Anker B083VXSTDN Anker Soundcore Spirit X2, True Wire (Open Box)

I’m a fan of Anker products. Not every single products is amazing but MOST of them are great in my opinion. If you take the time to find what you’re looking for and pay a reasonable price I feel you will be pleasantly surprised with a lot of their sound equipment. I’m not trying to get free Anker stuff but they’re currently my upper-middle class audio brand. Long story longer…. Fun fact: I didn’t know that people have different ear wax! That’s right! What does that have to do with headphones? Honestly, it’s important lot for me now that I know. Depending on how much your sweat and earwax affects how well your headphones sit in your ear, you won’t use the same headphones as other people. I’ve recently come to the conclusion, that earbud aren’t every really going to be for me. (my ears have oilier sweat and thinner earwax). So I will always need behind the ear headphones because no matter which “in ear” earbuds I chose, the are guaranteed to slip out and over the ear is the best I can do. No big deal. If you’re just grossed out by now, I’m sorry. I just needed to pass on this information because I feel that all of us think that it’s about how earbuds fit in the shape of your ear and IT’S NOT! On to the review: PROS 1. Great sound as usual from Anker 2. The behind the ear hook/rod is made of THICK flexible sport rubber so there’s grip and no irritation. There’s no bar inside. Just a cozy rubber body 3. Charging pod has a grip/slip resistant coat 4. Volume/skip pause/ long hold for alexa are all on the headphones 5. I’ve not felt irritation after hours of wear CONS 1. I feel like it’s usually apple updates and bugs that mess up Bluetooth connectivity but after having these for a year, the automatic connectivity often doesn’t happen and I have to go into settings and connect. I have an iPhone 2. It’s hard to explain but the behind the ear bar is very long which is GREAT for wear but can easily get behind the earbud part when they go back in the case and if you’re not paying attention you won’t notice because you can still comfortably close the case…. All of this ends up with them not properly connecting to the charging ports in the case and you coming back to find out they weren’t charging. Or worse, they’ll stay connected and keep playing while in the case. 3. I often like to exercise and run with only one piece in. So I really like when I can pull out one earbud out of the case regardless of a single left or right and have them automatically connect. That’s a HUGE plus for me when looking for headphones. These definitely DON’T do that. I’ll have to pull both out and connect. They only are good at auto connecting if you have music playing on your phone before you pull them out and sometimes putting one back shuts them off completely. So I have to walk around with one playing in my pocket. Pulling them out and THEN starting music has you needing to power them both on and off and putting them in and out of the case hoping that will trigger a connection. Also going into your settings and hoping they connect is just as unresponsive. I’ve spent up to 20 mins playing this game if I don’t follow a very specific procedure to connect. This is the main reason my rating is low. 4. The controls are split up between both headphones. So the volume are on one and the skip pause are on the other. I would rather have mirrored controls on both sides. I’m comfortable with buttons with different tap controls. On tap is “volume”, two taps is “skip”, long hold is “pause”, etc. so now I have to keep my phone close for all the controls if I want to use only one bud. If you are nothing like me when it comes down to the controls and wearing one piece then the only MAJOR downside is the connectivity. For sound and noise canceling these are excellent.