Listen and talk on the go with these less-than-$50 alternatives.
I loved my Apple AirPods…until I lost one. #DisappearedIntoAirplaneSeat
I also loved my AirPods Pro…until I lost one. #WentFlyingWhileSnowboarding
When it came time to buy a third pair of wireless earbuds, I decided to be price-conscious. After all, odds were I’d only have them for a few months weeks.
- Anker
Anker has been turning out great electronics accessories for a while. I love their phone chargers, adapters, and cables. I saw the brand made a wireless earbud—the Soundcore Life P2—so I gave them a try.
They run for seven hours on a charge (longer than my AirPods!); forty if you count the battery case. Charging is via a USB-C cable. For those of you who forget to charge your earbuds until you’re about to get on your bike—*cough*—a 10-minute charge gets you up to an hour of play time. And speaking of outdoor sports, the Soundcores are IPX7 waterproof, so you can wear them while you sweat or are out in the rain.
The noise-cancelling works fine; thanks to the two microphones on each earbud, background noise was definitely muted. My phone calls and Siri conversations were clear.
My ear canals take two different sizes of eartips and even then, the eartips tend to fall out—see lost AirPods, above—but the Soundcore’s seemed to fit well enough.
Price? Normally they’re around $60 but amazon has them for $45.
- TOZO
The second brand I tried was TOZO. It has a range of wireless earbuds: the two most recent releases are the T10 and the T12.
T10:
T12:
Both models support wireless charging and paired easily with my phone. The T10 and the T12 are IPX8 waterproof, which means they can be submerged up to three feet for thirty minutes. (I took the plunge—so to speak—and dropped one of each into a glass of water. After twenty minutes, I dried them off and tested them. They worked!)
The T10 connects via micro USB; the T12 uses a USB-C connector. The bulb-shaped ear tips fit better in my ears than did the Anker’s (or AirPod’s, for that matter). The T12 had a lower profile (they weren’t so obvious in my ears), making for a snugger fit. Both felt as though they were less likely than the Anker or Apple earbuds to fall out.
Neither had the max battery life of Anker: four hours for the T10 (18 if you include the case) and five hours (23 with the case) for the T12. The charging case on the T10 displays the battery charge remaining via four dots. The T12’s charging case shows the actual percentage. (Hey, Apple, are you listening?)
The sound quality on both models was pretty good, but the bass booster on the T12 gave it the edge. Phone conversations were crisp and I had no problem communicating with Siri.
While the T12 is available in black only, the T10 comes in five colors: black, gray, white, blue, and khaki (my choice). The T12’s charging case is slightly smaller than the T10’s; both fit easily into a pocket or bag.
The T10 is $40 (currently discounted 15%; the black, 20%) and the T12 is $50 (plus 20% off as of today). With only a small price difference, superior sound quality, and a few more bells and whistles, why might you even consider the T10? Control preference.
The T10 earbuds are controlled by buttons you push; the T12 operates via touch. Because I used them to listen to mostly audiobooks, I preferred the T10 because I kept pausing or skipping to the next chapter whenever I pushed my hair back while wearing the T12s.
P.S. Yes, I lost one. Bye, Anker. #BouncedOutDuringJumpropeSession
Twist’s Take: Anker and TOZO have mastered the art of high-value, low-cost earbuds. All models are water-resistant enough for a run in the rain and do a decent job of noise-cancelling.
Anker’s Soundcore Life P2 wins the battery-life contest but the TOZOs have better sound, wireless charging, and are more comfortable. So the choice is yours: longer battery life or better performance?*
*Or you can buy both; you’d still have money left over compared to what you’d spend on Apple’s cheapest AirPod model.
