SoundcoreSport X20 by Anker, True-Wireless Workout Earbuds, Rotatable and Extendable Ear Hooks, Noise Cancelling, Deep Bass, IP68 Waterproof, Sweatproof, Dustproof, 48H Play, Sport Earbuds for GymClimatePartner certified

Five months ago I bought the Anker Soundcore Sport X20s. I've used them every day since then, and I can definitely state that they are what I've been looking for. These are my ideal daily usage earbuds. They sound great, fit well, and don't fall out. Noise cancellation is definitely nowhere near as complete as a much higher-end earbud such as the BoseQuiet Comfort, but it's not ineffective.HISTORY: I have Bose QuietComfort earbuds from 2020, which I use in very noisy situations such as an airplane. But they are costly and not something I want to wear when I'm out walking or jogging. So I wanted to supplement them with an inexpensive Bluetooth earbud.My initial attempts were the JVC Gumy (junk: fell out easily, terrible battery life) and JVC Marshmallow (less junky, but still junk).Then I discovered the Anker Soundcore Space A40s. Sonically, these were a revelation. But they tended to fall out of my ears, despite my best efforts, and eventually I lost one of them irretrievably.That's when I got the Anker Soundcore Sport X20s.FIT AND COMFORT: The Sport X20s absolutely cannot fall out, because each earbud is held in place by a little hook that comes over the top of your ear from the front. After some practice I can get this hook into place with one hand. Once in place, I don't feel the hook at all; indeed, I find myself checking from time to time to make sure the earbuds are still there. No matter how much additional paraphernalia I'm wearing (glasses, sunglasses, hat, whatever), the hook stays in place and neither interferes nor makes itself felt.(The hook is somewhat adjustable — you can twist it a little, or slide it in or out a little — but I wouldn't set much store by that; the key point is that it's a hook.)These earbuds come with five different size ear tips. Finding the right size for your ears can be a chore; I can only suggest that you behave methodically and take your time. They are not labelled and are not trivial to distinguish visually, so start by working out which is which (not easy) and label them somehow. It took me many days of usage to settle on a choice, and even so they do not always stay fully inserted into my ear canals; still, if they do get a bit loose, the sound does not drop off appreciably (though the noise cancelling does), and they cannot possibly fall out, so I just press them back in from time to time.SOUND: Sheer delight. These babies sound just terrific. I listen to either podcasts (voice) or music (classical) and they are great for both.The key is partly the superb native sound of the earbuds themselves and partly the Soundcore app, which allows you to run a kind of hearing test that creates an equalizer geared to each of your ears separately ("HearID Sound"). You can then overlay onto this some additional equalization corresponding to your favorite music genre; it's worth experimenting to settle on one, rather than just believing the genre label (I like Acoustic more than Classical).If, in addition, you turn on 3D Surround Sound, the apparent sound stage opens further, using active audio analysis at the expense of some additional battery usage, and the music simply pours like honey through your ears.I probably appear rather foolish walking along with a big grin on my face, but that's my response to the active pleasure I take in listening through these earbuds.NOISE CANCELLATION: The noise cancellation feature definitely does something, but it's nothing to write home about, and should not be your main reason for getting these earbuds. Don't expect to use these earbuds on their own in an airplane, and even in high automobile traffic areas or near construction they can be hard to hear. But please, consider the price! Heavy duty noise cancellation is exactly what you are _not_ paying for.There are actually three settings: Noise Cancellation, Normal and Transparency. Transparency plays ambient sound through the microphone and into your ears, which is good for momentary conversation (though your own voice is still muffled). Normal means "do nothing" and I never use it.There is also a completely different approach to noise cancellation, adaptive noise cancelling mode, where the earbuds change their degree of noise cancellation depending on how noisy the environment is. I've tried it, but it doesn't seem to improve the amount of noise cancellation so I don't use it.BUTTONS: There is one button on each earbud. It is located at the front of the earbud, which makes it easy to press by using a pinch gesture, thumb on the back of the earbud, finger on the front where the button is. In my opinion this is much better than, say, having to press from the outer flat surface towards your head. It might take a little practice to learn to find the button, but now I can do it immediately.Each button can make three gestures: single press, double press, and long press. Using the app, you can configure the meaning of each gesture. I have mine set up as follows: single press on either button, toggle play/pause; long press on either button, toggle between Noise Cancellation and Transparency; double press left, volume down; double press right, volume up. Other options (which I don't use) are next, previous, and (on iPhone) Siri; also, if a phone call comes in, single press on either button means answer, while long press on either button means decline (but the microphone is not very good, so I don't advise answering the phone with the earbuds). It's a pity that you can't configure a button gesture to toggle 3D Surround Sound on and off.FEEDBACK: The earbuds make sounds when you perform certain actions; I find these very nice, cleverly designed to be distinct and suggestive of what they mean. Sounds that I've learned to identify over time include "You've taken me out of the case," "I'm looking for a Bluetooth connection," "I've paired with a Bluetooth connection," "You pressed the earbud button once/twice", "Switched to Transparency mode" (sounds like a doorbell chime), "Switch to Noise Cancellation mode" (sort of a "buttoned up" chime). Using the app, you can turn off some of these sounds, but I like having them.BATTERY AND CHARGING CASE: The case is where you store the earbuds when not in use. It contains the primary battery, and keeps the earbuds charged up. The case itself has a USB-C port. Those who claim there is no indication of battery level are just mistaken; in the app, you can read the battery level of each earbud and the case, and a light on the front of the case, which comes on when you put the earbuds into it and close the case, also tells you how much charge remains in the case: if it glows white, but feebly, charging the case might be a good idea; if it glows red, or doesn't glow at all, you need to charge it right now.I've never come close to running out of power in the earbuds while using them, but if I did, I'd just put them in the case for a