Soundcore Life Note 3: Comfortably good sound

The Soundcore brand, owned by Anker Innovations, recently launched the Life Note 3 true-wireless noise cancelling earbuds. The earbuds market is rather crowded and it is difficult for a product to stand out unless it is exceptional. The Life Note 3 has a good feature set and comes at a reasonable price, making a compelling case for earbuds lower than ₹10,000. 

The build quality of the Life Note 3 is excellent with an AirPods style stem design. The earbuds come with four sizes of ear tips and the supporting app ensures that you get a good fit. They are extremely comfortable to wear and can be used for long durations with little to no ear fatigue.

The case though a little bulky has a textured pattern, giving it both a premium look as well as better grip. It also features three LED indicators for battery-levels.

The drivers on the earbuds are 11mm, which is quite a good size, and they do provide excellent sound quality. The accompanying app has options for an equaliser, and even has a Soundcore signature sound with extra thumping bass. You can choose from the many presets or even make your own custom settings for the sound that you like.

The battery-life is approximately seven hours and with the case, this goes up to 35 hours. In our usage and tests, the earbuds needed to be charged only once a week. This was with daily usage for both calls and media consumption.

Call quality on the Life Note 3 is clear and superb. This is handled by six microphones. Using the earbuds in transparency mode had no issues at all; no strange ear-pressure issues that are noticed with some of the other earbuds.

Active noise cancellation on the Life Note 3 has a couple of options — you can set the levels for the environment that you are in. Transport, indoor and outdoor changes the frequencies being filtered. Transparency mode allows you to select between the fully transparent or vocal mode. These settings can be controlled by long pressing on the earbuds or is better done via the app. On iOS, there is even a widget for this.

Overall, for the price and features, this is a good pair of earbuds and will suit many people. It has good features, is compatible with Android and iOS and is comfortable On the flip-side, it’s slightly bulky, has no multipoint connectivity and its touch controls are finicky. It costs ₹10,999 and the Flipkart price is ₹7,999.