soundcore Anker V20i, Open-Ear Wireless Headphone, Adjustable Ear Hooks

I find in-ear earbuds annoying and frankly disappointing as I can never get a comfortable seal, so acquired these to test the difference. And is night and day. They slip on easily, have a little adjustment, and just sit there without moving. They are comfortable for long periods. They are great for walking as you can still hear whats going on around for safety. The sound quality is surprisingly good for this price level and you'd have to pay a lot more to improve it. External sound is not too obtrusive unless you're walking down a really busy road (or on a noisy tube train) - but then I know that before buying (and its a small price to pay). So, ideal for quiet or medium volume environments, not so good for very loud ones.

If, like me, you have odd shaped ears and need a pair of headphones for running that won't immediately fall out - and don't break the bank - look no further! I've persisted for years with in-ear headphones, including some fancy running ones from a well-known sportswear brand and some pricey ones from a top phone brand. I honestly think my ears must be a wonky shape because no matter what I do they never quite fit right, and when I'm running I have the annoyance of having to adjust one side or the other every minute or two. Eventually I got fed up and looked for something more secure, but I didn't want to spend a lot on a pair I'd only use a short time each week. Nor did I need the greatest sound quality. I settled on these V20i's and I'm so pleased I did. They felt a little weird to start with, mainly because I'm used to something being *inside* the ear canal, so psychology I felt like they had fallen out. However, it didn't take long to get past that and now, for the first time in years, I can run with no annoying adjustments whatsoever. None. Brilliant! Now, I'm writing this review from the perspective of someone who doesn't want or need the absolute best audio quality, or the most futuristic looking buds. I just need something that has decent sound quality, is well made, and most importantly stays put - and these tick all those boxes. I may also be slightly unusual in that I listen to audiobooks or podcasts when I run, so I've not put these through their paces with thumping bass. For what I need, the audio is excellent - clear, defined, and plenty loud enough. As these rest over the ear they do not isolate sound, meaning when I run I can fully hear my surroundings for safety. Again, this is perfect for my needs but something to keep in mind if you prefer full sound isolation. The sound can, at times, get slightly drowned out by particularly loud traffic nearby but not enough to bother me, and I've never had to turn them up fully to compensate. The Soundcore app is excellent and lets you configure the buttons on each side with ease. I've not had any accidental presses of these, and they give out a nice audible beep so you know when you've hit them. Connection has been strong and stable with my Samsung Galaxy. I'm so impressed with these, particularly given the price - an absolute bargain if they're on offer. Never before have a worn a pair of headphones that barely feel like they're there, don't cause any fatigue or soreness at all, and stay locked on when I'm running. Perfect.

I've been really impressed with these headphones. They're very comfortable and easy to slide onto your ears, and I love that the speaker piece is adjustable. You can move it closer or further away from your ear depending on how much of your surroundings you want to hear, which is a great feature. One of my favourite things is that you don't actually have to put these earbuds inside your ears. The speaker sits just outside your ear and the sound travels into it, which makes them much more comfortable to wear for long periods. You can still enjoy your music while being aware of what's going on around you. I think it's great if you have sensory issues but love listening to music or need something light on while outside! The customisable LED lights are a nice touch too, you can leave them on or switch them off if you prefer a more subtle look. They do look a little chunky when you're wearing them, but they're lightweight enough that it doesn't bother me. The battery life has been excellent. I've been using them for about a week since they arrived and I still haven't needed to charge them. The only thing I have to remember is to put them back in the charging case because I have a habit of losing earbuds!🫠 The soundcore app is another big plus. You can adjust the sound profile to suit what you're listening to, whether you want more bass or a clearer, crisper sound for vocals and podcasts. I really like having those options. HOWEVER.....My only issue is the touch controls. I find them a bit fiddly, especially when trying to adjust the volume. Sometimes when I tap the side of the earbud, it changes the song instead of lowering or raising the volume. Because of that, I often end up taking one earbud off just to adjust things on my phone instead.

