Anker Soundcore Life Q20

4.15

Design and Build

4.0/5

Active Noise Canceling

3.5/5

Controls and Connectivity

4.5/5

Sound

4.5/5

Battery

4.0/5

Call Quality

4.5/5

Comfort

4.0/5

Pros

  • Sound Quality
  • Good Comfort
  • Great Battery
  • Okay ANC Quality
  • Good for Phone Calls

Cons

  • No Apt-X
  • No Dual Connectivity
  • No App Support
  • Hey lovely peoples, Active Noise canceling headphones can cost an absolute fortune like the famous Sony WH-1000XM4, which can cost you about $350 or those beautiful Bose Quiet Comfort II, which can cost over $350 and yes, of course, they are amazing headphones but can you buy a pair of headphones which cost about 15 of those Sony’s and are they actually any good with supposedly the same features.That’s what this Anker Soundcore Life Q20 review is all about Will found out these Anker sound life Q20s are actually, worth the money

Let’s jump into the Anker Soundcore Life Q20 review..

Looking around the Q20’s, they are made primarily of plastic, but it doesn’t feel very cheap plastic if I’m completely honest; however, they also don’t feel very high end.

The band is adjustable. The cups themselves do twist and fold, making it easy to store away for travel, especially in this included pouch, which feels really nice and premium.

I do love headphones that can fold away like this as honestly if you travel, you know those struggles. The cups themselves twist, also making them a bit more comfortable on the head, too, as they conform to the shape of your head a little bit better than headphones that don’t bend.

Design
4/5
anker soundcore life q20 review

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 : Comfort

These wireless headsets comes with medium sized cushions on the top of the band, which feels really soft and squishy however, not as squishy or as thick as the high end rivals. These also have memory foam ear cups, which are really nice but again fall short compared to those high end rivals

However, for the money, honestly, I wasn’t complaining too much I had these headphones on a 5 hour journey, and not once did they feel uncomfortable or got sweaty inside.

They did stay very firmly on my head but not so firm that they felt like they were squeezing onto my ears, which is really nice

I would say that they look a little bit on the larger side, and the gap between the head and the headphones themselves is larger than the more expensive headphones. It is much more comfortable if they could make it a little bit smaller and make a little bit slimmer

Comfort
4/5

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 : Controls

These Headsets come with physical controls, which is something I more like than the gimmicky touch controls.

On the right side of the cup they have three buttons which can control the next track and previous track by double pressing

The + and buttons or single press for volume controls, single tapping the center button will pause and play the music long pressing the center button will activate the voice control and double pressing that center button will toggle the Bass up on or off.

Controls
4.5/5

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 : Features

Let’s check the specs of these and see if they are really good for the price.

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 are closed back over headphones that feature 40MM dynamic drivers that are High Res audio certified. They have a frequency response of 16 Hz to 40 kHz, which is an extensive range, especially for the price of these. The impedance is only around 16 ohms meaning that when you connect these up via the 3.5mm headphone jack included in the box, most devices will be more than enough to drive these headphones.

They have Bluetooth 5.0, meaning low latency and a strong connection to most devices you connect them to. They support AAC and SBC codecs, which is pretty standard nowadays; unfortunately, No Apt-X support.

Apt-X is a much better codec and even lower latency than the other two codecs supported by these headphones, so it’s a shame that we don’t see that.

It also includes base up technology, which Anker soundcore claims with their exclusive technology and customized algorithms it can perform real-time analysis on your music and intensify the low frequencies for those hard-hitting beats

Features
4/5

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 : Sound

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 are closed back over headphones that feature 40MM dynamic drivers, which are High Res audio.

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 bass comes in tight and punchy, and you have the option to turn up the Bass up feature as well. After switching the Bass up feature, you definitely can hear the difference between different songs, which is nice as it seems to be a bit smarter than just applying the same boost to the low and mid frequencies across any music. This will please the bass lovers out there.

I found it a bit much on certain songs when I had the Bass up feature off was good enough for mids and highs and come in clean and clear. It’s a bit forward but not too bright. Vocals and instruments really stand out.

Having active noise cancellation on. I did notice that the mids and highs seemed to be a bit less forward.

