Anker Soundcore Space Q45 (Reviewed)

Over the last year and a half, I’ve reviewed a number of Soundcore ANC headsets – the Q20, Q30, and Q35 (and even a pair of ANC earbuds). Through the reviews of those, I’ve been so very pleasantly surprised by just how well they worked at the pricepoints they come in at. Now that we’ve hit a three-digit pricetag, will the march of progress hold up? We’ve been spending time with the Anker Soundcore Space Q45, and can give you that answer.

Well, to be fair, the Q35 also hit north of $100 (and to recap that review, I felt that the Q35 was definitely the best in terms of comfort, build, and capabilities of the three that had been released at that time). For $20 more, the Anker Soundcore Space Q45 is definitely worth it. For one, they’ve improved the headband design. On the older ones, you could end up with a seperation where the slider met the padded part of the headband. This will happen more if you’ve got a larger head, and you can cinch things back together with a ziptie (at least, we did on our Q20s). With the Q45, though, they’ve changed up that design, which should make things a bit more robust over time.

Another big change with the Anker Soundcore Space Q45 is the playtime. With ANC on (and I’m not sure why you wouldn’t use ANC) you can get 50H of runtime, a boost of 10 hours over what came previously. In other words, you can use these all week long for work, and then charge them over the weekend and be ready to go again on Monday.

They’ve also improved the ANC functionality, both in terms of what hits your ears, as well as in what the mics let through on a call. To put that simply – when I’m on a call, and typing away on a mechanical keyboard, none of those clicks make it through, nor does the sound of the HVAC unit that I sit near.

In terms of what hits my ears, it does a great job of filtering out all that background noise. You can still hear some (so when there’s an unexpected crash you’ll notice it), but by and large it lets you focus. And that’s with nothing playing.

On a call or pushing some podcasts or music, you can really focus in. For spoken word, the Anker Soundcore Space Q45 perform great. With music, it does a pretty good job of reproducing the sounds. If you’re looking for super-heavy bass you won’t have that here. Sure, you can adjust the EQ and try the presets, and get decent sound, don’t get me wrong. This is just a headset that’s designed more for all-around usage.

All in all, the Anker Soundcore Space Q45 feels like a worthy update to the lineup, particularly with the redesigned headband, improved battery life, and the improvements to the noise cancellation and mics. If I were deciding between this and the Q35s, I’d say the Q45 is worth the extra coin. Check out the full range over at soundcore.com