soundcore life Q35

Anker Soundcore Life Q35

Price : $109.99

LKR : 35,000 - 40,000

Brand : Anker

The Soundcore Life Q35 are the latest active noise cancelling headphones coming from soundcore. The Soundcore Life Q35 is the upgraded version of the Life Q30. As the successor to the Q30s this bring a handfull of cool new features. since a lot of features are shared across both devices, let's compare it with the Q30. Though this is not the most premium headset, the Q35 might be worth while for someone who would like to buy a headset without breaking the bank.

Among the many competitors in the market this headphone takes its place at the top of its price range with astonishing performances. But as good as these headphones sound on paper they are not perfect. So this review is to give you the good and the bad, so you know what you are going to get for your hard earned money.

In the unboxing,

They are going to give you the user manual and some regular stuff. And most importantly they include a safety case which is pretty nice about soundcore. Inside the case you can find 2 cables. One of them is going to be a 3.5mm AUX cable and a type-C charging cable.

The newly built AUX cable comes with an inline mic on the aux cable. This is a really cool addition for people like to use the headphone wired. And also soundcore provides us with an aeroplane travel adapter

About the headphone casing

In comparison to the soundcore life Q30, the soundcore life Q35 case is bulkier and less portable, which may be an issue for some users who need to pack the headphonesin a small bag or backpack. While the case still offers decent protection for the headphones, it lacks the convenient interior pocket found in the Q30 case. Instead we get a small pouch to add our charging cable and AUX cable.

The life Q35

The case of the Soundcore life Q30 headphones is compact and sturdy making it easy to transport the headphones when you're on the go. The hardshell case provides good protection for the headphones and has a convenient magnetic clasp. Additionally, the Q30 case has a small interior pocket for storing the included AUX cable and USB charging cable.

The life Q30

Overall, the case for the Soundcore Life Q30 headphones is a more positive feature, as it strikes a good balance between portability and prtection while also offering the convenience of an interior pocket. However, the Q35 case is still decent option for those who don't need to pack their headphones in a small bag or backpack.

The build quality

In terms of design you could initially mistake these for the older Q30s. But though the structure remains the same there's a new finish here that really accentuates the design. The obsedian blue color and the new match texture gives them a much more premium look than the Q30s.

The only physical difference that many people have found between the Q30 and the Q35 is in the actual earpads them selves.

In the previous Q30 the cushion pads were a little bit uncomfortable for people with slightly big ears. Well they address the Q35 directly giving us thicker and more cushioned ear pads with more depth. So the Life Q35 are easily more comfortable than the life Q30.

So something that everyone noticed is that the build quality is still the same, nice strong build quality, the upgraded ear pads definitely makes a difference. All these features helps to distinguish these headphones from others in the market. Sadly this headphone is not water resistance, which most headphones don't offer. But they should hold up fine for a workout, there's just no guaranteed protection.

Controls

As far as the controls go these are using mostly button controls. The button layout is the same as the previous model which Soundcore splits sensibly across both earcups.

1) On the left,

Noise cancelling button, power button and USB type-c charging port

2) On the right,

Volume control button, play pause button and the headphone jack.

The controls are located at the lower area of the headphone where it's very easy to reach and each button gives a very distinctive click when pressed. It surely takes a second to learn the feel of these buttons.

These headphones have one touch control. and that's when you touch the right ear cup, that's going to activate the quick attention mode. And it turns on the microphones or transparency mode which in this way you can have a conversation with somebody with your headphones on playing music.

This is where the headphone automatically play and pause as you put them on your head or remove them. This is a function that you can turn off if you're that person who doesn't like this feature.

Aside from this the features and settings are the same for both the Q30 and the Q35s.

The touch control

Wear detection

Soundcore app

The app gives you access to soundcore sophisticated equalizer. The app gives you a wide selection of pre set equalizers and also you can save your custom equals as well.

Inside this you are getting your three active noise cancellation modes. you can use these modes with the buttons on the headphones too. The app allows you to get into the specific noise cancelling modes that target certain environments. But and on the last Pannel is going to be the differenct sleep mode settings.

make sure to download that app and see whats in it for your self.

The Active Noise Cancelling (ANC)

As the performance of these headphones, the ANC on theses headphones is still very strong. Much like the Life Q30 these are easily one of the strongest noise cancellation that you can get for under $200. These headphones can compete easily with all the competition in the crowded industry. As I said in the beginning, these headphones are not perfect.

When it comes to a headphone on a higher price range these headphone (the Q35) can give you the same experience up to a 90% which is pretty close to the identical sound quality of a high quality headphone.