Love these. Microphone is perfect, the price was spot on. Had a different brand and they fell apart in a very short space of time. Sound was never that good. Sound quality on these is to a very high quality. Good bass. My ears can't handle the earbud experience so these mitigate that perfectly. As an example of their sound and volume quality, I was able to use these on a flight and hear the content perfectly well. Same again on a bicycle in windy conditions.. They do have a limit to how good they are in extremely windy conditions but that should be expected with earphones that do not envelope the ear or block the ear canal. The battery is very good too on the units. The one area it could strengthen is informing of the battery level on the case. There's no signal to let you know whether the carry case has any juice left. A minor thing. Charging is very good with really good battery life. I love the fact that you can wear these separately or together for depending on what's going on. The size of the ear pieces are probably on the bigger side but I'm not an expert on these but they are light so no drama. They are solid in the sense that they maintain their hold when you're out running, gym work etc

Have used these for a while now and they are very good headphones for the price. The adjustable four position system for the headphone in your ear is an excellent idea and works very well to get maximum sound into your ears no matter the size of your ears. I use these during walking and running and you really don't notice they are in (also great if you want to use them in the house for the tv etc, for extended periods - they recognise and automatically connect up to two blutooth devices) and the ear hooks are nice and soft and never feel like they will fall off (they work well with glasses as well). However, as others have pointed out, you will not be able to hear these very well if you are near traffic. However, the sound from them is mostly unaffected in windy areas as they don't suffer from the dreadful rushing noise I got from other (in-ear) headphones I have used. I would suggest installing the soundcore app and trying the 'piano' setting on the graphic equaliser which, rather oddly, seems to be great for both spoken words and most types of music. Also, I changed volume up and down controls to be one touch for left/right earpiece as multiple taps doesn't seem that intuitive or work very well when running. Overall, very highly recommended.

