Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 are inexpensive, fully wireless vacuum headphones with good sound and excellent battery life. 8 hours on a single charge is a very comfortable indicator. And with charging from the case, the headphones should last as much as 100 hours—excellent bonuses: Bluetooth 5.0, AAC codec, and USB Type-C. And most importantly – high-quality sound. At first glance, these are smart TWS earbuds for $50. But is everything so rosy? Let’s figure it out in the review.
Headphones of this brand have not yet come across to me for testing. It is always interesting to discover something new. I can tell right away that the headphones did not disappoint. Their main advantage is an excellent combination of price and overall quality.
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Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 review – Specifications and Equipment
Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 Features:
- Type: Vacuum, fully wireless headphones.
- Emitter type: dynamic
- Membrane diameter: 8 mm.
- Frequency range: 20 Hz – 20 kHz.
- Resistance: 16 ohms.
- Power: 5mW
- Bluetooth 5.0.
- Codecs: SBC, AAC
- Radius of action: up to 10 meters.
- Headphone battery: 2 * 85mAh.
- Case battery: 2600 mAh.
- Operating time: 8 hours / 100 hours with charging from the case.
- Quick charge: 10 minutes in a case for 1.5 hours of use
- Power: USB Type-C port.
- Moisture protection: IPX5
- Price: about 50 $ (3999 rubles)
Equipment:
- Headphones
- Charging case
- 4 add. pairs of ear pads
- 2 add. pairs of mounts
- Charging cable (USB-C)
- Documentation
Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 review – Appearance and build quality
Very generous package :
- Headphones themselves;
- Charging case;
- 4 pairs of ear pads (+ 1 pair already on);
- 2 pairs of additional mounts (+1 pair on headphones);
- USB cable (Type-C);
- Documentation.
The manufacturer tried to make the first impression of the model purely positive. All accessories are neatly laid out, and there is a piece of paper with the question “how do we sound?” Interestingly, if you like the sound, they offer to share it with friends and social networks. And if you don’t like it, chat with support. I was expecting the promise of a refund. However, I would not need this option.
The headphones are available in black only. The case is entirely plastic, but the plastic is of high quality. It is matte, almost everywhere. There are glossy inserts inside the case. These places are easy to collect fingerprints but just as easy to clean. The case is oblong with rounded corners. It is big and bulky. For example, in a jeans pocket, it is unlikely to be comfortable to carry but is perfect for a jacket and backpacks.
Of course, I understand that the dimensions here are associated with a capacious battery. But still, if there is no problem in the cold season to throw a case into a jacket pocket, then there will be problems with summer clothes. Buy completely wireless headphones so that there are no wires and carry a case from them in a backpack? An ambiguous solution.
The case is durable and reliable. The headphones in it are held by magnets (like the lid, by the way) and hold on tightly; you cannot purposefully shake them out. I am glad that the headphones fit into place very accurately and firmly. You don’t have to correct them and check if they are disconnected. This happens with some analogs in this price category. What else about the case? It has an indicator on the front (it turns on when charging), and on the back, there is a USB-C connector.
The headphones themselves are also quite oversized but do not protrude much from the ears due to their ergonomic shape. Metal grids protect the sound guides; additional spacers are used here in addition to ear pads. If all this is removed, the seams from the assembly/casting are visible on the cases, but they do not stand out and do not seem to be crooked or dangerous in terms of wear resistance. There is one large button with a matte feel-good finish and the Soundcore logo on the top of each earbud.
The appearance can be examined more closely in the photo. Summing up, we can say that the headphones look quite universal: not bright, but not “gray” either. Assembled with high quality, it seems durable. The word that best describes their design and build is solid.
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Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 review – Comfort and control
Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 fits securely and comfortably in your ears. The full ear pads are of high quality, there are enough size options, although the average ones, installed “by default,” suited me. Headphones do not rub, do not tire. I spent about 2 hours in them at most without a break – there was not even a hint of fatigue, which is suitable for a vacuum model. And the fit is still really reliable.
Even without additional mounts, purely due to the shape and high-quality ear pads. And with them, the headphones will not be accidentally shaken out. Add here the declared waterproof IPX5 (against rain and sweat), and we get an excellent model for sports. It should be added that the headphones provide good sound insulation, even by the standards of in-ear headphones. For the metro, they are quite suitable.
