Anker Soundcore Liberty Air Review: AirPods on a Budget

If you can’t quite afford the hefty price tag of Apple’s AirPods but still want a truly wireless experience, Anker’s Soundcore Liberty Air headphones offer a solid wireless experience on a budget.

The market doesn’t want for AirPod alternatives, but what you’ll notice if you look over our roundup of AirPod alternatives worth looking at is that they’re as expensive (or more expensive even) than the AirPods themselves.

That’s where the Liberty Air headphones stand out: they offer an AirPod-like appearance and functionality but at half the cost.

Let’s take a closer look and reflect on our time with them to see how they compare to the AirPods, and whether or not saving $80 over the cost of AirPods is ultimately a good value.

Overall Design: Not Quite AirPods, But Close

Liberty Air headphones next to the charging case — Craig Lloyd

When it comes to size, the charging case for the Liberty Air is slightly larger and thicker than the AirPods case, which was to be expected before I even received them—Apple really nailed it out of the park on the overall design and quality of the AirPods case, which makes the Liberty Air case just feel pretty cheap in comparison.

Comparison between the AirPods case and the Liberty Air case — Craig Lloyd

However, in a vacuum, the Liberty Air case is honestly just fine, and it’s still very much pocketable and easy to handle. Plus, it opens up the same way as the AirPods case does, and each earbud also sits down in its own cavity, held there by magnets, just like the AirPods.

One thing the Liberty Air case does have that the AirPods case doesn’t is a series of small LEDs that indicate the case’s battery level. That’s really nice to have. Unfortunately, the case charges via micro USB port found on the bottom. We understand not paying the premium to get a lightning port on there, but not going with USB-C at this point in time seems like an odd choice.

Charging up the Liberty Air case — Craig Lloyd

Speaking of charging, the headphones can be used for up to five hours of music playback, and the case can provide about 20 hours of total charging, which isn’t quite up to par with the AirPod’s 24 hours, but still a very respectable number of playback/charging hours.