't on my charger.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro: Call quality and connectivity
The Freedom Air 2 had some surprisingly good call quality, and its successor is no unlike. Expect clear-sounding calls on both ends, along with really skillful noise reduction. When taking my wife's calls outside, she praised how loud and well-baked I sounded, and how well the buds blocked out external sounds. Wind resistance could be better, as she did hear some wind and cars zipping by the business firm.
Connectivity remains a strong point for Anker. The Liberty Air ii Pro is exemplary, establishing reliable connections between devices to create a respectable range of ten meters (est. 35 feet). This was long plenty to run to the bathroom across the house and however hear music; taking a few steps past that mark does cause serious stuttering. The initial pairing process is elementary and quick, and re-pairing to known devices is even quicker. Anker also lets yous utilise the buds in either stereo or mono mode if you lot prefer to use a specific bud individually.
My only complaint is no multipoint applied science to pair the buds to two devices simultaneously.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro: Verdict
The Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro are a great AirPods Pro alternative at half the price. You lot get superb audio performance and a variety of features that enhance the listening experience. The multiple ANC and transparency modes are profoundly appreciated and piece of work really well compared to many cheap buds and some sub-luxury models (to a higher place $200). Other notables to consider here are the clear phone call quality, dependable connectivity, and sufficient playtimes from both the buds and charging case.
All compliments bated, the Liberty Air 2 Pro aren't perfect past whatever means. The controls nonetheless demand a lot of piece of work, as the touch gestures suffer from latency issues. And as great as the sound is, the loftier end doesn't shine on these buds.
For the actress bucks, you lot can go improve noise cancellation and fuller sound from the AirPods Pro or WH-1000xM3. However, Anker'due south new flagship buds are a well-rounded performer that gets yous more bang for the buck.
Source: https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/anker-soundcore-liberty-air-2-pro
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