The additional fasteners-spacers caused, most of all, concerns about the convenience in me (from experience). For some analogs, such mounts rub the ears, and do not add comfort at all. There is no such thing. Perhaps this is because the spacers are here with air inside and deflate as needed, more accurately taking the shape of a particular ear. Perhaps not because of this.
The Anker Life Dot 2 controls are push-button and not fully functional. The scheme is also not the most intuitive, but you can get used to it:
- Single press (on any earphone): start / pause, accept / end call.
- Hold (about 1 second): on the right – the next track, on the left – the previous one. You can also reject an unwanted call or switch during a call from the phone to the headphones.
- Double-tap (any earphone): Call the voice assistant.
There is no volume control, which is very frustrating. And there are quite working options for one-button control, where there is volume control. But here again, the choice was made in favor of the voice assistant. Who uses it with headphones, share in the comments. It seems to me that this is completely inconvenient, but I could be wrong. If we talk about buttons, then they are convenient. Pressing is light but perceptible: you always understand whether you pressed a button, but you don’t need to “hammer” the headphones into your ears.
Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 is not supported by the proprietary Soundcore app, which is also frustrating. Ideally, it would be cool to be able to customize the controls. But no. But there are sound notifications about switching on and connecting to the source. When switching tracks, there are no notifications.
Interestingly, when switched on, there is a voice prompt “battery high,” given the autonomy, it is unlikely to hear “battery low” if such is provided at all.
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Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 review – Connection quality
Connects to the source via Bluetooth up to version 5.0. There is support for SBC and AAC codecs. Expecting aptX for that kind of money is in the clouds. The call quality is good. For a week of testing, there were a couple of artifacts. The working radius is 10 meters, or even more. I left in these headphones through 2 rooms from the phone, and the connection began to be lost where most of the other tested models had a break in 5 steps.
The pairing process is extremely simple: we take the headphones out of the case and find them in the list of available Bluetooth devices on your phone, player, or computer. You don’t even need to press anything. After pairing, the earbuds will automatically pair with the last device. By the way, the connection is very fast – about 6 seconds to turn on the headset and connect.
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Supports simultaneous connection with one device. There is no multipoint, but they quickly switch between memorized sources—no need to disconnect from one to connect to another. You just need to initiate the connection on the desired device manually. When watching a video, there is a slight desynchronization of the picture and sound. Different applications are different. You can watch, but the out of sync is visible. But in games, the lag becomes more noticeable.
Another important and nice feature is the ability to use headphones one at a time. Moreover, anyone can listen separately, not just the presenter, as is often the case. You can take out, for example, the right earpiece, start the music, then take out the left one; the music will sound in both. After that, you can put the right one in the case, and the music will remain in the left one. And everything is seamless and hassle-free.
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Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 review – Battery life and microphone
Autonomy is one of the main advantages: up to 8 hours on a single charge and up to 100 hours with recharges from the case. I spent about 2 hours with headphones outside the case. During this time, the charge level indicator (displayed as standard about hours) has not changed at all, so I believe at 8 o’clock. Of course, the operating time depends on the volume, but the headphones will probably last 5 hours, even at the maximum. I also believe in 100 hours with a case. It seems that you will need to charge it no more than once a month.
The autonomy here is impressive, although there are models that work longer without refueling. How many people need 10-13 hours of work with TWS headphones? Someone listens to music without a break for 10 hours? Share your experience in the comments. In my opinion, it is optimal for the headphones to work for 5-6 hours (at any volume) and have an impressive battery in the case of many recharges. This is the logic that is implemented here.
As already mentioned above, the proprietary application is not supported here; there are no indicators inside, which means that the case’s charge cannot be recognized at all. Indeed, when there is 1 charge or less left in it, the indicator will light up. Red or blinking, or something like that. Of course, I didn’t manage to discharge it that much. If possible, I will supplement the review later.
The headphones have an auto-off function. After 10-15 minutes of inactivity outside the case, the only indicator on them turns red from white and goes out, and the headphones, accordingly, turn off. Also, there is a quick charge: 10 minutes in a case – for 1.5 hours of use. Of course, wireless charging of the case is not supported, but no one expected this.
Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 microphone of average quality. In short, it reproduces the voice well, but it also picks up ambient sounds. It is comfortable to communicate in a quiet room. If you add background noise, you can still talk, but the other person will hear the noise. But on the street it is not very comfortable to communicate, there is too much noise, you have to either raise your voice or switch to the phone. From the convenient: there are microphones on each earphone, respectively, you can talk on any separately, if necessary.
Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 review – Sound quality
Sounds good. I don’t even want to find fault for your money – gorgeous. There is an emphasis on low frequencies, but there is no total dominance of the bass; even the high frequencies are quite well worked out, which is rarely the case with budget TWS headphones. Moreover, the feed is universal.
- Low frequencies (LF). Accentuated, but without fanaticism. These are far from basshead headphones. The bass is relatively high quality (without dirt and hum), moderately fast. Not as percussive as we would like (on some music), but rather voluminous, it shows itself well in electronics. The upper bass is accentuated the most.
- Medium frequencies (MF). Due to the peculiarities of the emphasis on the low frequencies, the middle here is somewhat failed. At the same time, it is quite smooth and well developed. However, it is often lost behind bass and treble.
- High frequencies (HF). Surprisingly not deaf and not to cut off. However, the emphasis on HF is far from ideal. It is clear that they tried to build the V-shaped frequency response, beloved by the majority (emphasizing LF and HF and a relative failure in the MF), but the method is ambiguous. Headphones are prone to sibilance (hissing and whistling sounds are overly accentuated), cymbals, and other metal instruments are often “sandy” or harsh. Although I note, these are not critical problems, but they are audible, although they do not lead to white heat.
- Scene. Not bad for vacuum TWS. Wider than the head, but flat. There is no elaboration in depth. The images are determined; the sizes are average. I did not notice any critical distortions.
- Detail and naturalness. Also, at a good level. Of course, the midrange details most often suffer, but the emphasis on the high frequency gives a feeling of pseudo-detail, which smooths out the dip in the midrange. But in general, you can hear everything plus or minus. Voices and live instruments sound quite natural. If you get into the nuances, then female voices may sound incomplete, and there are distortions on instruments with an abundance of high-frequency sounds. The good news is that instruments with a low-frequency range sound more natural than expected, without a synthetic halo.
- Musical genres. Overall, the headphones are versatile. They can handle any popular music, electronic styles, metal, jazz, orchestral music, and so on at a decent level. I would not recommend classical / orchestration with an abundance of violins and metal; nevertheless, distortions often interfere. Best of all, the headphones cope with moderately energetic music: electronics, rock, simple metal styles.
- Applications (music, games, movies). These are purely musical headphones. For other purposes, they should not be used. Of course, you can watch the video, but this is not the main scenario. Games are unlikely. The headphones are great for listening in transport, at work, or in training.
Anker Soundcore Life Dot 2 review – Summary
Good sound, comfortable autonomy, and an excellent combination of price and quality. They work out their $ 50 100%. If I were now choosing budgetary completely wireless headphones for myself, then it is very likely that I would have chosen these.
Pros:
- High-quality sound. Emphasis on bass and treble, a slightly failed middle – the popular V-shaped frequency response. Good detail and naturalness. Energetic presentation. The sound is universal, interesting, and high quality.
- Comfortable and secure fit. The headphones are very secure and comfortable to sit in your ears. They cannot be shaken out even during sports. And they do not tire for a couple of hours or more.
- Good build and versatile design. The model looks durable. The plastic is of high quality, and you can’t find fault with the assembly. The design is calm and versatile. Not particularly eye-catching, but not boring either.
- Autonomy. Up to 8 hours on a single charge and up to 100 hours with a case. These are real numbers. Already 6 hours on a single charge, the headphones will last even at high volume and AAC connection.
- Reliable Bluetooth connection. No or almost no artifacts, stable outdoor work. And an impressive radius of a stable connection (10 meters, or even more) indoors.
- Rich kit. There are more ear cushions than usual (5 pairs in total). Well, it’s good that there are 3 different sizes of additional mounts.
- The ability to use any earphone separately. There is no main and dependent here. Whichever one got out of the case, that one can be listened to. Then you can get the second one and listen to both. The transition from mono to stereo is fast and seamless.
- A fair price. In terms of the combination of all qualities, the price looks very reasonable. It’s hard to hope for anything more for $ 50.
Cons:
- Not the best control scheme. There is no volume control, and switching tracks by holding the button is not the most common option. Double-clicking calls up the voice assistant; there are such false presses.
- Oversized case. It is inconvenient to carry only a jacket or a backpack in a pants pocket.
- No branded application support. Although the application itself exists, minimal audio customization would not hurt many users. Well, ideally, control settings.
- Some desynchronization of picture and sound. You can watch the video, although the lag is noticeable. But with games, it is more difficult.
