Anker Soundcore P31i

3.5 / 5

Good

pros and cons

Pros

• Compact set of earbuds that fit comfortably in my ears
• Surprisingly good sound quality for the price
• Several color options

Cons

• The app could be a little more intuitive
• You'll want to look elsewhere for effective ANC

$39.99 at Amazon

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One downside of being deep in the Apple ecosystem is that you become accustomed to thinking you have to pay at least $130 for decent earbuds. Yes, AirPods are great, but they're also expensive. I love my AirPods Pro , with their amazing sound quality and incredible features. But at $250 (plus $89 each time you lose an earbud), they're ridiculously expensive.

And yes, I've lost earbuds. In fact, I've lost three in the past year. One popped out of my ear while getting onto a busy train in Spain, another was whipped out of my ear by a gust of wind and carried down a ridge, and another fell out of my ear into a small patch of long grass no bigger than a couple of feet square. I searched that patch for at least half an hour before concluding that it had slipped into a different dimension.

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So, I've been on the lookout for some cheap earbuds. I do like bone conduction headphones, but I miss the noise cancellation when I'm around other people. Since I hate old-school over-ear headphones, earbuds are my go-to option. 

I decided to give the Anker Soundcore P31i a try. After all, they cost me less than a replacement earbud for my AirPods Pro, and according to the spec sheet, they're packed with AI (what isn't these days?). 

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Anker Soundcore P31i

These earbuds deliver fantastic battery life, incredible sound, great active noise cancellation, and a neat AI translation feature, all for $40. 

View at Amazon

Don't be surprised by the design

Externally, the Soundcore P31i look like pretty much any other set of earbuds. They're tiny and fit snugly in your ears. When not in use, they live in their charging case. The earbuds provide about 10 hours of runtime on a single charge for normal audio playback, and the case, which is quite a bit larger than the case for my AirPods Pro, offers enough power to extend the runtime to 50 hours. 

Activate noise cancellation, and the earbuds' runtime drops to eight hours, with the case extending that to 40 hours.

If your earbuds need a charge, 10 minutes in the case is enough to provide 3.5 hours of use.

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Battery life is definitely a strong point for the Soundcore P31i. Getting 40 to 50 hours of runtime out of the package blows away the 24 hours I get from my AirPods Pro.

The case also does a good job of holding the earbuds in place when they're rattling around in a gym bag or pocket. Unlike some earbud cases I've used, it's easy to drop the earbuds into this case, and they're automatically aligned and held in place using magnets.

Speaking of the earbuds, they're lightweight and comfortable to wear. They come with medium silicone ear tips, and the box includes three sizes. There's a touchpad on the side for controlling the earbuds. There are a few presses and taps to learn, and some commands are earbud-specific (left or right), but they're not too hard to master. 

Initially, I kept fumbling with the buds because I'm so used to the AirPod-based way of doing things. However, after a day or so, the controls became second nature, and I found myself fumbling with my AirPods instead.

If you hate having touchpads on your earbuds, I have good news: you can disable them.

How do they sound?

I use earbuds for a variety of things, from listening to music, audiobooks, and YouTube videos to making phone calls. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I've dealt with my fair share of tinny headphones and earbuds, meaning I can appreciate something decent. 

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That's how I'd rate the Soundcore P31i experience -- decent. Sound quality is rich and clear, with good bass (which I find helps prevent people from cranking their earbuds or headphones too loud). They have a good range and handle both loud and quiet sounds well.

The active noise cancellation (ANC) is another strong point. According to Anker, the Soundcore P31i reduces noise by up to 52dB. In the figures I've found for Apple, the AirPods Pro 3 ANC mechanism reduces environmental sound by up to 32dB (based on ANSI and ISO tests), whereas the figures for the Soundcore P31i lack regulatory support. 

In my very non-scientific testing, it feels like the Soundcore earbuds deaden sound better than my AirPods Pro, but this could be due to any number of reasons (from my AirPods Pro being more worn to my ears being more or less sensitive to certain frequencies).

To move testing beyond my own ears, I asked a few other people, and most agreed that the Soundcore earbuds were better at noise cancellation. Based on these tests, I'm willing to say that these buds do a good job of blocking out noise.

The Soundcore P31i earbuds are also very good at isolating your voice from background noise when making calls or recording videos. They use six microphones along with noise-reduction algorithms and the obligatory AI magic. I've used many headphones and earbuds, and these are among the best for audio pickup and clarity. 

I tested the buds in various scenarios, from noisy cafes to a windblown clifftop, and the audio quality was consistently very good. I even did blind tests, making calls with either the Soundcore P31i or my AirPods Pro. While you can definitely spot the difference between the two -- each has its own distinctive output -- it's hard to say which is better.

One thing is for sure: the Soundcore P31i earbuds perform exceptionally well for the price.

Since you'll likely use these buds outdoors (and possibly sweating), they've been built to IP55 specifications for dust and water-resistance. This capability means they're partially protected from dust (whatever gets in won't interfere with operation) and can resist splashes and low-pressure water jets.

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The earbuds also pair with the Soundcore app (available for iOS and Android), which unlocks some of the AI features. One of the big features highlighted in the marketing is AI translation. I've never been a fan of apps that come with earbuds, but I have to say that Soundcore has improved this app over time. 

While the interface could still use some streamlining, the translation feature works surprisingly well. It covers more than a hundred languages and performs impressively. From what I can gather, the technology is powered by Microsoft's Azure AI Speech services, so it's not specific to Anker or Soundcore.

The app also handles other features, such as tweaking noise-cancellation settings and customizing EQ controls. 

It's not a bad app, with many features, but it could be more streamlined. 

's buying advice

And you get all of this for under $40. Yes, the whole package costs less than half of what a replacement AirPod Pro earbud costs me. The only thing I miss when switching from my AirPods Pro to the Soundcore P31i is the tight integration between Apple's hardware and its software ecosystem. Even on Android, the Soundcore experience isn't as seamless.

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That said, the Anker Soundcore P31i earbuds offer an incredible experience and are among the best earbuds I've used. It's hard to fault them. Sure, I can nitpick about the app, wish for a more rubberized or less slippery charging case, or complain that the charging cable has a USB-A connector instead of USB-C. I could even grumble that the case's lanyard hole doesn't have a lanyard. But these are all minor issues.

Oh, and you get a choice of colors -- black , light blue , and pink . 

For $40, these earbuds offer exceptional quality. I'd say the same even if they were priced at $75 or maybe even $99. 

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