soundcore by Anker Q35 Multi Mode Active Noise Cancelling Headphones, Bluetooth Headphones with LDAC for Hi Res Wireless Audio, 40H Playtime, Comfortable Fit, Clear Calls, For Home, Work, Travel

After using these for a few days now it can be safe to say I am very impressed with these headphones from Anker. As all other reviewers state you will need to adjust the EQ settings to get the most out of them but I feel Anker understands this. Not everyone is the same when it comes to audio tastes. Adjusting the EQ is very straight forward in the app and it is important to note that it will memorise the EQ profile you set for future uses. Something I was not clear on before buying. While I have given the product 5 stars I feel it is best to breakdown the aspects to explain why these headphones are such a good buy. SOUND - 9/10 I find it strange that so many manufacturers focus on upping the bass on their headphones by default. The Soundcore q35s are no different in this respect but the bass is clear and not muddy like other often cheaper headsets. To resolve the bass heavy default setting it is easy to change the EQ in the app which, by the way, is very well laid out. I get plenty of volume with headphones. The highs, mids and lows are clear and crisp. I do, however, mainly use the the headphones with the noise cancelling turned off. There is a noticeable drop in sound quality when noise cancelling is enabled. In AUX mode it could be argued that sound quality is even better. I did not experience any stuttering with this as another reviewer mentioned. COMFORT - 10/10 Comfort will be subjective as everyone has different sized and shaped heads and ears but for me these are the most comfortable headphones I have ever worn. The fit is perfect without any adjustments and the clamping force is not overly tight. While they may not be the best for heavy exercise I favour comport over tightness. The ear cups are plenty big enough for the ears without being goofily oversized. They are fairly lightweight too. I could wear these all day. BATTERY LIFE - 10/10 Anker has had some experience in this department and it shows in these headphones. The battery life lives up to promises and the quick charge is fantastic. Time will tell how the battery performs over the months / years but at least there is an Aux port should the battery ever give up in the future. DESIGN & BUILD QUALITY - 8/10 Overall the headphones are nice to the touch and are not cheap and creaky like headphones half the price. They are mostly constructed of plastic with a matt / satin finish which feels and looks premium. Though the look is subjective there are sleeker headphones on the market, for me these headphones look pretty good. The buttons are OK but could bet better. Fortunately I tend to use my device controls over the headphones ones. I do feel, also, that turning the headphones on should be a little quicker as they take a long press to turn on / off. NOISE CANCELLING - 7/10 The noise cancelling for me is a 'nice to have' feature so I do not use it on a frequent basis. It is important to note that audio quality is slightly reduced when the noise cancelling is enabled. While the noise cancelling is not regarded the best in the world it is good at reducing low humming noises like road or airplane noise. The headphone cups themselves do a good job too at reducing outside noises too. FEATURES 9/10 The Q35 has the option to pause your music when you take them off. This works most of the time but can cause random pauses even if I don’t take them off. The feature can be enabled or disabled in the app so that is good. Again I use my device controls. USB-C charging is ideal so when I travel I only need to 1 cable along with my other devices and charging time is brilliant. The firmware can be updated too so I’m sure minor tweaks can be made as time goes by. The multi device bluetooth is great. If you connect to 2 devices you can easily switch between one and the other (like a laptop and a phone). Note you cannot stream two audio feeds at the same time but not sure why you would want to. The included case is well constructed and perfect for travelling. VERDICT Overall Soundcore produces headphones that have great bang for your buck. While they are not perfect they perform exceedingly well in the 3 major areas I consider important. Those areas for me are sound, comfort and battery Life. I can’t complain about any of those areas. If you don’t want the small extra features in the Q35s then the Q30s could be a good choice as I would say they are even better value. As there was a deal on the Q35s I considered them the better option.