UPDATE: I am on the lookout for new buds. I stand by my review and still use these ear pieces happily. But sometimes I lounge on my sofa and the earpiece drops slightly away from my ear. It's not held tight enough against my ear to stop it moving. That means the sound in my left ear (when lying on my left side) is slightly -but noticeably- quieter than my right ear. Vice versa for the right ear. It's become a thing for me and I can't ignore it and one night I had to tape it against my ear with micropore tape as the volume imbalance was doing my head in. Wish me luck in finding a better fitting pair. Right this is a fairly long review but if you want the short version check the title. For all the detail read on... I originally bought the Soundcore P40i buds. They were faulty so Soundcore refunded me no quibbles. Their customer service is fast and excellent. I decided to replace them with the V20i as I fancied a pair that had ear loops for when out walking or moving around. Buds do fall out after some time no matter how well fitting, as your skin releases moisture over time and the silicone pads can't grip anything so the buds just slide out of your ears. So, unpacking the V20i is a simple task as there is a small instruction manual, a USB C cable and the ear pieces themselves in a case. The case is almost a centimetre shorter in height, but over double the length of the P40i case, but yet lighter. Also the V20i case does not have the rubbery feeling on the bottom that the P40i has. Not a big issue though. I fully charged everything before using as one of the issues with the P40i was they didn't charge. No problems in charging these and when I took them out they at first appeared bulky, but that's because I'm used to buds, whereas these are the open ear, air convection type of speakers. They must have been part charged as they came out at 40% hence leaving them to charge before using them. The app tells you the state of charge of the buds but not the case which is odd as the P40i showed you the state of charge of both buds and the case. It's true that from flat,10-15 mins in the charging case is more than enough for 40% of charge, which can give you hours of use. One thing to note is that unlike the V40i which switch on as soon as you open the case, the P20i only switch on when you take them out of the case. You can tell they're switching on and checking to connect to something as the small blue led's flash a few times. You can change the brightness and function of the leds too but I didn't bother, mine are just off. I can't see them so what's the point of them flashing to the music? Also you can just use one bud if you wish, but when I tried while on the phone my friend could not hear me with the right earpiece, only the left one. It says there are 4 mics, 2 on each bud, so I may have to do some more testing on that. (It might have just been the fitting on the ears was not quite right, as the mics are all on the end which presses against your ear). For fitting everyone is going to be different but I found that for me the ear loops were best placed outside of my spectacle ear loops. The reason is my glasses have quite hard arms so they did cause discomfort fairly quickly when they were on the outside. But the Soundcore loops are covered in a soft silicone or TPU or something, so they don't cause any discomfort at all. In fact it's true what some say, you forget you have them on. They feel secure though as I shook my head violently a few times and the earpieces never moved at all. They were a snug fit on L3 (they have 4 positions for the ear loop to be in so that they fit all ears.) The minute I put them in and played Taylor Swift's All Too Well I knew these things were going to be great. These don't have HearID installed, but I had run the hearing test in the p40i set so I used the same positions on the equaliser in the V20i. I tried a few of the presets but they weren't very good, although gaming preset is indeed fabulous for gaming, which I tried for hours :) During Taylor's evermore era album I tweaked the equaliser a little and I am honestly astonished that the sound is so brilliant. The volume has to be up 1 notch higher than usual because they're air convection, so I ran them at 78% and they were brilliant and plenty loud. The bass is beautiful. While playing music at about 85% I took them off my ears and held them about 20 cm away from me and I could not hear a thing. So I doubt if even a train passenger right beside me would hear them. I set all the button presses so that 1 touch in the left (1L) reduced volume and 1 touch on the right (1R) increased volume. Then 2L for rewind and 2R for fast forward. Press and hold for the left one for voice assistant but while there are buttons mentioned in the manual to control your phone answering and hanging up, in the app there is no feature for that. Again, not a massive issue, but slightly confusing. When I did make a call my friend assured me the audio was spot on, and while my microwave was beeping in the background she said she could hear it but it was not intrusive, unlike with my Jabra phone headset. When the microwave beeped I was pleased because with buds in you could very easily miss it, and definitely miss it if you were actively listening to music through them. With these on the audio was just as good (possibly better) but I heard the microwave clearly, so situational awareness is not altered at all even with these on high volume. I believe it would be easy to hold a conversation with someone near to me even while playing music. I might have imagined it but I also think the sound from my friends phone (who only ever uses speaker phone) was clearer and easier to understand. Perhaps that's because of the equaliser being set so carefully? I put the ear pieces in at 8am today, and was listening to news, podcasts and a film, and then music for most of the afternoon. Apart from a couple of hours when they were left on my desk out of the case, the batteries lasted right til 8pm. So they do indeed last a minimum of 9 hours possibly more. Lithium batteries often take 6 charge cycles before coming up to their true capacity. But tbh 9 hours is more than enough for me. I haven't tested the case for charge capacity yet but I'll add that info at a later date. One of the other issues with the P40i was the lag. It was very noticeable especially when watching music videos and films. I didn't enjoy one film and had to take them out to finish watching as the lag was about a half a second which doesn't sound much, but it's a lot of time to be out of sync. I was pleased to see that the V20i has almost imperceptible lag. There is a lag there (obviously, they're using wireless technology) but I did have to struggle to see it, so it's not enough to spoil a music video or a film. It would have been nice to have the really handy phone stand in the case of the V20i, and there is also no case reset button in the case for the V20i. Neither of those is a deal breaker or maker though. They're dust and sweat proof to IP55, so going to the gym with them is fine but not in the shower! They also have a find your device but of course if they are in the case, or have auto shut down due to non use, the find my device won't work. I also loved the fact that it is lightning fast in connecting. If I pause my video and answer my phone, it switches almost instantly between the two devices. And the time it takes to hang up and restart the video, it has reconnected again with the video. Sweet. It says in the blurb it has ANC. Yet elsewhere it says no noise cancellation. I don't think it can have noise cancellation due to being open ear, but whether it does or does not is irrelevant, because you want to be able to hear your environment anyway, that's mostly the point of the open ear design. All I can say is they are excellent, great quality sound, easy to wear and operate, last bloomin ages and are small enough to put in a purse to carry with you. Very, very well worth the money, I can't say enough highly about them. Highly recommended.

I’ve used in ear headphones for a while, but have found that they hurt my ears over time and sometimes drop out. These have been superb. You can wear them for long periods of time and you wouldn’t know they’re on. They pair with my iPhone well and after a week and a lot of use, they haven’t needed charging yet. Such amazing value, I have 2 other Soundcore pieces of kit and the quality is always there. The microphone is clear on calls, the battery life is very good, they fit really well and adjust. I have worn these on walks in a calm day and the sound is clear. I can’t recommend these highly enough. For the money they are more than worth it.

These are decent headphones, especially if you don’t like the feeling of earbuds sitting inside your ears. The open-ear design is really comfortable and I can wear them for much longer than normal in-ear headphones without getting annoyed by them. The adjustable hooks are useful and once I got them sitting properly they felt quite secure. I wouldn’t say they feel completely invisible, but they are comfortable and they don’t feel like they’re going to fall off the whole time. They are good for walking, pottering around, calls, podcasts and general everyday use. The sound is fine rather than amazing. Clear enough, and better than I expected for open-ear headphones, but you obviously don’t get the same depth or noise blocking that you would with proper in-ear or over-ear ones. If you want really immersive music these probably aren’t the ones, but that’s not really what they’re for. Overall I’d say they’re a good practical pair of headphones. Not perfect, but comfortable, easy to use and useful when you still want to hear what’s going on around you. I feel safer walking with these headphones than over ear which is a key point in their favour to me.

