ANKER soundcore Liberty 5 Pro: Great ANC for calls and music

It’s been a few months since ANKER had released their soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Series earbuds to the Philippine market. And with our review of the soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max having already been out earlier, the start of these ber months is a good time to tackle the other device in the lineup – the soundcore Liberty 5 Pro.

Being the more affordable of the two, the Liberty 5 Pro promises a full flagship experience at its price. And after spending an extensive month with these earbuds, here’s my full review.

Unboxing & Design

There’s something quite unique about the packaging of the soundcore Liberty 5 Pro as it gives a premium feel in terms of the unboxing experience. Instead of the usual cardboard box where you pull the top lid off, these earbuds come in a box with a magnetically attached flap that opens to the side after you tear the pull tab off.

The earbuds can be seen right away once opened, but you’ll notice that the back of the flap contains several useful things for the user, including a QR code to scan for more information on the product, which includes:

• A QR Code to scan for more information. This includes a direct link to download the ANKER soundcore app. This is followed by the user manual, a how-to-video, FAQ, and the Help & Feedback section that will all directly be opened through the app once downloaded.
• First-time pairing instructions
• Wearing instructions
• Screen control instructions

The earbuds themselves are placed on a cardboard platform that can be raised and removed, which will reveal the product’s safety guide, and the rest of the inclusions which are the charging cable, spare ear tips, and spare ear fins.

And for better appreciation of the unboxing, you can watch Luie’s video below:

In terms of design, the charging case comes in a pebble shape that has a 0.96-inch touch screen on the front that displays battery levels and several other things including ANC control, remote camera control, Find My, and Bluetooth pairing mode.

This charging case is also lightweight even given its sturdy build quality. Plus, it’s also very pocketable at only 2.41 x 2.44 x 1.13 inches.

The top of the charging case slides backward to reveal the earbuds and automatically connect them to your paired device for immediate use.

When it comes to the shape of the earbuds themselves, the ANKER soundcore Liberty 5 Pro has a kind of hybrid design with in-ear tips, and a short stem for the body that rests in place on the outer area of the ear when worn. This also makes it 38% smaller than its predecssor, the Liberty 4 Pro. Weight-wise, each earbud weighs only 5.5 grams.

For added comfort, users can swap the rubber ear tips and ear fins (located at the top of each earbud) with those in the box for a tighter fit that reduces the likeliness of the earbuds falling off while in use.

Both earbud stems’ outer area is minimal, only showing soundcore’s logo on it and one of the grills for noise cancellation, while the inner side shows another grill, an IR sensor for in-ear detection, two metal dots for charging when placed in the case, and the main audio driver. Each earbud also has the letter ‘L’ or ‘R’ indicated for left and right.

In terms of durability, these are rated with ingress protection at IP55 for dust & water resistance, which reduces damage they may take from solid particles or splashes of liquid.

Colors available in the Philippines include Midnight Black, Pearl White, Rose Gold, and Pearl Blue.

This design overall is clean and easy to appreciate, with a lot of thought put into the overall usability of the earbuds and the charging case as a whole.

soundcore’s take on Noise Cancellation

There are two benefits that users have to get when it comes to noise cancellation, and those are crystal clear calls and a great listening experience.

The ANKER soundcore Liberty 5 Pro delivers both of those with its adaptive ANC technology.

For day-to-day listening, the Thus™ AI chip it has powers an 8-mic noise cancellation system, which monitors ambient and in-ear sounds real time to clear them out and allow instant pure silence. This allows users to concentrate fully on what they’re listening to, from music, to podcasts, or movies and shows they want to enjoy.

The good thing about this ANC system on the earbuds is that it can be set in a wide variety of Ambient Sound modes that are available through the ANKER soundcore app. These include:

• Noise Cancellation: This can be toggled manually with up to 5 levels, and can also be set using the “commuter multimodal’ option which lets you select between a plane or car icon to set the proper amount of noise cancellation for where you are.
  
  When the mode above is selected, Wind Noise Reduction can also be activated, and this is the feature that personally wowed me the most. Once turned on, wind noise that passes through the earbuds are cancelled out. These include wind noise from electric fans during calls so you don’t get hot, strong breezes outdoors, and other activities where wind could blow strongly.
  
• Adaptive: Makes it so that the earbuds automatically adjust the level of noise cancellation it does according to the level of ambient noise in your current environment.
• Normal: Mixes a good balance of noise cancellation and transparency when in use.
• Transparency: A mode that lets you hear more of the surrounding environment, perfect when walking around or commuting.

And when it comes to calls, that same Thus™ AI chip works with the device’s built-in 10-sensor solution to accurately separate voices and environmental noise in order to ensure improved call clarity. This makes it so those on the other end of calls made with the earbuds hear more of the voice of the user with less ambient noise, even if they whisper what they want to say while in public spaces.

