Zolo Liberty+ First impressions/review (UPDATED)

I have been using these for about 8 hours of listening now and it has been a love/hate relationship.

key features

-You can toggle sound isolation on the earbuds by long pressing either bud for 3 seconds. It really does work. I could hear myself shuffling pages with sound isolation disabled and could not when enabled.
-answer call call/end call pause music, skip tracks
-activate voice assistant with two presses
-re-chargeable charge case

I love

  • The charge case which boasts 48 hours of charge capacity for the buds

  • The quality of the charge case and the cable supplied

  • The sound when you have a good fit eartip

  • Google voice assistant… I walked away from my source and was able to use voice to turn up the volume with google on my device.
    I launched google maps and directions using voice, the music slightly lowers when turn commands are given in stereo, very nice

  • The app is a nice feature with 5 equalizer presets. equalizer is almost necessary or they will sound tinny I don’t use this and prefer a full equalizer in (right photo) which is pre-loaded on my phone.

  • comfort

  • connectivity is fast and signal distance is very good

What I dislike (mildly hate)

  • the button on the earbuds. the only way you can tell if it has been pressed is if something happens. there is no feeling of a click. see below for update

  • double pressing for google assistant, it works only sometimes and maybe it is because I can’t tell if I pressed it.

  • The eartips are terrible, very short and thin. I had a hard time finding a combo that would allow good sound and keep the earbuds from falling out of my ear. I have several aftermarket tips that allowed greater sound but they made the earbuds stick out farther from my ear and they would not fit the charge box so to charge I would have to remove the tips to charge them.
    I ended up using the largest tip and the surrounding jacket without a hook and they stay pretty good. see below for update

  • You can’t lay down on your side without blocking the signal or pressing the button.

The far right tip in below photo is the Zolo large and it is the same diameter as the far left which is my favorite memory foam tip. The zolo is shallow to allow the bud to hide a bit into your ear but it doesn’t with my ears the tip just sits at the outer portion of my ear canal and it doesn’t allow for as deep of base effect


Notice the little lights below indicating charge

Overall I would have no problem recommending these earbuds to friends or family as long as the price is south of $100 the biggest selling feature being the charge case and sound quality

UPDATE:
After another two days of use I have determined that I like them even more now. I have gotten used to the amount of pressure needed to activate commands and it is now almost flawless. I still have some issues launching google with presses but that may be a google issue in itself. I never have signal loss with my Android Bluetooth 5

The earbud fit has become much better for me now with the combination of the stock rubber large tip and I use them Naked (no rubber jacket) behind the tip. They now feel very nice and when the music stops I sometimes forget to take them out of my ears.

I have them paired to my laptop now and was shocked when I took my Zolo’s out of the case today, popped them in my ear and pressed the button by accident and they launched my spotify app and started playing a tune. I have never used my spotify app with these before so this seemed weird but awesome to me. I can just pop them in my ears press the button and not have to touch my device.

9 Likes

Excellent review @bobbleheaderman. I find this review structure, easier to digest and direct to the point. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Thanks, I am glad you liked it

That was a cracking review. Very in-depth and loved all the bulletpoints in it :clap:t2:

Cheers Mark, appreciate the feedback :blush:

1 Like

Great review. Lots of points where they can be improved.
The ear tips thing is always a difficult one because everyone’s ears are different but I need a deeper ear tip too or most buds just fall out of my ears. Do you think they’ve made them sealer to reduce the size of the case?

I think they made them smaller to keep the outer working portion closer to your head so they don’t look strange and at the same time it allows for a shallower case. When I use my memory foam tips the hook from the jacket does not land inside my ear so the actual tip itself is supporting everything. Every ear is different so for some it will be perfect. I just wish the case was a bit deeper to allow me to choose aftermarket tips and still charge them

I think the ear tip depth issue is problem of the size of the bud in total. The weight of them means they are bouncing in the outer ear with force which would transmit as discomfort inside the ear canal.

They need to shrink the bud down a lot in weight and then they can make longer ear canal and so achieve better noise isolation.

We need the technology to improve.

That makes sense to me.

I have been searching for info on Comply eartips because I find them amazing with other earbuds that I own. I found this link to article and a couple other users requested the same as me. They will be testing with Zolo very soon and they look to be the correct length so stay tuned

2 Likes

If having trouble with the fit try removing the rubber wing tip. The rubber seems to catch the skin and causes them to pull out of the ear.

1 Like