The hype surrounding the Soundcore Life Q35 is real for the most part. Having owned the Sony WH-1000XM3 previously I'm really impressed by what Anker have achieved at this price point. NOISE CANCELLATION The Q35 come at noise cancellation a bit differently from other brands and appear to be tackling the frequencies a different way. Contrary to what you might have read these do not compete with the Sony XM3 when it comes to noise cancellation but they do provide a nice level of external noise reduction. While working from home it easily removes the loud PC fan and outside passing traffic and people noises. You will still hear the occasional sound getting through that would have been blocked by other anc headphones but overall the effect is pretty decent. You get 3 noise cancelling profiles to choose from as well to help out in different types of environments which is handy. SOUND QUALITY Out of the box the Q35 sound rough! There is so much bass. Impressively too much bass and I love a booming bass. Fortunately the accompanying app has an excellent built in EQ with a raft of preset options and multiple custom EQ slots available. To pull back the clarity and a good starting point is oddly the piano EQ option then customise it to pull back in that glorious bass sound. You will find that the sound changes quite a bit between ANC on and off but having multiple custom EQ slots lets you quickly get around this, just set up an EQ profile for ANC on and ANC off. After a bit of tweaking and saving your EQ profile the Q35 sound amazing with plenty of detail and lots of deep bass. COMFORT The Q35 are compact, super light and incredibly comfortable to wear. I've been wearing them all day (thanks to the fantastic battery life) with no discomfort, pressure points or felling the headband digging in to the top of head. A joy to use. And the design is pretty minimal and sleek as well. BATTERY I dont doubt the quoted 40 hours playback. I can charge these and use them all week, with ANC on, without them running out. The fast charge feature to get 4 hours play from a 5 minute charge is also a really nice touch. DUAL PAIRING This is one feature I was slightly disappointed by. It works but not the way I expected it to having used this feature on other headphones. You can connect to 2 devices at the same time but you can only hear audio playing from one at a time. So if I'm playing content on my PC I wont hear any audio from my phone, including text alerts etc. You have to stop the audio on one device and then start playing audio on the other device. So it does work but only single source and there is a 2 second delay before the switched audio kicks in. One other quirk is that when you power the headphones on they appear to only remember the last used device as a live connection. You have to quickly jump into setting and hit connect again on the other device to wake that connection up. After that it works fine. CONTROLS The main controls are all carried out by buttons and to be honest the buttons are a little but on the cheap side. The wiggle in the seating and are a bit fiddly to use initially. Once you get used to the placement everything is fine and it all feels intuitive. A really nice touch is the quick ambient mode. It work in a similar was to the Sony in that you cup the right ear to activate the ambiance, but unlike the Sony you dont have to hold you hand there to keep it on. Cup once to turn on and cup again to turn off. Its a much better solution. MICROPHONES The mics are great for calls and Teams meeting. You come through clear and loud. I've been told the mics on the Q35 actually sound a lot clearer than the Sony XM3. I actually prefer the Q35 to my Sony XM3. The have a lot more going for them and after playing around with the EQ I prefer the Q35 sound. All at a vastly reduced price (especially when the Q35 frequently drop to the £100 mark). ... EDIT / FORGET TO MENTION Another great feature is the smart wearing detection which pauses your music or video when you take the headphones off and resumes it when you put them back on. Love this. I read elsewhere that some people were have issues with the detection triggering while they were wearing the headphones but this feature has worked flawlessly for me. It even works when taking the headphones off and propping on your head or wearing around your neck.