while, where they charge very quickly. The case itself has enough charge to keep my daily usage going (three or four hours a day) for a couple of weeks between charges, and takes several hours to charge fully if it empties; I recommend charging overnight.The form factor of the case is excellent. It's remarkably flat, so it's easy to carry in a trouser pocket. (Contrast the Bose case, which is immense.) It's a pity that it is not chargeable wirelessly, but no big deal.THE APP: I have an iPhone so that's the version of the app I'll describe. It's not perfect; there are some bugs, and it can be confusing. Still it's pretty good. It shows you the battery levels in each earbud and the case. It lets you switch between Noise Cancellation, Normal, and Transparency modes, or change to adaptive noise cancelling. You can turn on Wind Noise Reduction, which adds even more noise cancellation. You can turn on 3D Surround Sound. You can set the equalization to a built-in EQ, or (as I've already explained) set up your personalized HearID Sound curve and then, if desired, modify it by adding custom equalization or a built-in EQ on top of it. You can configure the earbud button actions.In addition, you can run a fit test, which uses the earbuds' microphone to detect how much speaker sound is leaking out (this doesn't work very reliably). You can set up multiple Bluetooth connections. You can make your earbuds emit a sound, useful if you can't locate them. And you can apply an update to the firmware when one is released (unfortunately, you won't know when that happens unless you actively use the app).Unfortunately, there's also a lot of irrelevant fluff attached to the app, such as built-in breathing exercises, and a bunch of ambient noise options. Plus it seems like Soundcore is trying to turn itself into a sort of social platform (good luck with that).CONCLUSIONS: These earbuds are terrific. If you have hard-to-fit ear canals, like me, or if you've ever lost an earbud because it fell out, like me, or if you just want earbuds with great fit and great sound for a moderate amount of money, like me, these are an excellent choice. They do sometimes go on sale here at Amazon but even at full price they are worth every penny.

I usually don't write many reviews, and I especially don't write them after only a day or two of use as I don't think that is a fair way to really evaluate a product, sometime problems or concerns don't become apparent until later. These impressed me enough to write a review after only couple days of use.I first tried a cheap $29 set that failed on so many levels so sent them back. The Anker Soundcore Sport X20 was on my initial list but I thought the price was a bit too high. I now know how wrong I was, I should have just bought these the first time and avoided all the aggravation and hassle. There are a couple annoyances/quibbles I have but they are keepers.Likes:The sound on these is great. I've tried other Anker earbuds (Liberty Neo and Liberty ZOLO) and on the other pairs I needed to keep the audio on the very lowest levels to prevent excessive loud music in my ears. The X20 is a much more reasonable audio level and I play them more at normal volume setting on my iPod Nano.Very impressed at the quality of the automatic noise reduction. It is not the same as wearing ANSI ear plugs but it is very good. I have tested on both my motorcycle and when mowing the lawn. In those situations the ANR may work too well as I like to be able to at least hear some engine noise, especially on the motorcycle. They do a great job as reducing the wind noise inside the motorcycle helmet.Like the ear loops too, it keeps them securely in place, especially when putting my motorcycle helmet on/off. The loops are very comfortable and when wearing while mowing and doing shop projects for several hours they never once bothered my ears. The button on the earbud is small and requires a very positive press to activate the functions. This is great because it prevents accidental activation, some of my older earbud were very easy to accidentally press the button.Annoyances:These may not be the best choice for use when motorcycling. It is great to have music but cannot activate the tiny buttons to answer a phone call or change the mode to transparency/listen thru. You basically need to decide which mode to use before you put your helmet on.When initially testing these I was only getting two modes. These come with only the ANR and Transparency modes enabled. To enable the Normal mode I needed to download the app to my phone and pair the X20. Then I was able to use the app to turn on the Normal mode. There are three different sounds, one for each mode. Personally, I would prefer different sounds, something like 1, 2, and three beeps would be easier to distinguish but once you learn the sounds it's easy to know which mode you entered.Found that using the app to change the modes resulted in a lot of noise when switching modes. Not sure if this is my phone or something else. When using the buttons on the earbuds the transition between modes is seamless other than the sound bit that plays.It is annoying that it always tried to pair with both my phone and Nano. Since I'm really not using these for phone calls, and because I prefer my music on a dedicated MP3 player, the easy option is to either unpair them from the phone or as I did, turn off bluethooth on the phone (rarely use bluetooth due to security concerns, plus bluetooth off can extend battery).The ear tips are cheap standard round tips. The effectiveness of ANR depends on good fitting tips. The supplied tips tend to work themselves out of the ear canal and allow outside noise in. I have some old tips that were tri-flange, they worked great when wearing but the don't fit in the charging case so I needed to take them off to recharge the earbuds. It would be great if Anker would design a case that is large enough to accept other ear tips or custom ear molds.The finish on the charging case looks like a matte/flat finish. Usually finishes like that tend to have some texture and grip well. I find the finish to be almost slippery, certainly not what I was expecting based on how it looks. The case on my old Anker Liberty Neo is shiny gloss black and seems to be more secure when I'm handling it.Dislikes:I honestly can't find one thing that I dislike.Other:I have not tested the different equalizer settings. I pleased with the default setting. My listening is usually in far less than ideal environments so trying to squeeze perfection out of my audio really isn't a goal.Have not tested the max battery life. I work them when mowing and then working in my shop using power tools, total time was a little over 4 hours. Normal mode claims 12hrs and ANR mode claims 7hrs. While I personally could sit on my motorcycle and ride for 7hrs it's unlikely as gas stops and rest breaks would be required. I think most people would not use earbuds continuously for +7hrs, simply dropping it in the charging case for a 5-10 mins when taking a break would result in several more hours of playing time.