Product Review: Anker SoundBuds Life

Another great review, @ndalby!

Overall, is the audio quality a lot better vs the Slims?

I would say they are an improvement over the Slim’s in terms of audio quality (better drivers) and a touch louder to sections (low range) of songs I have tried. However audio quality is subjective based on the end user and the improvement could be a trade off depending on how you are wanting to use them.

Depending on your intended use, combined with the battery life and improved fit (well to my ears) they could make a decent upgrade to a Slim owner when they are on an offer.

So I won (random selection) the Lite or Life version, if I get the Life version I was thinking these would be my home working on the phone all day audio solution due to battery life and my current buds Lite which i need to recharge mid-afternoon can be more for other situations.

Your comment about the microphone audio quality concerns me, I don’t understand your comment there, can you expand?

Have you got an email with shipping confirmation yet?

Nope. I’ll ask in the correct thread

To test the mic and hands free capabilities I tried being on both the receiving end of a call from the SoundBuds Life (SBL) aswell as using them to make and receive calls, both to landlines and mobiles.

Ongoing SBL voice calls to mobiles and landlines sounded more normal, well as normal as they can for a call, when I was listening on the receiving end. Now on the SBL end, calls from either landlines or mobiles had a slight garble, is the best way I can describe it, when the remote party was speaking. Like the remote party was hearing audio at 320kbps when I spoke but the audio I was hearing from them was at a downsampled 96-128kbps.

It’s not often I use headsets for phonecalls, so it was not that big a deal to me overall but I thought it was worth mentioning for those who might be choosing them solely for that feature.

As I’ve said though, audio is a subjective thing, it was my take on it but others might think theres nothing wrong…

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Just got mine.

I agree once around the neck one easily forget they are there, the weight is spread around it is easily to notice not present. The weight distribution seems intelligently sublime.

The odd thing is the fit in the ear, I usually have the default fitted medium size buds on but for these I had to move to the larger non-default supplied size to get a good fit. So the buds seem on the smaller than average size.

Pairs with Chromebook (what I usually use around the house) easily, which not all BT devices do (good).

The BT distance is the best ever of any of my devices. Oooooh…

One surprise benefit of this design is the one-ear method works better than I have experienced, because the weight is in the neck and little on the wire-bud, means I can use one-ear to keep the other-ear clear to hear surroundings, there isn’t the wire dragging down. So I can be one-ear and moving my head around and the one bud stays in place. Good.

I have another horse for a different course.

Watching BBC News at Ten on Iplayer and works ok…

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Yeah they do, had to line them up against my IE10 one’s to get a handle on the sizes they were using. One US review said they came with large attached and went up to XL size.

Nice review @ndalby. Very descriptive👍.

Nice review. I ended up buying the Soundbuds slims when they first released, now that I see these, I want to replace them for these.

@Edy_Diaz @Element321 , thanks for the feedback. While the Slim’s have been my favourite for home use in the past, these have now become there replacement. The Slims are now my work pair :smile:

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Have you done anything in that that could cause them to fall out? You know like running, exercise, yard work, or just leaning over multiple times to pick things up? I know some brands with this design can have issue if you have an active life style.

I have these buds. For active up/down events the neckband would just bounce up and down and yank the buds out of the ears. These are excellent for motion not bouncing up/down, so for example cycling, walking, general motion moving the head, but not running.

There is no in-ear retainer to force them to keep inside the ears, they do a very good job of keeping in the ear as the in-ear buds are very light and the bud+wire weight is very light so they do not want to pull out when walking and turning the neck.

The primary benefit of the band is it allows a far bigger battery and more powerful charging circuit for excellent battery life and fast recharging and good bluetooth signal strength, but that neck weight of the band means its not really for high energy neck moving up/down type.

Because there is a long wire between the ear and the band, relative to wired buds which connect directly between the ears, they stay in the ear better when moving the head a lot, so good where the head moves a lot up/down left/right.

So to your specific questions:

  • “running” - no.
  • “exercise” - probably not but it depends on the exercise, say cycling would work well as the shoulders not moving up/down much.
  • “yard work” - probably.
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Not much really to add beyond what @nigelhealy as mentioned.

Use for running would not be advised as they do bounce (tried running on the spot as a test), so you would be playing a tune off your collar bones with them :slight_smile: . If you were in the gym, you probably could get away with using them for standing free weight exercises and they are fine for most upright exercises (like cycling, walking or even some light yard work).

If your mainly after buds for exercising I would go for the Slim’s or the NB10’s as they have ear hooks swell to hold them in place. Battery life is not shabby either on the NB10’s.

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@ndalby Neil do you still have and use these? If so can you measure the neckband for me please? I have a 21 inch neck and was wondering if these would be comfortable. I recently got the soundbuds surge from the powerdraw but I can’t use it 1 ear at a time without the other wanting to pull out. Was thinking maybe this would work better

Hi Rob, yep still have them and use daily :smile:

The band is a 17” arc in its relaxed shape but takes 21.5” diameter on a tape measure with ease. I’m a 17” relaxed collar for ref.

Thanks @ndalby so they will go to 21.5, hmm that might be a tight fit for use at work. I’ll keep looking at the others.

They could possibly be a little snug, depends on your neck shape ie. rounded neck or fuller in the sterno’s…

I just bought a pair yesterday and I love them. I have 2 other pair from a L company and these are much more comfortable to wear. Sound quality is good but my favorite part is the layout of the controls. Do not have to hunt for the buttons and what they are for. Thanks Anker for delivering another great product.

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