Soundcore Liberty Buds Review: Great features, but fit makes or breaks them

The Soundcore Liberty Buds are Anker’s latest addition to their affordable true wireless lineup, sitting at AED 399 and targeting anyone who wants a comfortable, feature-packed pair of earbuds without breaking the bank. They use a semi-in-ear design - meaning they rest in your ear rather sealing deep into the canal - and come loaded with Adaptive ANC 3.0, LDAC support, Hi-Res Audio, spatial audio, real-time AI translation, and a four-microphone setup for calls. On paper, that’s an impressive spec sheet for the price, and it positions the Liberty Buds as a genuine contender against the higher-end earbuds models that cost significantly more.

That said, the Liberty Buds are not without their compromises. While the battery life is solid, the sound can be shaped to your preference through the app, and the AI translation feature is a nice addition, the loose fit - at least for some ear shapes - and an ANC system that struggles to justify its presence might give potential buyers reason to pause.

Design, Features and Connectivity

In terms of appearance, the Liberty Buds feature a slightly curved stem that gives them a contemporary look. They are available in black, light blue and white, the latter of which I received for review. I like the case design quite a lot; the slide-to-open mechanism is cool and gives off a different feel compared to other earbud cases that open from the top. The case is small enough to fit comfortably in a small jeans pocket and almost anywhere else. It’s all plastic, of course, but what I really like about the case design is the pearl white finish, making the device feel more premium than its price tag might suggest.

The earbuds are also white but do not feature the same pearl finish, which is fine. However, they can get slippery pretty quickly due to the smooth plastic finish. And because the stems are relatively short, I sometimes didn't have enough grip to hold on to them when removing them. There were plenty of times the earbuds just slipped out of my hands.

In terms of fit and comfort, the Liberty Buds just didn’t work for me. The semi-in-ear fit is designed to avoid a deep seal and feel noticeably lighter in the ear. Soundcore includes optical detachable ear fins in different sizes to provide additional support. They tell you to place the earbuds straight into your ear and then twist them for a proper fit and seal, but this didn't work for me, despite trying all the fin sizes in the box.

The smaller fin sizes would always feel loose, and the earbuds would dislodge themselves at the slightest movement. The largest fin size offered the best resistance against that, but it still felt unstable and would constantly move inside the ear, breaking the ‘seal’ and providing an uneven audio experience. As such, if you plan to use them for running or gym sessions - which I did, and had to pick up the earbuds from the floor as often as I did the weights - they won't cut it.

The Liberty Buds run on Bluetooth 6.1 with multipoint support, letting you connect to two devices simultaneously and switch between them without the usual reconnecting hassle. Codec support covers SBC, AAC, and LDAC - the latter enabling higher bitrate audio on compatible Android devices. There is also Hi-Res Audio certification, an IP55 water- and dust-resistant rating, wear detection that pauses playback when you remove an earbud, and touch controls on the stems.

The touch controls are capacitive and might be too sensitive - accidental inputs happen frequently, especially when adjusting the earbuds in your ear. Disabling the single-tap functions in the app helps, but you will likely deal with this in the first few days of use.

Soundcore Liberty Buds Specifications

App, ANC and Audio Performance

The Soundcore app is clean, well-organised, and packed with options you expect. You get five EQ presets out of the box, an 8-band custom equaliser, ANC and transparency mode controls, spatial audio settings, a gaming mode for reduced latency, a volume limiter, touch control options (single, double, triple and long press, one of which can invoke Siri/Google Gemini), and the HearID 4.0 feature.

The HearID system runs a short A/B listening test - playing the same audio file in different configurations and asking you to choose what sounds better - and uses your responses to generate a personalised EQ curve. The result is pretty accurate. It landed on exactly the kind of tuning that I mostly prefer: controlled bass, a forward mid-range, and smooth, non-fatiguing highs. 

The app also houses the AI Translation feature, which works in real time during face-to-face conversations and supports over 100 languages with live captions. It requires the Soundcore app to be running, but once set up, it does the job pretty well, though the translation quality may not be up to snuff with some of the higher-end apps. But great for getting by with a foreign speaker.

Where things get more complicated is the ANC. Soundcore’s Adaptive ANC 3.0 is the same technology used in their flagship Liberty 5 and Liberty 4 Pro models, which sounds promising. It uses two microphones per earpiece and continuously monitors your environment, adjusting noise cancellation in real time based on what it detects. The issue is not the technology itself - it is the form factor. Semi-in-ear designs leave a gap between the earbud and your ear canal, which means sound bleeds in regardless of how hard the ANC is working. For some users with the right ear shape, the fit might be snug enough to provide the ANC a fighting chance. For others, it will feel like it is doing almost nothing.

In testing, the ANC made very little practical difference for me. Switching between ANC on, ANC off, and transparency mode produced minimal changes in how much environmental sound came through - gym music, traffic, voices, a washing machine running in the background, all of it remained audible. The only consistent sign the ANC was active was a faint adjustment sound when it kicked in. The transparency mode, similarly, had little noticeable effect, which makes sense given the sound was already getting in anyway. If you are buying the Liberty Buds specifically for noise cancellation, manage your expectations - especially if you are not sure how they will fit your ears.

As for sound quality, the Liberty Buds offer a decent and enjoyable listen through their 11mm dynamic drivers, particularly with the HearID personalised preset active. The default Soundcore Signature tuning is fine, but the personalised profile brought a noticeable improvement - tightening the bass, lifting the mids, and smoothing out the top end. Even so, the Liberty Buds lack a certain energy and engagement that separates a good earbud from a great one.

The bass has body and control but does not hit hard. The mids sit slightly back in the mix regardless of the preset, meaning vocals and instruments can feel a touch distant. The highs are pleasant and inoffensive but not particularly detailed. Across various genres, many tracks came across as somewhat flat - competent, but not exciting. But these limitations, to an extent, can be chalked up to the semi-in-ear design. 

Call quality holds up well for everyday use. The four-microphone setup with AI noise suppression reliably handled common background noise, and voice clarity was pretty decent for casual calls and online meetings.

Battery life is one of the package's strongest features. The earbuds deliver around seven hours of playback with ANC off, dropping to around six with it on - though real-world numbers will vary depending on volume and codec. If you use LDAC, expect that figure to come down noticeably, as the higher data rate draws more power. The case tops up the total to 30 hours without ANC, or 26 with it. Fast charging is also on board: 10 minutes plugged in equals roughly 4 hours of playback. The case charges via USBC, though there is no wireless charging option.

Should You Buy the Soundcore Liberty Buds?

The Soundcore Liberty Buds are a product that will work well for some people and not at all for others, and that divide comes down almost entirely to fit. If they sit securely in your ears, you get a comfortable, feature-rich pair of semi-in-ear headphones with decent sound, a robust app, solid battery life, and some useful extras like AI translation - all for AED 399.

But if the fit is loose, as it was in my experience, the semi-open design undermines the ANC to the point of irrelevance, the sound becomes inconsistent, and what looked like a strong value proposition starts to feel shakier. Worth trying in person before committing if you can.

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