The Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Truly Wireless have a great noise isolation performance, a comfortable in-ear fit, and some features only available on Samsung devices. However, they have a shorter continuous battery life than the Apple AirPods Pro (2nd generation) Truly Wireless and aren't as well-built. And yet, the Anker Soundcore Life P2 buds manage to stand out from the crowd. They have a comfortable, fuss-free design, good sound, decent call quality, and endurance to spare. They can’t offer the highest grade of sound reproduction, but what they do produce does bely their price point and is certainly good enough for the average listener. Something else completely missing from the app is Find My Buds. Hopefully, this is something Anker considers adding in a future update, if it doesn't add Google Find My Devicesupport as an alternative. Anker Soundcore Life A2 NC review: Battery life and charging case

With the second generation AirPods you can also just say “Hey Siri” at any time without having to tap anything to activate Apple’s voice assistant. After having to re-teach Siri to recognise my voice, it generally worked well, even with music blasting out. But Siri can be a little slow, particularly when you have poor connectivity on your smartphone. You also get odd looks doing so on public transport. Knowing how well ANC performed on the Liberty Air 2 Pro, I figured the Life A2 NC had some potential of being decent. Simply put, I was underwhelmed by its noise neutralization, which contrary to what Anker claims, does not “eliminate up to 90% of noise from your environment.” It’s more like 50%, with a majority of external sounds creeping their way onto the soundstage.The M3 part of the name aligns them with Sony’s excellent WH-1000XM3 headphones from 2019, which have class-leading sound and noise cancelling. The true wireless earbud version inherits the same noise cancelling chip and are almost as effective, reducing or eliminating train, road and plane noise, leaving you free to listen to your music at lower, more comfortable volumes. The good news is that while this is the default sound, it's not the only one. The Soundcore app serves up customization in a couple of different ways, the more interesting being its "HearID" feature. This plays a series of beeps to test how well you can hear different frequencies at various volumes and uses the results to craft a sound profile that's specific to you. There’s one last thing I’d have liked to have seen Anker incorporate: wear detection. The Life P3 don’t automatically pause when taken out of your ears, which is a feature that’s becoming increasingly common on budget earbuds. BassUp is only available when using the Signature profile, which you may not find yourself using given there are 20 other EQ presets to choose from in the Soundcore app. There’s something for just about every genre, including Latin, Jazz, Pop and Piano.

Call quality is excellent too, while battery life is a class-leading eight hours with another 1.5 charges in the case.A couple of minor issues aside, the Liberty 4 are a roaring success, pairing excellent sound with a great range of features and customisation options. Spatial audio is closer to the 1MORE Aerothan premium offerings from Sony and Apple in terms of its efficacy, but certainly adds enough immersion to films and breadth to songs to justify its inclusion. They do not protrude far from your ear, fitting under hats just fine, and come with a series of soft stabilising wings if you need them. The earbuds are even rated a seven out of 10 by repair-specialists iFixit for repairability, including the ability to replace the battery, which makes the Buds+ far less disposable than rivals.

Anker headphones generally have high latency on PC. You may notice your audio and visuals fall out of sync, which can be frustrating if you like to stream video on your laptop. The sound profile makes a great first impression too, which mostly bears out too across extended usage. Bass is punchy and energetic, if not exactly spacious, but on the whole there’s a decently-sized soundstage with both buds in your ears.

How long does the battery last?

For starters, you can choose between adaptive active noise canceling, which will adjust to your environment, or controlling it manually. You’ll also find two versions of transparency mode (vocal and full), and in a parody of Sony’s loaded control system, even a version designed to adapt to different transportation modes like trains, planes, and various automobiles. Wind Buffering is one of my favorite extras, effectively keeping your ears from getting blown out while using transparency mode in a breeze. With the ANC on, they last well over eight hours continuously, and their case holds a couple of extra charges if needed. Out of the box, their warm sound profile adds a touch of extra boom to mixes without overwhelming vocals and instruments. You can also finetune their sound using their app's graphic EQ and presets. These buds support LDAC, too, which is Sony's proprietary codec for streaming hi-res audio. Unfortunately, not everyone will find their fit comfortable, especially if you have small ear canals. If you wish Apple’s AirPods had better isolation and gripped on to your ear like a vice, look no further than the Beats PowerBeats Pro. The Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC boasts a very effective Wind Noise Reduction mode and there’s also plenty of ANC customisation whether through manual means, to adaptive noise-cancelling with an Environment Detection mode that mutes audio for two seconds while adjusting to external sounds. When I used it, it didn’t do anything, so perhaps leave it aside. While the Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC falls short of the besting the EarFun’s noise-cancelling, it edges its rival for audio. They elicit more clarity from the midrange, with vocals that sound a touch more refined and detailed on the Anker.

The Indoor profile works great, too. Granted, it's tuned for less naturally noisy environments, but it does feel like the most successful at silencing ambient noises. Walking through a store with this mode and no music playing felt almost eerily quiet. These earbuds have a well-balanced default sound profile that you can customize with a parametric EQ and presets in the headphones' companion app. While their roughly five hours of continuous battery life is short for a 9-5 workday, it'll last through most workouts, and their case holds a few extra charges. Unfortunately, even though they have an ANC feature, it doesn't offer a very good noise isolation performance, so they aren't ideal if you want to isolate yourself from noise at the gym. That may not be an issue if you run outside since it makes it easier to stay aware of your surroundings. The Galaxy Buds+ sound great, are small and comfortable, have a great case, last a long time on a charge, are potentially repairable and work with everything, making them the best general-purpose earbuds available.In the midrange and treble, the Anker retrieves more detail and defines instruments and voices with more precision, making the Air Pro 3 a little dusty and dull by comparison. The Apple AirPods Pro Truly Wireless are the predecessor to the Apple AirPods Pro (2nd generation) Truly Wireless. While both earbuds have the same premium build quality, the original model doesn't have as good an ANC performance as their successor. They don't have as long-lasting a battery as the second-generation model and can't reproduce as much low-bass. However, the first generation have a more neutral sound profile out of the box, which some users may prefer since you can't adjust the EQ settings. They have a warm default sound profile, with cozy-sounding vocals and lead instruments. The companion app includes a graphic EQ and presets if you prefer a different sound, but unlike the Google earbuds, they don't come with any virtual surround sound features. They aren't the best option for workouts since they don't have stability fins or a very stable fit and may slip out of place if you move your head around a lot. The Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC Truly Wireless are a good alternative if you want similarly-performing buds with a slightly different shape. Compared to the Space A40's rounded look, the Liberty 4 have a more traditional stem design that some users may find preferable. The Liberty 4 also bring a touch more bass, though this muddies their reproduction of vocals and instruments a bit.