Anker’s Soundcore sub-brand has quietly dominated the open-ear audio market over the past couple of years, primarily by delivering capable hook-style earbuds at remarkably accessible price points. The new Soundcore AeroClip 2 marks a shift upmarket. Launching today for £159.99 on Amazon* and the Soundcore Store in Midnight Black, Cloud White, Mist Blue, and Burgundy Red, these arrive as Soundcore’s flagship open-ear product, abandoning the traditional over-ear hook for a C-bridge cuff design.
To see if a £140 premium is justified, we pitted the AeroClip 2 head-to-head against Anker’s entry-level benchmark, the Soundcore V20i. The V20i is a model with an RRP of £49.99 that frequently sits between £25 and £30 on Amazon.
The Hardware: Compact Matte vs Bulky Plastic
The physical contrast between the two models is immediate. Because hook-style open-ear buds require horizontal space to dock, the V20i comes in a wide, pill-shaped charging case that feels light, hollow, and plasticky. The AeroClip 2, arriving in zero-plastic packaging, cuts a completely different figure. Its matte charging case is roughly one-third the physical size, offering a dense weight and a much sharper finish. Soundcore achieves this with an interior nesting layout; it takes a few tries to build the muscle memory for slotting them in correctly, but the pocketability makes the slight learning curve well worth it.
The Aeroclip 2 (left) shown against the V20i (right)
On the ear, the C-bridge design clamps gently around the outer cartilage. While the rubberised hooks of the V20i start to feel slightly niggly right where they meet the ear after three to four hours, the AeroClip 2 largely disappears. You might notice a faint, occasional pinch around the five-hour mark, but it is easily forgotten and never forces you to take them off.
One of the most welcome upgrades for everyday wear is the move to physical buttons over capacitive touch controls. On previous touch-based models, adjusting your hair or pulling on a hood could register as a false press and pause your music. The tactile mechanical buttons on the AeroClip 2 solve this completely, delivering a satisfying, deliberate click. When combined with an IP57 dust and water resistance rating, they are completely immune to the wet-weather flooding and phantom skipping that plagues many open-ear designs.
Audio Fidelity, HearID, and the Driver Trade-Off
Comparing the sound profile between Soundcore’s cheapest and most expensive open-ear models reveals an interesting acoustic trade-off. The V20i relies on massive 16mm drivers that move substantial physical air, giving them a meaty, chest-thumping punch. The AeroClip 2 scales down to 12mm drivers to maintain its compact cuff silhouette.
The dynamic is best described in one sentence: listening to the V20i feels like playing a noticeably lower-bitrate file through larger, punchier speakers. The AeroClip 2 operates with vastly superior fidelity, instrument separation, and air across the soundstage. On dense tracks from bands like Slipknot, the AeroClip 2 excels, pulling distinct layers out of the chaos that turn into muddy sludge on the V20i. However, on stripped-back rock tracks like CKY, the smaller driver footprint can leave the low end feeling slightly hollow compared to the raw thump of the budget hook.
The physical shape also impacts the listening experience outdoors. The bulky over-ear hooks of the V20i act like sails, catching turbulent air and drowning out audio in a stiff breeze. The flush, aerodynamic C-bridge of the AeroClip 2 cuts through the wind much more cleanly, making them far better for walking along blustery streets.
Crucially, installing the Soundcore app is mandatory. When testing these ahead of release, the public app had not yet updated to recognise them, and the default out-of-the-box flat profile was so underwhelming that they were barely usable. Once the update dropped, running the custom HearID listening test proved essential; it recalibrates the Tone Radar by significantly pushing the low frequencies and sub-bass, transforming the audio from thin and hollow into a rich, full-bodied experience.
While the packaging prominently advertises LDAC high-resolution codec support, practical daily testing suggests leaving it off. In open-ear listening, ambient background noise naturally obscures micro-detail, and enabling LDAC forces you to sacrifice dual-device multipoint pairing. Sticking to standard AAC preserves seamless switching between your laptop and phone with no discernible loss in real-world sound. LDAC will also use more battery, and when it dynamically adjusts its bandwidth in suboptimal conditions (which can often be a big open space with your phone in a pocket), the quality is worse at that lower bandwidth than AAC would be anyway.
Battery Life and Real-World Calling
Soundcore rates the AeroClip 2 for 8 hours on a single charge and 32 hours total with the case. Real-world endurance is excellent: during an 8.5-hour stint from 10:00 am to 6:30 pm (covering continuous Bluetooth connection across transit, lunch, and hours of mixed playback), the earbuds never once triggered a low-battery chime. If you do run flat, the case now supports wireless charging, and plugging them in provides 4 hours of playback from just a 10-minute fast charge.
Call clarity is powered by Soundcore’s new THUS AI neural-net chip and multi-mic array. In regular urban environments, coffee shops, or mild breezes, vocal transmission is crisp and background clatter is suppressed cleanly. However, if you step directly into a stiff British headwind, callers will still struggle to catch every word, exactly as they would with any wireless bud lacking a physical boom mic.
The Verdict
At £159.99, the AeroClip 2 steps directly into premium territory. Soundcore products frequently see sales later in their lifecycle, but for now, early buyers on both Amazon and the Soundcore Store get a set of official decorative clip-on charms (listed at £39.96) bundled for free.
Purchase links:
– Amazon UK product page*
– Soundcore UK store
For a breakdown of how the AeroClip 2 handles tempo runs and wet-weather cycling, see our sports review on RunningNews.UK. We were provided with a review unit of the Soundcore AeroClip 2 ahead of launch, but this did not influence our evaluation. Affiliate links above denoted by *.
- One Brand Upgrade: soundcore is now Anker soundcore. We’ve always been part of Anker — now our name says it. Same products, same quality, same team. Your app, your account, and your warranty work exactly as before. Only the name has changed.
- Guinness World Records: Anker soundcore AeroClip 2 was certified by Guinness World Records on August 31, 2026, for achieving the Highest speech quality score (G-MOS) for open-ear clip-on earbuds (objective test).
- Crystal-Clear Calls: Powered by the ANKER Thus AI chip, 4 mics and 2 VPUs isolate your voice instead of filtering noises, so you can speak naturally in 80+ dB noisy environments or whisper in quiet rooms, and still be heard clearly. Certified by Guinness World Records.
- GoldenFit Design For Secure Comfort: Built on 2,000+ ear scans, the GoldenFit C-bridge keeps a secure, comfortable hold, while the contoured acoustic and battery chambers follow your ear’s curve. At just 6.2 g per earbud, it feels barely there, even all day long.
- Deep Bass, Brilliant Highs: Enjoy Hi-Res Audio with LDAC and a 12 mm dual-magnet driver featuring an aerospace-grade metal and advanced polymer diaphragm. Hear punchy lows and detailed highs for an immersive listening experience.
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