Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max Review: Wireless Earbuds With Enough Features to Make Your Head Spin

It seems like every pair of wireless earbuds has loftier ambitions nowadays. Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 are vehicles for real-time translation and heart rate monitoring; Nothing has integrated ChatGPT into its buds; researchers (and also potentially Apple ) are working on cramming cameras inside wireless earbuds , which, needless to say, would open the door to quite a few features that we’ve never seen before. As it turns out, Soundcore, a sub-brand of Anker, is also clearly very interested in elevating the form factor. Its newest pair of wireless earbuds, the $229 Liberty 5 Pro Max, is built from the ground up to do more than buds of yore. Like… a lot more. 4 Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max Feature-rich wireless earbuds with transcription, translation, and screen-clad charging case that all work fairly well. Pros Ridiculously good ANC Equally as good ENC for quiet calls Transcription works well Convenient screen Cons Almost too many features to sort through Translation works well, but not better than an app Sound is good but not great Highlight features might be niche for some Another Pro Max enters the chat The Liberty 5 Pro Max—Soundcore joins Dell and Xiaomi in copying the iPhone’s Pro Max moniker—have a lot more going on than your typical pair of wireless earbuds. In addition to audio playback, the Liberty 5 Pro Max promise a few other features, including AI transcription and translation. Before I get into those, there’s something else worth addressing that you don’t see every day: a case with a screen. Undoubtedly, the charging case with a 1.78-inch AMOLED display will be the first thing most people notice about the Liberty 5 Pro Max. I’ve tried other transcription earbuds with screens on them in the past and found them to be mostly frivolous and lacking, but I like the Liberty 5 Pro Max’s screen. It’s bright, smooth, and appropriately sensitive to touch inputs. Swiping (which you can do in four directions) feels mostly refined and intuitive, and allows you access to all sorts of features inside the buds, including translation, transcription, noise cancellation modes, EQ, device connectivity, and settings. There’s also a battery readout and a menu that shows you what audio is playing. There were some failed inputs from time to time, though I don’t know if they rose to the level of aggravating. The swipe up to access the features menu could be smoother. © James Pero / Gizmodo There’s an option to turn the case into a shutter button with a remote camera feature, which is interesting. You launch your camera app and then press the button on the charging case’s screen to take a picture. Most people will probably just opt for the timer on their phone, but I guess it’s an novel idea. There’s a slight delay, but it does work. What’s extra nice about having a screen with so much functionality is that you don’t have to go into your phone and pull open an app