Anker SoundBuds Surge Bluetooth Headphones Review

Whether you’re hitting the gym or just need some music to get you through the work day, the Anker SoundBuds Surge have impressive sound quality and great battery life.

Sound Quality

The SoundBuds Surge sound best when pressed firmly into your ear, creating a seal that helps isolate your music from the outside world. When seated tightly in my ear, I found the mids and highs to be crisp and clear and the bass to be prominent without sounding muddy.

However, if the SoundBuds Surge start to work themselves loose because of high activity and sweat, the bass response becomes non-existent. For the best sound, you may find the Surge better to wear while lifting weights at the gym or while sitting at your desk working. They tend to become loose during running, but you can still hear your music as the wing tips and shirt collar clip help keep the earbuds from falling out completely.

Design

The SoundBuds Surge are similar in design to the Jaybird X3 Bluetooth earbuds. Each earbud has a “wing tip” attachment that helps to hold the earbud in your ear. In addition, a shirt collar clip is located on the wire as well as clip to control excess slack.

The inline remote is located a small distance down the wire from the right earbud. The remote contains three buttons:

• Play/Pause: Tap it to play or pause your music. Hold it down for 1 seconds to invoke Siri or Google Assistant. Hold it down longer to the power the earbuds on and off. Tapping it also answers an incoming phone call.
• Up: Tap it to increase the volume. Hold it down to skip to the next track.
• Down: Tap it to decrease the volume. Hold it down to rewind the current track.

The remote also contains the microphone to use with phone calls and Siri/Google Assistant. The remote is somewhat larger than what you would find on wired Apple EarPods, but the included shirt clip helps alleviate the added weight. This prevents the weight of the remote from tugging on the right earbud.

The earbuds are magnetic and can snap together when not in use to help prevent cord tangling.

Comfort

I found the SoundBuds Surge to be very comfortable to wear. The ear-tips and wings are very soft and conform to my ear well. I really appreciate the shirt clip as it helps to prevent the cord from sticking to my neck and, in turn, prevents tugging on the earbuds when I turn my head.

Features

In addition to playing music, the SoundBuds Surge can be used to answer phone calls, although the noise cancellation design on the earbuds can make it sound like you’re talking underwater. The SoundBuds Surge can also be used with Siri or Google Assistant by holding down the Play button for one second.

The SoundBuds Surge have a water-resistant nano-coating, but the specific IPX rating was not disclosed at the time of this review. I’ve used them for a few workout sessions so far and have not noticed any issues with sweat.

Battery Life

The SoundBuds Surge can be recharged with a 1 amp USB charger (not included, but your phone charger will likely work) and a Micro USB cable (included). The SoundBuds Surge takes about 1.5 hours to recharge, which gets you up to 6 hours of play time. The charging port is located on the inline remote under the rubber flap. You’ll want to make sure that this flap is closed prior to working out to prevent sweat from entering the unit.