Quick, small bit on the downsides first, before I expand to all the good parts... 1) The first set I got had this tearing screech that would be present whenever it tried some certain frequencies. Mostly noticeable on calls, but there were some songs that would cause it too. Arranged a replacement through Amazon, new pair was significantly reduced with this. It never went away, but was then limited only to calls. 2) On the subject of calls - there are two different circuits in the headset. One for your lovely surround-sound music and whatnot, and another for calls. It can only use one or the other. You'll note in Windows sound settings that it comes up with two different new sound devices when it's connected: "Soundcore Q35 Stereo" and "Soundcore Q35 Hands-Free AG Audio". While not on any kind of call (i.e. not needing the mic), it should be coming through the stereo device. When on calls (or playing games) that use the mic, it uses the AG audio device. This is a mono-channel thing for calls to deal with quality and/or data rates, etc. What it means is that you no longer have proper stereo (let alone any kind of surround-sound) whilst using the mic. In fact, if you are listening to something or playing something, and then you join a call of some description, you'll likely lose all sound from whatever it is you are hoping to have sound for - because it switched circuits for the call as a priority and now the call is coming through the AG circuitry whilst the other stuff is trying to come through the stereo device. To have both at once, you'll need to go into your sound settings and disable the stereo (until you've finished the call). This will force the original sound through the AG device as well; now you can play and talk at the same time - at the cost of rich, directional sound. So, so long as you only want to ever do one of these things at a time, they're great. 3) I'm on my third pair: Just the other week I'd noticed the left side brace had a crack in it when I found couldn't adjust them. Luckily this was within the 18 month warranty period, so I raised a ticket........ Segueing on to the good points: 1) ... I raised that ticket on a Sunday - directly with Soundcore, not through Amazon. No one expects responses from anyone on Sundays. Two hours later, I had a reply asking for a photo of the damage, which I responded to immediately. One hour later, I'd been informed a new one had been shipped and I could expect it within 7-10 business days. No need to return the broken one at all (which still worked, just the brace needs some glue and taping to shore it up and it'll be usable still). I didn't even realise what it was that had been delivered that Wednesday because I wasn't expecting it so soon! Additionally, despite the fact that it's just via email and there's obviously no emotion or tone conveyance - I felt the agent at the other end was happy to help and be able to provide that level of service. It didn't come across as robotic or like they wanted to hang themselves - or me - in any way. Quite a rare trait in this day and age. 2) Ok, the product itself, you probably care about that too... Outside of the above minor usage issues, they're really good. I've missed a shockingly large number of deliveries due to the noise cancelling, probably a murder, or hostage situation or two as well. Trains/tube to work are all the nicer as well. It cuts out all but the worst of the tube clattering. 3) Sound quality is great, getting right down into the bass levels. Running the various headphone tests on YT show that they cut out and don't handle frequencies above 15KHz, but they do go all the way down to 20Hz - assuming those test videos do what they suggest they do. 4) Surround also works nicely. Again, using YT test videos that pump out noise through all the different directions show that these do, in fact, provide you with directional sound as advertised. 5) Oh, comfort, right, that's a thing. Yep, I often wear them 8+ hours a day with no issues, other than some toasty/sweaty ears on particularly hot days (or hot kitchens whilst cooking...). 6) Ooo, the transparency feature is nice too, if you don't want to keep nudging them off an ear whenever someone keeps trying to talk to you. I did, however, turn off the wear auto-detect. Found that to be rather hit and miss and kept messing with my sound. Saying that, I don't think I've turned it off in this new replacement pair - maybe they've improved it in later batches? Also think the sound quality might be better with this pair, but that might be either imagination or lack of use/wear... 7) Oh, right, battery is a thing too. Yep, I'm duly impressed with the battery life too. I, more frequently than I'd like to admit, forget to turn them off. The next day, however, they have rarely dropped any noticeable amount. They will literally last like 3-4 days or something without being turned off before they need a charge. So, yeah, there you go, enjoy the essay. Overall, they're pretty damn good. The only part about them I don't like - and if you're a social gamer that plays/talks with friends is an important point for you - is the lack of being able to use both sound circuits at once. You will be reduced to disabling the main (good) sound, so that it all comes through the lower quality AG circuitry just so that you can talk and have game sound at the same time... Oh, also, the Windows Bluetooth stack is notoriously terrible, so there's been a couple of issues with that, but that's just a good old turn it off and on again (for both Bluetooth in Windows, and the headset).

Bought to use both on my computer late in the evening, and to wear whilst out walking on the 3 days of Summer that we get in this country. It's paired up to both my computer and my mobile phone and works seamlessly. Never had so much as a missed beat to a tune whilst my phone is in my pocket, which is more than I can say about a few earbuds I've tried prior to getting these. I adore them ! I probably don't really need them for my computer in all honesty, but I live in a terraced house and they have 3 young children next door, so once 9pm arrives, I switch these on so as to not run the risk of disturbing them. These have a "transparency" mode, which allows you to hear what is going on around you whilst out and about. Very handy for listening to tunes, but still being able to hear a car (as long as it isn't electric). In an ideal World I'd like to be able to have the volume a tad higher with transparency on, but it's only really useable on fairly low volume. Still able to hear the tunes, so it's acceptable. Battery life is STELLAR ! With a full charge I can go for a couple of weeks if using it solely on the PC for a couple of hours a day, and as it uses USB-C to charge, I can use the charger from my mobile phone. The noise cancellation probably isn't on par with a set of Bose or Sony headphones, but it's a lot better than I expected. My only gripe if I have to find one, is that the earcups aren't big enough to enclose my ears fully, but it must be said that I do have larger ears than most. The cups are a soft PU leather type affair and sit on my ears rather than enclosing them quite comfortably really. I have no problem wearing them for a few hours at a time. The controls are simple enough to use too. I've had a few Soundcore products over the years, and never once been disappointed, but these without doubt are my favourite, and by quite some margin.

These headphones do not disappoint. Ok, so they are made of plastic, but it doesn't feel flimsy and the metal band across the top adds to the classy look. The controls are quite unobtrusive as they perfectly match the finish of the headphones. I find them quite pleasing to look at. Wow,are they bassy though, I love bass but the setting they come on is a bit OTT. I find that the piano setting strikes a decent balance though it is a bit louder than others. The noise cancellation is ok but I did expect it to be a bit better, but we can say it does the job, just. I do like the transparency mode though. A few people have said the auto pause doesn't work well and comes on when they move their head, mine was doing that too but a quick check online advised me to reset the headphones by holding the power and volume + button for five seconds. I did this then re-paired them with my mobile and I've had no problems since. All in all, a very nice set of lightweight headphones with plenty of features at an affordable price.