I’ve been able to use these earbuds across various situations, including commutes, indoor music and series streaming, as well as calls indoors and outdoors – and the level of flexibility this device’s noise cancellation proved to be very useful for each of them.

The microphones on these also proved to be quite good in capturing my voice despite loud ambient noises from a full blast electric fan and rush hour traffic. Samples below were recorded in aac, then converted to MP3 via cloudconvert:

A customizable listening experience through soundcore HearID

HearID is ANKER soundcore’s own sound effect studio that comes with a suite of features that help you personalize your listening experience with the Liberty 5 Pro.

It offers “Exclusive Sound Effects” where while wearing both earbuds, you’ll be taken through a series of questions to determine EQ settings that fit your answers.

There are also Curated Sound Effects made available for instant adjustments including ones with clearer vocals, more bass, the Anker signature sound, and more. This is where you can also create your very own sound effect through a Custom EQ with sliders for each frequency.

Apart from that, Sound Enhancements can be made by toggling AI Sound Enhancement on (do note that this will drain more battery). Dolby Atmos is also available and is best left turned on, especially when the paired device has support for it.

For iOS users and even Android users that have a paid subscription to Apple Music, LDAC support is available for the ANKER soundcore Liberty 5 Pro, so if you’re the type of user who is into using that level of audio quality on the daily, then this is a special treat for you. This can be found in the Settings menu of the ANKER soundcore app under the Sound Mode menu.

Smart Voice Control & Customizable Touch Controls

A unique feature that I haven’t seen in a lot of other TWS products is the ANKER Liberty 5 Pro’s Smart Voice Control. Accesible via the mobile app, the earbuds can be given a fixed set of commands for music playback, volume control, answering and rejecting calls, as well as Ambient Sound mode toggles.

These are triggered by saying the phrase “Hey Anka” followed by the intended command. There’s even 4 languages that the feature can recognize, so there’s a good amount of coverage there.

Aside from the “Hey Anka” command, the earbuds can also be assigned the paired phone or tablet’s System Voice Assistant (including Siri & Google Gemini) for added convenience.

But for those used to having touch or gesture controls, the earbuds also come with a fully customizable set of gestures that allow certain actions to be done. There are preset commands and 4 customizable gestures available on each side, and the left & right earbud can have two different commands with the same gesture for full flexibility. So the Triple Press gesture on the left for example can be set to activate AI Translation, while the right earbud’s Triple Press command can be set to play the next song in a playlist.

Apart from all that, these earbuds also have what’s called ‘Easy Chat’ which automatically lowers playback volume when an ongoing conversation is detected so they no longer need to be removed.

Battery Life

When it comes to TWS products, battery life is at least the second or third most important thing that people look for when considering a purchase. This is apart from audio quality, and the style of ear tip they have.

So it’s nice that despite the amount of features the ANKER soundcore Liberty 5 Pro has, it still provides long hours of use.

In terms of battery size, the earbuds each have a 62mAh cell that gets to 100% in an hour, while the charging case has a 690mAh cell that fully charges in 3 hours.

And those battery sizes translate to a good number of hours, at up to 12 hours of use per full charge of the earbuds and up to 50 hours total along with the charging case with ANC turned off. And even with ANC turned on you can still get up 6.5 hours per earbud and up to 28 hours total with the case.

For the full month that I’ve had these earbuds, I’ve only needed to charge them to full twice, and that’s with streaming at 60% volume with ANC turned on and set to level 5, with Wind Noise Reduction switched on as well. On my commutes, I would shift ANC to Transparency mode instead to watch my surroundings, but I really do have a preference for hearing nothing else but my music while walking around.

And while everyone’s mileage may vary, the good thing is that the earbuds support fast charging, with 5 minutes of charging allowing up to 4 hours of use. The case even has wireless charging.

ANKER soundcore app and other features

Now, all those features would be really hard to appreciate if the presentation was scattered, but the ANKER soundcore app that’s paired with these earbuds provides a very clean and easy to understand interface.

Apart from the device controls though, the app itself also provides a good number of benefits for ANKER soundcore users, which include:

• Soundspace: With sleep stories, meditation, and brain wave audio among others
• AI features: Including Chat & Insight as well AI Translation, Contextual Learning, and more
• Discovery: For raffles that users can join, as well as tips & tricks plus community updates
• User Profile: Which contains your coupons, E-warranty card, and other settings

Verdict

Considering all the key features mentioned, I can say that the ANKER soundcore Liberty 5 Pro is a device that brings a good combination of hardware and software features that were combined for an experience that was put together well.

Build quality is pretty good, the earbuds are comfortable to wear, and overall usability is just right for the price of Php 9,995.

Jimm Gayo

3 articles published

An avid fan of all things tech who started his journey in the smartphone industry. He is now taking on a new path to pursue his passion for tech in the form of writing, content creation, and expanding his knowledge while doing so.

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