Anker spirit x earphones
I’m sick to death of earphones. They come loose and have to be continually pushed back in my ears, fall out completely or get pulled out by seatbelts or branches.
My earphone use is not typical but it’s not atypical either. I wear them dogwalking, hedgecutting, lawnmowing, sometimes driving, sometimes on trains or planes.
Worst of all they keep breaking. One or both channels stop working. It doesn’t seem relative to cost: Cheapie £4 Kitsounds from Ebay often outlast £50 earphones from Amazon. Especially when I’m buying for my children, who get through earphones at a speed.
So I was pleased to come across Anker Spirit X bluetooth earphones, designed for athletes, that combine sturdy performance, foolproof ear clips, and are waterproof as well. At £38 (in the UK. $39 in the States) they’re not even expensive.
Better known as battery manufacturers and suppliers of quality charging cables, Anker is fast moving into other areas of electronics. Their foray into audio is particularly welcome.
As with all Anker products their Sprit X earphones arrive well packaged, in a sturdy box that slides out to reveal a classy travel pouch, a set of earphones on rubber earclips that fit straight from the pack, and no less than four different earbuds for ears differently-shaped ears.
I put them on. The two rubbery earpieces are linked by a lanyard that fits on the back of the neck where it’s least likely to catch on obstructions, and there’s an adjustment loop that’s easy to tighten – or loosen – by touch alone. There’s a small control bar that houses the micro USB charging point, protected by a rubber flap, an on/off button activating a small blue/red led, and three buttons: volume up, track advance and volume down. Despite the fact that you’re generally using these blind, just below your right ear, it’s easy to get used to which button does what.
The rubberized clips fitted easily over my ears and held the buds in place. I wear glasses but they adapted to this with ease, holding the earpieces in place, and doing a pretty good job of isolating ambient sounds. Pairing to my phone was laughably easy and the sound was clear, with good bass, mid-range and treble. Music sounded great though most of my listening is speech: it far exceeded my requirements so I got my teenage son to give them a go. He thought the sound was great both for full-throated reggae and angrier sounds.
They also work well for calls. The music stops when a call comes through and the voice comes clearly through the earphones. The microphone, presumably in the control bar, picks up your replies well, without picking up too much interference from your movements. Joggers can pound on and though you might have to turn your petrol hedge-cutter off to make yourself heard there’s no need to freeze, immobile, to get through the call. You can continue to move around quite freely.
The Anker Spirit X doesn’t just feel sturdy. It is. An aqua-phobic nano-coating means they’re waterproof rated to one meter’s depth of water. That’s not waterproof enough for swimming lengths but is quite up to coping with rain or sweat. It’s well known that a driving beat improves running speeds, but few earphones are comfortable enough to stay in place without chafing, and waterproof enough to keep working. The Anker Spirit X effortlessly does both.
The one drawback with bluetooth earphones is they need to be charged. The claimed battery life is 12 hours and I’d say this was quite realistic. I’ve been using my set for a week now, off and on, and there’s no sign of them running out of charge. My phone, on the other hand, has needed to be charged about ten times over the same period. Plugging the earphones in to a micro USB every so often is really no sacrifice. And Anker claim that five minutes of charge will give you an hour of use: more than enough for most.
The Anker Spirit X earphones are great. At last a set of earphones that can go where you do and cope with an active life. This recent addition to Anker’s Soundcore range is a great buy for anyone who wants to lay a quality audio background over daily life. Buy it from Amazon.co.uk or, if you’re in the States, Amazon.com.
