Design
Soundcore Liberty Air comes in two colors, black and white, and have a striking resemblance to the Apple AirPods. They come with a beautiful casing where the earphones fit in snuggly. The casing is also a battery pack for the earphones and charges them when the earphones are in it. There are three LED lights at the front of the casing that indicate the amount of battery left. The cover of the casing contains a magnetic strip so it will snap closed and remain closed. This prevents the casing from opening by itself (on an upside down position) and the earphones dropping out. At the bottom of the casing is a USB port for you to charge the case (battery), which in turn charges the earphones. It is still using a micro-USB port instead of the newer USB-C port. Most of my devices (Chromebook, smartphones, etc.) are already using the USB-C port, so this is a bummer for me, as I have to carry an additional micro-USB cable. While the design is slick enough, I must mention that the build is made of a glossy plastic material, and it is a huge fingerprint magnet, especially the touchpad where you have to tap on it all the time (more on that later). My review set is white in color, and a fingerprint mark is not that obvious, though you can still see it when you look at it closer. I guess it would be worse for the black color set. My advice: if you are buying this, choose the white one.
Specifications
Details were sparse about the technical specifications. These are some of the more important specifications for the user:
Support Bluetooth 5Up to five-hour playtime (twenty hours with charging case)Stereo callsPush-and-go one-step pairingWater-resistant rating of IPX5Passive noise cancellation
In short, it contains (almost) everything you are looking for in wireless earphones: low battery usage and long battery life, clear voice/music, water-resistant and noise cancellation.
Performance
When you take the earphones out of they case, they will turn on automatically, and the left earbud will search and pair with the right earbud (there is no cable connecting them, so they need to pair with each other). On the first usage, they will turn on pairing mode automatically. You only need to turn on Bluetooth on your phone or device and start searching for “Soundcore Liberty Air.” Once paired, it will auto connect when you remove the earphones from the case. There are no buttons on the earphones and all controls are done via tapping on the touchpad (the area behind the earphones). This is where it can be confusing. Both the left and right earphone have a touchpad and contain different functionalities. For example, if you want to Play or Pause the music, you have to tap twice on the Right earphone. If you tap twice on the Left earphone, it will activate Siri or other voice control software instead. So you have to be careful and remember which earphone to tap. To skip a track, tap and hold on the Right earphone to skip to the Next track while the same action on the Left earphone plays the “Previous” track. Here are all the tap actions for both earphones: As you can see, there is no tap action to control the volume. In fact, there is no way to control the volume from the earphones. You have to control the volume from the connected device, which can be a chore, especially when the device is not nearby. For the sound quality, it is great. You can hear the music loud and clear without cranking the volume all the way up. Even on a busy walkway or in the train, the noise cancellation feature is effective in blocking out outside noise. The music (or the voice when listening to a podcast) doesn’t become muffled and mixed up with the outside noise. The bass and mid-range is clear, but the high can be improved. The music quality is not exceptional, but for earphones of this size, I would consider them to be among the better ones.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Long battery lifeGood sound qualityEasy to pairSleek designAffordable pricing
Cons
Tap actions can be confusingNo volume controlNo USB-C supportFingerprint magnet
I would give it a rating of 8.5/10.
Conclusion
At $79.99, the Soundcore Liberty Air are among the more affordable true wireless earphones that don’t break the bank. Coupled with good sound quality and battery life, Anker has a winner here. If you are looking for true wireless earphones and are not a fan of Apple AirPods, I would strongly recommend Soundcore Liberty Air. Soundcore Liberty Air