Many users prefer to use the transport mode in Active Noise Cancelling since there is only a Suttle difference with the other NC modes and users find this one to be the best. It's cool that having some customization over the noise cancelling which other headphones often do not give you.

The ANC comes in three modes

The ANC of these headphones are almost identical to the Q30s. Which also comes in the same 3 ANC modes below,

Transport Mode

"Imagine the roar of takeoff and the endless drone throughout a flight-then imagine it's gone. Life Q30's Transport mode cancels out up to 95% of engine noise to give you a more restful journey"

Outdoor Mode

"Tune out the chaotic soundtrack of the city streets as you walk. Outdoor mode reduces the din if cars driving past and blocks out the noise of the wind to ensure nothing stops your music from sounding its best."

indoor Mode

"You're trying to focus, but the air conditioner is whirring, people are talking in the background, and a coffee machine is grinding. Switch to indoor mode to adjust Life Q30's noise cancelling to suit quieter locations while still blocking out distracting sounds."

copied from soundcore.com

As I mentioned above the transport mode is the strongest ANC mode. In many testing's it blocked out more ambient sound than anything else. The indoor mode is slightly less strong and then your outdoor mode is the weakest of the three. In comparing the Q30 and the Q35, the Active Noise Cancellation doesn't show any big differences. The ANC is on par or a little bit better than the Q30. which is really not that noticeable.

When activating the Active Noise Cancellation mode there is a clear reduction of noise compared to the normal mode. The transparency mode works really well too. It gives you a natural sounding input from the environment without sounding overly amplified.

Now when comparing to the market leaders the noise cancelling isn't on the level of headphones like Sony's XM4 which noticeably block out more sound. But you have to spend considerably more to get better noise cancelling and better performance.

Let's talk about the sound quality

First let's talk about normal mode. TOO MUCH BASS. So if you are a bass lover or a bass preferred person it's probably going to be ok !. For a headphone that is supposed to be high-res, the bass is too strong. the too much bass muddies up the vocal clarity.

Though this is too much bass, you can EQ them in the soundcore app and make them sound really really good.

But as it is for me, I don't like to customise each and every song I listen to. So this is a down side for me.

Moving to the Active Noise Cancellation mode or transparency mode, the EQ shift huge. And it goes from this overly bass boomy sound to a good majority of the low Mids. Which is quite good. But also by activating the ANC the quality of the sound also decreased along with the overly bass sound. So now you have to go again and equalise the sound and make more adjustments to balance out the sound once again.

Battery life

When it comes to the battery life the Soundcore life Q35 is unbeatable. The headphone gives a ridiculous 40 hours with ANC or around 60 hours with ANC turned off. This destroys the market leaders from Sony, Bose and Sennheiser. So if you want a pair that will last a really long time these headphones definitely fit the bill.

The excellent fast charging feature really does it's job where with a 5 minute charge it gives a 4 hour playback time. And for full charge it takes only 2 hours which is very very impressive.

Special features

The headphones auto power offs when there is no bluetooth connection or if you unplug the AUX cable.
When you use these headphones with the AUX cable you hear the headphones power off tone as you plug it in.
Still able to toggle between ANC modes in AUX modes.
Comes with LDAC codec. ( A high res- audio codec that allows your phone to transmit more data to the headphones theoretically giving you better sound quality. )

Connectivity

You can connect them with bluetooth or NFC if you have a compatible device. As far for the range of these headphones you can get right around 37 feet or about 11.2 meters.

mainly these headphones feature the multipoint connectivity. This means that you can actually connect these headphones to two devices at the same time. you have to pause on the first device before pressing play on the other and it can take a few seconds to switch over so it's quite as seamless as with Sennheiser's momentum 3s.

This is a really great feature to have that's often reserved for the most expensive headphones.

The major new addition for the Q35 is LDAC as mentioned earlier. LDAC is the highest quality codec that's available. Offering three times the transfer rate of the standard bluetooth codec. By this codec even the smallest details of your audio will be preserved.

Consider

The Soundcore Life Q35 is a good headphone. Although it's too bass heavy. You cannot listen to the default EQ music with these headphones. If you want it to sound good you definitely have to EQ them for it to sound better. It would be a really big drag if you go to equalise each and every audio, music you listen to.

It's good and it's not that bad at the same time, it has pros and con features comparing with the lifeQ30. The LDAC codec and Hi-Res audio do come into play in these headphones. But soundcore could have done a better job in building this headphone.

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