I had read several Amazon purchaser reviews of these (Q35) headphones before purchase. Overall I would certainly give 5 stars particulary given the price point. Noting others comments and my experience key points: - Easy to set up bluetooth pairing but be cautious when switching on not to set unit back to bluetooth pairing mode. Instructions in quick start guide are clear so only finger trouble in my case. - If you get it wrong, very easy to reset and start again (again clear instructions provided). - Sound quality - to my ears at least - is very good. As others have commented essential to get the Soundcore app and set equalizer to your taste. Out of the box I thought they sounded good if somewhat 'bassy'. Using the app and selecting different equalizers opened up a whole new world of sound. Personally I found "piano" the best. You can also set your own equalizer. Once set to your preferred settings and made default these are retained without needing to use the app. - Noise Cancellation - effective but not the very best (compared to top of range - Bose for e.g.) but for the price point I consider it to be very good and have no complaints. Again, whilst you can switch ANC to on/transparent/off with the headphone switch, further options (transport, indoor, outdoor) are available in the app. - LDAC bluetooth. I have not encountered any problems with LDAC. It does though reduce the range a bit, only noticable if you decide to walk away from your bluetooth device. - Aux input. An important feature for me (aircraft travel for e.g.). Again I had no problems with this and find the sound quality to be very good. Note that when you plug in the Aux lead it switches off the bluetooth so you can not connect with the app to make adjustments. A little annoying perhaps but it retains the settings you had (equalizer/ANC) so not really a problem. ANC still works and can be turned on/transparent/off using the headphone switch. Many cheaper headphones (including Anker models) do not provide ANC with Aux connection. This was a key reason for purchasing Q35. - Features - I like the fact that you can switch to transparent ANC by simply putting hand against earpiece. I also like the 'pause' feature which pauses source when you take them off. - Controls - Good range of controls on headphone - in addition to ANC control you can adjust volume, pause and also skip tracks (forward and backward). Worth looking at user guide to see how this works (long key press etc). - Misc. Comes with a reasonable case, Aux and charging lead (you need to use your own USB charger) and aircraft adapter. Overall very pleased with the product - battery life advertised as 40 hours - yet to test

These are great sounding headphones at a great price. However, beware , if you have a Pixel 4XL you may have issues pairing these headphones. I tried all the usual fixes (reset headphones, turning on\off bluetooth, forgetting device etc) I contacted support and their answer was to offer a refund as Pixel 4XL on Android 12 was not on their supported device list as it hadnt been tested, only Pixel 4XL on Android 11. Issuing a refund to me isnt the best support answer to me, seeing the Q20's pair fine this was clearly a firmware bug on the Q35s that could resolved and i was happy to work with them on testing any potential fixes. Im not sure if this issue is for all Android 12 phones or just specifically the Pixel 4XL. However, there is some good news for those that run stock Android, Luckily Android 13 has just been released so upgrading to that has resolved the issue and i could pair these headphones without issue first time and they sound great. Another work around for users having issues with Android 12 would be to use 1 of their earlier models, I had the Q20's which DO pair fine with Pixel 4XL on Android 12, so no idea why the Q35s dont, clearly some bug that hopefully they will fix in the future with a firmware upgrade. I also had no issues pairing with my Android Tablet on Android 11 and also paired flawless with Windows and a bluetooth Transmitter I use when travelling on planes, speaking of which it was a very nice inclusion of the dual to single 3.5mm adapter used on some planes. Another thing to note is that the case included with the Q35 feels cheap compared to that of the older Q20's In my opinion anyway. The outside is very nice, however when you open it up there is a cheap plasitc mould that holds the headphones and really cheapens the look and feel of these headphones, it could be removed easily however the headphones would then move around. The other thing which i dislike about the case is there is no pouch built in which can hold the 3.5mm cable, charger cable and adapter, it is just a loose pouch which is just thrown in there. I would have liked this to have been built in to the case like it was on the Q20's This isnt a deal breaker though as its just a case its just something to be aware of and coming from the Q20's and something that seems like a downgrade. I guess they have to cut costs somewhere to provided such good headphones at this price and ultimately its the sound that matters the most with headphones and these are definetly and upgrade from the Q20's which already sounded great and finally the noise cancelling on these is fantastic, by far the best i have used to date and a improvement on the Q20's for sure

Bought these headphone to replace another brand that needed sent back due to being faulty. Of the things you want from a good set of mid-priced headphones: 1. The noise cancellation, and ability to turn it on and off, as well as have a mode to allow you to hear better what is going on around you is great - The ANC is really good for the price. 2. The sound quality including an equaliser within the app is perfect. You can set up various equalisers to suit different styles of music. 3. I have not tested the battery fully yet, but so far I have no complaints to it lasting multiple commutes between charge. I would recommend these headphones to anyone who does not want to spend more than £150 on headphones but still wants quality. They look great and are very comfortable to wear.