Amazing 30-hour battery life is definitely the highlight feature of the Anker Soundcore Life 2 headphones!
The battery is super long lasting even with bluetooth and active noise cancelling turned on (you get an extra 2 hours battery life with active noise cancelling turned off).
When using the Anker Soundcore Life 2 as wired headphones with active noise cancelling turned on battery life doubles to a massive 60 hours.
Comfort is also very important in a pair of headphones so it's nice that the Anker Soundcore Life 2 feature quality materials namely memory foam for the earpads and headband which helps release pressure by moulding around your ears and top of the head instead of pressing against them.
If you are someone who uses headphones frequently and for long periods of time, you will find wearing the Anker Soundcore Life 2 extremely comfortable because of their lightweight (268 grams) and the soft material covering the earpads and headband which is made of protein leather (pleather) which is synthetic leather.
Active noise cancellation is integrated in the Anker Soundcore Life 2 to help reduce unwanted background sound. Active noise cancelling can be a hit and miss with different headphones even though all active noise cancelling headphones work on the same principle of producing an opposing sound to the outside sound.
The Anker Soundcore Life 2 active noise cancellation makes a noticeable difference being able to block 65% of outside noise when listing to music on low volume. When listening to music on maximum volume, the loud volume of the music helps cancel outside noise almost completely.
Active noise cancellation is activated via the dedicated NC button, located on the bottom of the right earcup of the Soundcore Life 2 headphones. The power/pair button is also located next to the NC button, both of which feature individual status leds. All buttons are rubberized and raised which helps with tactility.
It's nice that the NC button does not get activated unless you hold down the button for 2 seconds. This means you won't have to worry about NC being turned on automatically by accident.
On the left earcup, you find three additional control buttons also on the bottom of the earcup. These include volume up (+) button, play/pause/answer/reject button and volume down (-) button. You can change tracks too via the volume buttons by long pressing either button to skip track forward and skip track backwards.
The middle button in between the volume buttons also activates BasUp which is the same bass-increase feature found in the Soundcore Flare and Soundcore Motion Q speaker. To activate BassUp double press the middle button while playing music.
The middle button also lets you put a current call on hold when short pressing the button during an incoming call. To switch between held and current call you long press the middle button.
Being over the ear headphones, of course, provides additional passive noise cancellation thanks to the closed off enclosure of the earcups. Even then, there is nothing like the sound isolation you get from ear plug style earphones such as the Soundbuds Slim Plus and Soundbuds Verve,
The Soundcore Life 2 have a similar design to the Soundcore Vortex headphones but foldable so the earcups swivel, fold inwards and lay flat for transportation.
Having active noise cancelling takes away a little bit of the sound quality but not massively that it spoils the overall sound quality mainly because the volume output can be turned up really loud and without distortion thanks to 40mm speaker size drivers. The audio quality is also high resolution so you get higher bit (above 16-bit) and higher sample rate (above 44.1 kHz).
On the video above, you can clearly hear the vocals and instruments from even 30 cm away. The high frequencies go up to 20kHz while the low frequencies can go down to 16Hz.
The Anker Soundcore Life 2 headphones also have a stronger bluetooth signal with a wireless range of 14 meters, instead of the typical 10 meters you get with most bluetooth headphones. You can easily drive the Soundcore Life 2 headphones to high fidelity from a smartphone thanks to low impedance (16 ohms).
The good thing about the active noise cancellation feature is that it works in both wireless and wired mode so you can still use active noise cancellation when connected to a device via a 3.5mm audio cable.
Speaking of cables, the addition of a 3.5mm audio socket in headphones is always a nice touch mainly because when the battery dies (or you forget to charge the headphones), you can still use the headphones regardless.
The Soundcore Life 2 headphones come with a 1.2 meter long audio cable with a straight plug connector in one end and a right angle plug connector in the other. There is a small single button remote control inline the audio cable to play/pause audio as well as answer and reject calls.
When battery is low you are alerted via a notification sound as well as visually via the bluetooth led which flashes red once every 60 seconds.
When charging, the bluetooth led shows red, and then turns steady blue when full charge is complete (3 hours).
The built-in microphone in the Soundcore Life 2 features cVc noise cancellation which is always good to have in a microphone to reduce background noise. The microphone has good gain and sensitivity too so it picks up your voice clearly. See. Anker PowerConf Review