Sounds really good. Loud and rich. The app works fine, but the widget isn't live updated, it always says disconnected, but when you press it, it opens the app itself and it takes a second then says connected. Another thing is there is nothing in the app to tell you how much charge is left in the case. It connects to two devices at once, but it loses the second connection every now and then and you may have to reconnect, it doesn't bother me much but if that's the main reason you're buying this for, you may reconsider. They are very light, you may forget you are wearing them. The capacitive buttons are responsive and there are a variety of adjustments you can do to the actions. Battery life is not good, it's just ok, but I don't think it is as advertised. But the case apparently carries a good charge. The mics are ok, and people on the other side hear me quiet well.

Espetáculo de som. Super confortável. Estou usando na academia e para leitura. Bateria dura muito. Ainda mais que recarrega na propria caixa. Única coisa que poderia melhor (isso se eu nao souber ver) é indicador de bateria da caixa. Porque realmente esquece de conferir e nao avisa quando esta vazia.

Okay so this is coming from a person who is VERY skeptical when buying some electronics online, I checked a tones of comments and devices before choosing this and TBH wasn’t sure but TRUST ME the price is very affordable for such great piece! Just keep in mind if you’re going for open ear don’t expect complete noise canceling and high bass only music hitting your brain being disconnected from the world. THE SOUND IS REALLY GOOD just properly arrange in your ears its clear its reasonably loud i mean good loud great for music haven’t used for calls so no idea about that. But from my side 100% recommended to someone who doesn’t want earbuds to fall while intense work out or even while shaking head :p

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Sono rimasto davvero soddisfatto di queste cuffie. La qualità audio è sorprendente: il suono è pulito, ben bilanciato e con bassi presenti ma mai eccessivi. Si ascolta musica con grande piacere e anche le chiamate risultano chiare. Il vero punto di forza, però, è la comodità. Restano ben salde nelle orecchie senza dare fastidio, anche dopo diverse ore di utilizzo. Le uso spesso durante gli allenamenti e la corsa e non si muovono mai, risultando perfette anche per fare sport. Ottima anche l'autonomia della batteria e la connessione Bluetooth, che è sempre stabile e veloce. Per il prezzo a cui vengono proposte, offrono una qualità davvero superiore alle aspettative. Le ricomprerei senza alcun dubbio.

I was encouraged to buy a particular brand of bone-induction headphones by a colleague after mentioning my problems with in-ear ones. Sounded like a great idea, I thought, until I saw the prices and realised that it was a bit much to be committing to without knowing if I'd enjoy the way they worked. I thought these seemed like a really good compromise; a way to test the waters, see what I thought. I can always buy a more expensive pair later, I figured. Several months in, and I've yet to find any reason to want to upgrade. As an in-office and WFH headset they are excellent - sound quality is fantastic (crisp and clear), and according to colleagues the microphone is great too, with no distortion or fuzziness. They synched immediately and easily to both my laptop and iPhone... which is great because I love Technology, but Technology doesn't love me back. I don't use the Soundcore earpieces for TV or dedicated music listening... but having said, I don't think anyone would be disappointed by them in that scenerio, unless (like me) your normal alternative for those activities is something like Bose over-ear noise-cancelling. Obviously it's an unfair comparison and I absolutely won't take a star off for it. If dedicated noise cancelling isn't a mandatory requirement, I reckon most people would be perfectly happy with the performance. If you're looking for a set of general-purpose headphones that will absolutely do a great job, give good clear sound without rupturing your eardrum, and work great for videoconferencing, then these'd absolutely be my pick. Maybe something would be better with the more expensive brand-name ones, but honestly I can't find a defecit that needs correcting on these. Even the thingy that goes over your ear, which I expected to be annoying, adjusts well and sits comfortably. I've forgotten I'm wearing them more than once, and that never happened with the in-ear sort: I always had them out within seconds of finishing a meeting. Bang-for-buck wise, I can't fault them. I've been using them for months now, and they're going strong, recharging well, etc. One day when they eventually die on me, maybe I'll try that expensive brand...but honestly, I don't think so. These tick every box I need, and are comfy besides.