Overall these are an impressive pair of headphones, especially for the price point

Sound
4.5/5

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 : Active Noise Cancelling

Okay, let’s come to the main area of this Anker Soundcore Life Q20 Review Noise Cancelling. Noise canceling is that good as they brag about. Let’s check them out,

Noise canceling feature has microphones inside and outside the headphones to cancel airplane noise and car noise by up to 90%, which soundcore claims,

So to control the headphones Noise canceling feature, you have the power button on the left cup and the Noise Cancelling button on the left cup, which turns on and off the Noise canceling. Unfortunately, there is no ambient noise setting with these,

Does the Noise Canceling actually do anything, or are they just the gimmick and ruin the audio listening experience?

The Noise Cancelling is good, but they are not good as the high end models where you’re spending three four five times the amount of these headphones, so I wouldn’t say that they rival them for sure, but for the money, they work very well, and you can hear a slight difference to the music when you do have the Noise canceling mode on.

However, the headphones still sounded great, I used these in taxis and long journeys, and they did make a big difference honestly, so on the Travelling, the engine noise muted by around 60% where Sony and Bose will do about 90% pretty good at this price point ha?

I would say basically, that horrible low end rumble was almost gone, and it allowed me to listen to my music and even watch my Netflix shows without having to crank up the volume all the way up like many other headphones that don’t offer Noise canceling.

It basically makes the listening experience to movies and music much easier on the plane and taxis. As I said before, It cuts around 60% of the engine noise, which is definitely nice.

It cuts out a bit of the voice, too but not completely. I can still hear the faint chatter of people or even a child crying on public transport. This is because the Noise canceling focuses more on those low and slight mid frequencies, whereas voices are normally on the high end of the frequency range

ANC
3.5/5

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 : Battery

We will check on the Second most important thing on a wireless headphone Battery

Moving on to the battery life, these can last up to 60 hours with Noise canceling OFF, and 40 hours with Noise canceling ON means that it can survive at least two long-haul flights easily without a charge.

If you charge these headphones for 5 minutes, you’ll get around four hours of playback, which again is really good.

It’s a big disappointment they are using a Micro USB instead of a Type-c cable for charging as I think at this point, a lot of us have a lot more Type-c cables than Micro USB.

Normally Anker Soundcore Life Q20 took around 3 hours to fully charge, which can last up to 60 hours

Battery
4/5

Anker Soundcore Life Q20 : Call Quality

These do have a built-in microphone, and they do sound pretty good to the point where I’ve even had conversations on the phone with these headphones on, and other person couldn’t actually tell that I was using a headphone, which is a really good sign now but keep in your mind these aren’t studio quality microphones, for a video call or a voice call, these will work fine

Call Quality
4.5/5

Conclusion

So do I recommend these headphones, and are they actually worth your money

Let’s start with the bad, before that if you are a frequent traveler check our list of Best Noise Cancelling Headphones for Travel

Cons

I wish that they offer dual connectivity with these headphones so that you didn’t have to keep switching from one device to another by unpairing them. I wish it just had this smart feature like those Sony’s Headphones. (addressed these issue with Anker Life Q30)

I also wish that this had Apt-X codec support to really improve the quality and latency of these headphones, but then that probably would have pushed the price up, but I have to obviously mention the down points of these headphones there is also no ambient mode which I would have liked again but for the price,

I don’t think you will find any headphone that will offer ambient noise features and offer as much as these headphones do and lastly,

they do not provide any app controls, which sucks as this would have made these headphones a great one and especially from Anker soundcore they have so many headphones that connect via their soundcore app and allow so much control over the headphones

Pros

I just wish that these had it, so those bad points aside.

I think that these offer a whole bunch of features for the money. If you’re looking for a good quality set of Active Noise canceling headphones that sound good, just get these even though the Noise canceling isn’t better than the more expensive and more popular headphones I spoke about, like from the Sony or the Bose.

If I’m completely honest, the sound quality is really good and that base up feature for bass heads is definitely going to be something that you’ll love

I would actually recommend these headphones. I think that you’re getting an overall a better headphone for more than half the price of those Sony’s.

Let us know what you think about the Anker Soundcore Life Q20.

Is this the best ANC Wireless Headset under $50?

Our Rating
4.4/5

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