I had the opportunity to test the Soundcore Liberty Neo. The sample was sent to me for an honest review. I’ve been a longtime fan of Anker and its sub companies, this is the place you go if you want quality electronics like cables, battery packs, chargers and lots more. I was interested to see how they steps in to the realm of truly wireless would go.
I am very happy with the performance. The charging case has a quality feel and is very light and small, surprisingly so. The case is 600 mAh and can charge the earbuds multiple times. Up to 12 hours of total playback with 3.5 hour playtime per full charge. These are great for the gym as they stayed right in my ear and were comfortable the whole time. The buds come with many ear anchor accessories for extreme situations where you want them to say in (i.e. Biking and running) and 3 ear tip sizes. I could see these being an amazing monitor option for bands in studio as there is no sound bleed, photography as you can operate with just one in, and general sports. Right out of the case the rubber band on them worked great for my ears. I would say if you small through very large ears, you are all set. They fit snuggly and create a good noise isolating seal without hurting ears after long listening sessions.
Set up and pairing was by far the easiest of all earbuds minus something with a W1 chip from Apple. When you take them out of the case they power up right away and will auto pair to the last device. When you pair for the first time, a single Bluetooth device shows up, instead of trying to pair one bud then pair the other to the first bud as I’ve seen from cheap brands. The Bluetooth 5.0 is all its staked up to be, never was there static or loss of connection, even through multiple walls.
The buds have a button on each that is large and easy to find when working out. You can skip tracks, go back, play and pause. In testing the call quality, they are awesome and very noise isolating. No issue hearing on either end. They do not have volume control built in, that is done via the connected device. The case has 3 LED exterior indicators, charges by micro USB (in the box).
Most important: SOUND. These blew me away on the bass. Comparing them to my Beats X these are supreme hands down. However, to get the booming bass you need to have the volume on your device at 50% or higher. Average operating volume needed to really get into your music/show is at least 50% most of the time. In complete silence that can be closer to 20%. When watching Netflix/youtube there were ZERO sync issues.
The overall negatives of the product are very minor. 1) needing the volume to be around 50% in loud environments, 2) the case lid does not open super wide. The second issue being super minor but would benefit from being able to open wider.
These seem to be direct competitor to Apple Airpods where I am glad to see at a third of the price beats them on nearly every front except the W1 pairing process which saves 2 seconds vs the Soundcore Liberty Neo method. I recommend the Neo’s for their value, sound, fit options, and compact size.
Check out my review on instagram and Twitter @mikey5w
pictures please, if you can take it along with beats and airpods that would help for size comparison