With brilliant ANC and high quality audio at R2,500, we'd happily recommend these to just about anyone. Throw in solid presentation and some pretty staggering customisation potential through the Soundcore app and Anker's got itself a fantastic piece of hardware for tech-casuals and audiophiles alike.
- Design
- Audio
- Noise Cancelling
- Battery
- Features
Like we mentioned in our last wireless earbuds review, the quality of Anker’s kit tends to oscillate between shockingly capable and pretty disappointing, which has us eying its new products through a lens of cautious curiosity most of the time.
Fortunately, despite having a mouthful of a name, the Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pros have far more hits than misses, and that’s not just because they’re endorsed by 10 Grammy-winning artists, and smack of quality without hitting your wallet too.
What’s in the box?
Right from the get-go, you can tell Anker’s gone out of its way to impress with these buds. The buds arrive in a stylish box fitted with a magnetic clasp that unfolds to display your new audio friends alongside a flashy infographic teasing you with some of the buds’ features. Which is appreciated because, hey, first impressions matter.
Anker’s buds, while stylish with their metallic greys and blacks, are almost totally plastic, so you aren’t going to feel the same density that speaks to quality that you would in something like the Sony WF-1000XM4s. But they certainly don’t feel cheap. Their lightweight nature also makes it hard for them to fall out. Pairing that with their IPX4 water resistance makes them great for workouts. They also come with 9 silicone tip options, and you can use the Soundcore app to test which size fits best for you to minimise sound leakage.
The case is also a big selling point. Unlike the Anker’s Life P2 case, this one is pretty damn compact, and bulges in your pockets slightly more than a cell phone would. Also unlike the Life P2 case (and indeed most true wireless earbud cases) this one doesn’t open via a hinge and clasp.
No, to open this case you simply slide the top half up with your thumb, a motion that’s tremendously easy to do with one hand. It snaps shut magnetically, and we’d be lying if we didn’t say we got good use out of it as a fidget toy. The one con is that its matte colouring makes it a bit of a fingerprint magnet, but we can live with that.
Set up is relatively simple too. Slide the case open to turn the buds on, which will also put them in pairing/connecting mode. There’s only one button on the back, which you can hold for a few seconds to reset everything if either your buds or the device you’re linking them to decide to be troublesome. The buds are advertised to hold around 7 hours of charge, though we could get around 5 hours of active playtime with ANC on. You can juice them up three times via a fully charged case. This fast charges via USB-C and offers around three hours worth of battery from a 15-minute charge.
The sound of music
The Anker Soundcore Liberty 2 Pros sound damn good. And not just for their price point either. These true wireless buds offer some prime audio thanks in no small part to their outstanding Active Noise Cancellation. We’d compare the ANC on these to that of the Apple Air Pods Pro, which cost nearly twice as much. That’s saying something.
Not only that, but you can use the Soundcore app to customise the ANC as you like, or make use of the situation-specific presets, both for ANC and hear-through/transparency modes. Through the app, you can also customise your EQ settings, either setting them up on your own or selecting from a range of genre-specific presets, some of which are attributed to endorsing artists collaboration. Personally, we found the default settings a little bassy, which is fine if you want to work out to Chunda Munki, but we’d recommend boosting the mids if you want vocals or guitar solos to stand out more.
Furthermore, you fiddle about with the gesture settings via the app. The buds operate via taps on the sides, which default to pause, play, fast forward, and switching between ANC settings through a variety of holds and double-taps. If you want to switch them up, you’re free to do so.
With that said, you don’t need the app, but it’s a necessity if you want to get the most out of these earbuds. And they have a lot to offer, so we’d recommend using it. As a nice aside, the onboard mics are pretty solid too, making these great for phone calls.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro Verdict
With brilliant ANC and high-quality audio at R2,500, we’d happily recommend these to just about anyone. Throw in solid presentation and some pretty staggering customisation potential through the Soundcore app and Anker’s got itself a fantastic piece of hardware for tech-casuals and audiophiles alike.
