In this review we tested the latest budget on-ear headphones from Anker, the Soundcore H30i. Priced at only £30/$35, the H30i promise a monstrous 70 hours of playtime, powerful bass through 40mm drivers and a lightweight design of only 183g. So how do they hold up?
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Anker Soundcore H30i Review: Summary
Throughout our time with the Anker Soundcore H30i, we were particularly impressed with the premium feel of their construction. They feature soft cushion earpads and the quality plastic design is sleek and comparable to more expensive models. They are also highly portable and fold neatly for taking them with you on the go. Sound quality is average. Out of the box they sound bassy, warm and lively. Sound is not their best feature and it lacks slightly in clarity and bass quality. They share a lot with the Q20i, which we recently reviewed, and the upside of these is their portability: they’re smaller and lighter whilst maintaining their quality feel.
Read the full review below for the details.
Our Rating: 7.2/10
Pros
- Premium construction
- Battery life
- Portability
Cons
- Bass quality
- Comfort with glasses
Who are the Anker Soundcore H30i for?
If you’re looking for on-ear headphones, with their excellent lightweight portability, the H30i are a decent choice and provide great value and build quality for their budget price.
Who are the Anker Soundcore H30i not for?
Unless you especially want on-ear headphones, we would usually recommend over-ear headphones, which fully surround the ear. They provide far better noise isolation and comfort, especially for those who wear glasses.
Anker Soundcore H30i Review: In the Box
In the box you get the headphones, a 3.5mm AUX cord, and a USB-C cable for charging.
Design and Comfort
The Anker Soundcore H30i have a sleek and simplistic look to them. Despite being mostly plastic, they feel like a much more expensive pair of headphones. The quality of the smooth plastic is excellent. The ear pads are soft but feel secure. The headband has the ideal amount of padding to keep them on your head whilst maintaining comfort. There’s no creakiness at all when stretching the headband or swivelling the earcups which is nice to see.
The headphones fold neatly at the hinges by the earcups which adds to their portability. The right earcup houses all of the ports and buttons, including USB-C and 3.5mm ports, a volume rocker and a play/pause/on-off button.
Comfort-wise, they are somewhat mixed. One of the big downsides of on-ear headphones is that the earcups sit on and push into the ear, rather than comfortably surround them like over-ears do. For that reason, these are not the most comfortable headphones, especially with glasses, but they aren’t too different to other on-ear headphones. Just bear this in mind if you’re thinking of picking them up. As a glasses wearer, they start to feel uncomfortable after around 30 minutes.
Features
The Anker Soundcore H30i have a modest, yet complete, set of features. You get Bluetooth 5.3 for stable wireless connections, adjustable EQ through the useful Soundcore app, and multipoint connection to make switching between devices easy.
The Bluetooth connection was solid during our time testing the headphones, and at no point did the connection drop or suffer any issues.
We have mentioned in other reviews that the Soundcore app is excellent, allowing the EQ settings to be easily changed to a variety of presets. With the H30i you can also input a custom EQ so that you can fine tune the sound to your liking.
Multipoint is a useful feature, it automatically detects which input device is playing sound and switches accordingly. This is useful if you’re, say, listening to something on your tablet but get a call on your phone. In this case, the headphones would switch over to the phone audio. Multipoint does not let you listen to two different Bluetooth devices at once.
Battery Life
Battery life is an area the Soundcore H30i truly shine. You get a whopping 70 hours of playtime, that’s nearly three solid days!
In a hurry and forgot to charge your headphones? A quick 5-minute charge will net you four hours of listening time. That’s brilliant.
We didn’t have any issues with the battery during our time testing the H30i. It just went on, and on, and on.
Sound Quality
Out of the box, the Soundcore H30i are very bassy, and it can get a bit excessive on some songs. Thankfully, if this isn’t your thing, you can either select another EQ preset or create a custom one in the Soundcore app. The ‘flat’ preset allows for a more balanced sound, though bass heavy parts of songs still have a clear thump to them.
The H30i provide a fun listening experience, the sound is lively and powerful and they would suit someone who just wants to throw them on, kick back and listen to some tunes.
These are warm-sounding headphones, and this extends across all frequencies. Bass quality isn’t their strong suit, there’s plenty of it but it can sound bland and excessively boom-y. On the default EQ, the bass can also overpower the other frequencies on some songs. Mids are great – clear and articulate. Speech, guitar and other midrange notes stand out nicely and have a good punch. Treble performance is fairly balanced and the headphones’ warm quality is especially apparent in this range. Notes are clear enough but don’t sing.
There’s not much spaciousness to the sound but that’s mostly a limitation of on-ear headphones. They are perfectly adequate for giving a sense of direction to the sound while listening.
Clarity is ok, nothing special but far from bad, especially at this price point. It can be overshadowed by the bass and the relatively narrow soundstage in some instances.
We conclude that the sound quality is average with the H30i, it’s not their strongest feature but will meet expectations for most listeners. If you’re getting these headphones, it’s for their excellent design, build quality, battery life and portability, otherwise you might consider other options…
Should you get the H30i or the Q20i?
We recently reviewed the Anker Soundcore Q20i and gave them an impressive 8.6/10. The H30i have a lot in common with the Q20i: for one, both have a similar sound profile out of the box. They also have multiple differences.
The Q20i have Active Noise Cancellation whereas the H30i are more portable, being on-ear headphones, and actually weigh 60g less than the Q20i. The sound quality of the Q20i is superior with better quality bass, clarity and soundstage but the H30i have a more premium-feeling construction.
Overall, unless you are particularly keen for the slightly cheaper price of the H30i, or the added portability of on-ear headphones, we would recommend the Q20i. They have far better noise cancellation capabilities with their ANC and over-ear design, but the drawback is that they are physically larger and a touch more expensive. The H30i are still decent headphones if the Q20i don’t appeal to you.
Click here to read our review of the Soundcore Q20i.
Anker Soundcore H30i Review: Overall Ratings
Design: 8.5/10
Comfort: 7/10
Features: 7/10
Sound Quality: 6.5/10
Overall Rating: 7.2/10
With their excellent portability and long battery life, the Anker Soundcore H30i are great headphones for busy listeners on the go. Their sound quality meets expectations and they have a quality feel and design.
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