Well-Rounded Earbuds at a Compelling Price
The $129.99 Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 earphones are a compelling value thanks to their reasonable price and rich feature set. They include competitive active noise cancellation (ANC), crisp sound, excellent battery life, and a powerful app in a durable design. They’re comfortable to wear and easy to control, and we appreciate extras like an adjustable EQ and LDAC codec support. For the price, they’re hard to beat, making the Liberty 5 our Editors’ Choice winner for affordable noise-cancelling earphones.Design: Sticking With What’s Proven
Anker isn’t changing much in the overall design of its earbuds. The Soundcore Liberty 5 earbuds look a lot like the 2022-era Liberty 4, and while there are tweaks here and there, you’d be forgiven for confusing the two. I don’t mind that they’re so similar, though. The earbuds look nice and have a comfortable fit.
The stem design contributes to the fit. I’ve long found that earbuds with stems are more comfortable than pod-shaped buds because they can better balance in the ears. You may feel differently.
The Liberty 5 earbuds come in four color options: apricot, black, navy blue, or white. We received the black model for review, and it looks sharp. The earbuds have a glossy finish, which contrasts with the matte plastic of the charging case. Like previous-generation models, the charging case has a slide-open top, rather than open like a clam. It does not have the inner display of the Liberty 4 Pro’s ($149) case.
The earbuds connect through Bluetooth 5.4 with Google Fast Pair. They support the AAC, LDAC, and SBC codecs, which is nice to see in this price range. They also have Bluetooth multipoint for connecting to up to two devices simultaneously. Internally, 9.2mm wool paper diaphragm drivers deliver a frequency range of 20Hz to 40kHz. The Liberty 4 earphones have dual 9.2mm and 6.0mm drivers; the Liberty 5s drop the smaller driver.
The earbuds are controlled by squeezing the stem. I found them to work reasonably well, though sometimes I had to squeeze harder for anything to happen. I got used to the feel reasonably quickly, and simply squeezing harder each time prevented misfires.
The two earbuds have almost the same controls. A single squeeze plays or pauses audio, while a long squeeze alternates between noise cancellation and transparency mode. The only difference between the earbuds is that a double squeeze on the left bud will rewind to the previous track, while a double squeeze on the right bud will skip to the next track.
You can customize the controls and adjust all the main actions you’d expect. For example, you can opt for either earbud to play or pause audio or change the volume, and so on. The only limitation seems to be that you can’t select a single squeeze to change noise modes, though double- and triple-squeezes can. You can choose to alternate between noise cancellation, normal, and transparency mode, or any combination of those modes.
The earbuds have IP55 water resistance, which is sufficient for a sweaty workout. If you get caught in the rain, they’ll survive just fine, but don’t intentionally submerge them. Also, keep in mind that the charging case doesn’t have any water resistance.
With noise cancellation enabled, the earbuds can play audio continuously for up to eight hours, or up to 32 hours including the capacity of the charging case.
