Anker’s new earbuds have a MacBook-style ‘touchbar’ on the case to customize controls – and some serious sound design
The new Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro earbuds are here to beat the AirPods Pro 2 – and they have a very Apple-esque feature that the AirPods lack: a touch bar. While Apple limited its touch bar to laptops and hasn’t used it since, Anker’s version sits on the earbuds’ charging case and hopefully has more staying power.
Anker isn’t the first company to put a screen in its earbud charging case – as we previously wrote, JBL turned us from cynics to enthusiastic proponents of charging case screens on the JBL Live Beam 3 – but the approach is nice and elegant: the screen itself is not a touchscreen (it’s actually inside the case but visible from the outside), but is designed to work in conjunction with a thin touch-sensitive bar on the front of the case.
The screen is nice, but the best earbuds are of course about more than just nice features. And the specs here look impressive.
Anker Soundcore Liberty Pro 4: key features and prices
The Liberty 4 Pro earbuds have active noise cancellation thanks to six microphones and a barometric pressure sensor to capture and isolate audio. The algorithm for the ANC is Anker’s third generation audio technology and promises to adapt to your audio environment three times per second. You can switch between noise reduction and transparency via the touch bar of the case.
There’s Bluetooth 5.3 with Fast Pair, support for the high-quality LDAC codec, and the earbuds also offer spatial audio in multiple modes.
Playtime has increased from the previous version to 10 hours / 40 hours with ANC disabled; with ANC on the earbuds still 7.5 hours solo and 30 hours via the charging case, which is very competitive with the best noise canceling earbuds.
As before, most of the configuration is handled in the Soundcore app, which offers a new version of HearID to tailor the sound to your ears and an 8-band customizable EQ with multiple presets.
In our Anker Liberty 3 Pro review, we liked the battery life and ANC, but weren’t so keen on the fit or the touch controls; the new housing should address the latter and hopefully the fit has improved as well.
The new Liberty 4 Pro comes in Glossy Light Blue, Glossy Black and White and is available from today Amazon.comSoundcore.com and at select retailers for $129.99 in the US and £129.99 in the UK. Additional availability across Europe will be announced at a later date, and we have no confirmation of an Australian launch at this time.