Anker’s original SoundCore was a pretty popular Bluetooth speaker. Anker made headlines and customers pretty happy with the fact that it offered 24 hours of battery life (that’s continuous playback, not battery life period), as well as offering up an incredible sounding speaker. Now, the company is back with a brand new Bluetooth speaker, and it’s the successor to the SoundCore, the SoundCore 2. This one features upgraded drivers, bigger bass and the same great 24 hours of playback – which is around 500 songs. We’ve been testing out the SoundCore 2 for a few weeks now, and have a few thoughts about the speaker, so lets see how good, or bad it truly is.
The SoundCore 2 features 66-feet of Bluetooth range, which is enough to have your SoundCore 2 sitting across the room from the device it’s connected too, or even in another room. Of course, having it closer is always a good thing for latency. It’s pretty easy to pair the SoundCore 2 to any device. Simply power on the SoundCore 2, then press the Bluetooth button on the right side until you hear it enter pairing mode. From there, you’ll be able to simply find the SoundCore 2 in the list of Bluetooth devices nearby. It’s quite simple. The only way this would be simpler is if Anker had added NFC support, which would have been nice, but likely would drive up the price a bit – and leave less room for a battery.
When it comes to the audio playing out of the SoundCore 2, it sounds great. It uses two 6W drivers to drive some great sounding audio to your ears. It also has some deep bass, which is great for songs with a lot of bass – typically in the Hip Hop and Rap genres. The SoundCore 2 benefits from Anker’s own BassUp technology. This technology allows the SoundCore 2 to offer a wider sound range and also offer some pretty deep lows. Now when it come to mids and highs, they are still crystal clear, which is actually pretty impressive when you think about it. Now let’s be clear about the audio coming out of the SoundCore 2, it’s not going to be a great fit for those audiophiles out there. It doesn’t offer HiFi audio, although that would be nice to see on the SoundCore 2 at this price. This speaker is more for those that want something that sounds good, has long battery life and is lightweight – and portable. And the SoundCore 2 definitely fits that profile quite nicely.
Besides the audio quality, another important aspect of the Anker SoundCore 2 is indeed the battery life. Again, how portable can a portable speaker be if battery life isn’t great. And well it is. We didn’t time the speaker to see that it would last 24 hours of continuous playback, but it did last us basically an entire week, of using it at our desk while we were working. Anker claims the battery can last through about 500 songs, there are some variables at play here like the genre of music and the volume, but it does last quite a while. It definitely lasts as long as the SoundCore did, which was impressive in its own right.
Now we can’t forget that the SoundCore 2 is also IPX5 water-resistant, allowing you to take the SoundCore 2 with you to the beach, or to the pool and not worry about it getting damaged. Anker has a flap on the right side which houses all of the ports. There’s a micro USB and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Micro USB to charge the SoundCore 2 and then a 3.5mm jack for connecting directly to your smartphone, laptop or something else.
The Anker SoundCore 2 is available exclusively on Amazon right now. You’ll find it for under $50, the prices do typically fluctuate quite a bit over on Amazon, and at the time of writing this, it’s available for just $41.99. And when you think about everything that the Anker SoundCore 2 offers in its package, the sub-$50 price point is a bargain for this speaker. It’s portable, it has great sound, great battery life, and a great price. Definitely hard to go wrong there. Anker does also offer up a 18-month warranty on the SoundCore 2.
Buy the Anker SoundCore 2
