I’m slowly being converted into a cuff-style open earbuds fanatic, thanks to this top effort from Soundcore

Anker Soundcore AeroClip: review

If you’re the athletic type or maybe just a regular gym goer, the Anker Soundcore AeroClip could be the perfect set of open earbuds for you. These clip-on buds have the basics down: solid sound, a secure and comfortable fit plus nifty companion app functionality. And although they’re not perfect, their more-than-fair price of $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210) makes them an option well worth considering.

Generally, my problem with open-ear headphones and open earbuds is that they don’t offer a proper seal and let in a lot of ambient sound. That means you’ll hear all sorts, from squawking gulls to wailing children. As you can imagine, that can make it difficult to indulge in a high-quality listening experience. But after putting my anti-open-ear bias to one side, I discovered that the Anker Soundcore AeroClip pleasantly surprised me in a number of ways – especially in terms of their audio performance.

From the off, I was met with clean, impressively immersive audio and an airy, ear-filling quality brought out the best in Não Tem Nada Não by Marcos Valle. Similarly, when tuning into Remind Me by Patrice Rushen, I was delighted to hear clear, distortion-free vocals, layered with smooth, tonally accurate bass and controlled percussion. Even at higher volumes, vocals didn’t sound muddied in the overall mix and higher pitched percussion didn’t get tinny either. That sort of performance is exactly what I’d expect from a pair of the best open ear headphones.

Sure, there are no fancy audio codecs, like LDAC, for a more detailed sonic experience, but the AeroClip were still pretty well-rounded, considering some similarly priced rivals struggle to even manage clean, balanced sound.

When listening to wyd? by wev, I encountered a couple of sonic shortcomings, though. First up, the track’s deep bass was a little much for the AeroClip to handle at times. I could almost hear the drivers overextending themselves to manage the tune’s low-end, something you’re not going to experience when using a pair of the best earbuds, for instance. Secondly, I felt that the excitable treble was a little understated, meaning the record’s energy was sapped out slightly.

There wasn’t much I could do about that first point, but help was at hand for my treble trouble. I took to the Soundcore app and created my own custom EQ – one which put a bit more emphasis on high-end frequencies, while also bumping bass and slightly lowering mids. That gave the AeroClip a far more colorful, charismatic sound profile than the balanced, yet sometimes slightly unexciting Soundcore Signature tuning.

On top of custom EQ options, you can also pick from a small selection of presets: Bass, Treble, or Volume Booster (all pretty self-explanatory), or Classical (big dips in the mids, large bumps to bass, sub-bass and treble) and Podcast (essentially the opposite of that). With the right tuning, you’re going to get energetic, yet crisp highs, clean mids and relatively rich bass – just don’t expect these to reach into the depths of sub bass with too much skill.

However, one characteristic of the Soundcore AeroClip that will either make or break your listening experience is their open design. As I mentioned earlier, their lack of a proper seal means that a lot of noise from your surroundings will creep through. Now, if you’re someone that loves a good run and you want to keep an ear out for traffic or people around you, that could be ideal.

But personally, I prefer to focus on my tunes and the lack of external noise nixing really did prevent that at times. Chatter in public, wind and even typing in my office were all very much audible – there’s no ANC or anything to counter that either, something the Edifier LolliClip open ears supply. These Soundcore headphones are also prone to leaking sound to those around you, especially above 50% volume.

There might not be any ANC, but what features do these open ear headphones offer? Well, if you head into the very slick Soundcore app, you can mess around with the aforementioned EQ options, toggle multi-point or customize touch controls. And the touch controls were really responsive in my experience. You can double tap to pause or triple tap to skip – the absence of a single tap option means you’re unlikely to make accidental, unwanted adjustments too.

What’s here works very nicely, but I would have liked to see a more fleshed out feature-set, in honesty – even just the addition of auto-pausing media when you remove the buds from your ears. Another aspect that could be better is battery life. You get a respectable eight hours of playtime per charge, which I found to be accurate during my testing. But with the charging case, you only get a maximum of 24 hours – not that much compared to the 40 hours from the Honor Earbuds Open, for instance.

Before I put an end to my moaning, I want to point out a couple of slight design shortcomings. Firstly, these are only IPX4 waterproof rating, meaning there’s no guarantee on dustproofing and you’re only getting resistance against sweat and water droplets. A lot of rivals outdo the AeroClip here – the splendid Huawei FreeArc, for example, are IP57 rated, meaning they can survive submersion under a meter of water for 30 minutes.

Secondly, I’d argue that these aren’t the prettiest buds around. I quite like the look of the batteries and buds, but the clips do appear slightly cheap-looking. On the other hand, these are still highly comfortable and secure on-ear, so you’ll never have to worry about them flinging off mid-workout.

Having said all this, I want to end on a real positive note: mic quality. These open ears claim to deliver AI-enabled clear calls. And I found them to be plenty clear – though I’m not so sure how much of that is thanks to AI. During a phone call, I was told that my voice sounded “crisp”, even at lower volumes – something that I also felt when listening back to a voice recording.

So all in all, are the Soundcore AeroClip worth a $129.99 / £129.99 outlay? I’m not 100% sure. If you’re only after an open design, I’d say yes – you get great sound for this headphone type, as well as impressive calling capabilities. But if you want noise cancelling and a more premium design, I’d suggest pursuing a pair of the best wireless earbuds instead, for awesome audio and ANC.

Edifier LolliClip review: specs

Anker Soundcore AeroClip review: price and availability

• $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210)
• Launched in March 2025

The Anker Soundcore AeroClip released in March 2025, marking the manufacturer’s latest foray into the world of open ear headphones. They launched with a list price of $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210) and are available in three colorways: Midnight (black); Rosy Brown (pink and brown) ; and the variant I tested, Champagne Mist (white and gold).

These are very similar in price to the Nothing Ear (open), which launched at the tail-end of 2024. And they’ll set you back far less than a premium option like the wonderful Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which carry a sizeable list price of $299 / £299 / AU$449.95…woah!

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Anker Soundcore AeroClip review: also consider

Anker Soundcore AeroClip review: How I tested

• Tested for one week
• Used in the office and while out and about
• Predominantly tested using Tidal

I put the Anker Soundcore AeroClip to the test over a one week period. I predominantly listened in the office, but also made use of them at home and when out and about. I tinkered with each and every feature, engaged in both casual and critical listening and compared them with the Edifier LolliClip for on-ear comfort.

When listening to music, I tapped into Tidal on my Samsung Galaxy S24 FE. And as per usual, I flicked through the whole TechRadar testing playlist, which includes tracks from a wide range of genres and is optimized for judging sound quality across the frequencies. In addition, I played a bunch of tunes from my personal library.

• First reviewed: April 2025
• Read more about how we test