Anker SoundBud Surge

I would like to start by saying that these were sent to be by Anker for a review.

Now on to the review.

I have a lot of Anker products. I mean a lot. I started off buying cables and from those early cable purchases I came to trust the Anker brand. I picked up an Anker battery pack as my first big Anker purchase, then I got another one and so on. But, I was nervous when I went and bought my first Anker audio item. I am a bit of an audio snob. My main over the ear headphones are Sony, my main earbuds are Jaybirds. I have had many pairs of audio cans over the years. I know there are better ones but those are my main stays. Now, even with saying the above, I am very glad that I started buying Anker sound gear. First off the cost is cheap on the Anker products. I mean super affordable. The sound has always been good on the 4 different Anker earbuds that I have, as well as the Anker Nano speaker, and the Anker Sync in my car. Anker makes some great stuff. Now, Anker did send me this pair of earbuds but my statement about how much I like the products are mine and mine alone with nothing swaying my opinion.
Now let me run down the pros and cons of this pair of SoundBud Surge ear buds.

PROS:

Comfortable and easy to wear: The SoundBud Surge are light, and fit in the ear nicely using one of the many included tips and wings to create that custom fit. I wish the cable was a flat cable or maybe a braided cable. The cable that comes on these are the same cable that has been on some of the other Anker earbud products and I have never liked it. It is a thin cable that has a weird rubber like feel. I would love to see a stronger flat style cable connecting the two earbuds.
Sound: So this is the big one. If they sound like crap you don't want to use them. Well, these sound good, but they are not great. They are not audiophile level. The SoundBud Surge have a good mid range focus. The bass is tight but not as heavy as I would like. I like a lot of bass. The highs are good but not as bright as they could be. I think the highs suffer because the mids are so potent on the SoundBud Surge. They do get loud without breaking up to bad which is a good thing.
Isolation: I found the SoundBud Surge to be very good at sealing out a lot of unwanted sounds while sealing in the sounds that you want. Once you find a good seal the bass on the SoundBud Surge will improve some. But these are still very mid range focused.
Warranty: Famous 18 month no hassle Anker warranty. The warranty works and it is that easy. I had a bad mouse and Anker took care of it with no issues.
Magnetic base: The magnet in the earbuds works very well to keep the earbuds around your neck with not in use. To bad the cable feels like crap though. I am not a fan of the cable.

CONS:

Cable: I hate it. It feels weird, it feels weak. I just don't like it.
Battery: I was getting about 5 hours of heavy use.  I was hoping for 7 to 8. But, for wireless headphones I guess 5 to 6 hours is not horrible. They charge fast so that is plus. The Micro USB charging port is located in the side of the control panel which is located on the cable of the right ear bud.
Microphone: It works fine but it is not the best that I have ever had. Now with saying that. I would be willing to bet that if you have not had many, many, pairs of headphones with a microphone you would probably not notice any issues. The calls were good I would not say the calling was as good as when using a dedicated phone bluetooth ear piece.

So in conclusion:
I like the fit, I like the sound (I don't love it, but I like it). I hate the cable. I like that the earbuds pair easily and seems to do ok as far as connection range.
I think they are great for the price. you won't really have to worry about someone stealing them or losing them cause if something does happen you will not be out a lot of money.  Just be careful with the cord. It maybe fine but I think it is the weakest link in this product.

Here is a link to the Anker SoundBud Surge earbuds.

Anker SoundBuds Tag Bluetooth Earbuds

I have had several pair of headphones and earbuds in my time. Some expensive and others have been cheap throw aways, the kind given out at conferences. When Anker sent me this pair for review I was very excited. I was also very surprised at how well these earbuds compared to my Jaybird earbuds. So below is my review and comparison of the Anker SoundBuds Tag Earbuds. What I like. What I don't like and how they compare to my Jaybirds. I will start with a short overview.

  The Anker SoundBuds Tag earbuds came with a small soft storage bag, a sizing clip, ear wings in three different sizes, ear bud tips in three different sizes, 18 month warranty and a claim of six hours of play time. I used the SoundBuds as much as possible for about a week before I started to write this review. But it was not that hard to commit to the SoundBuds as they really are a nice pair of earbuds and a complete joy to use. I think one of my favorite features is how the earbuds turn on and off simply via the magnetic connection. Another nice feature is when you pull them apart they automatically reconnect to the last known device. I found this whole process to be a huge plus in my book. Now let me break down what I thought about the Anker SoundBuds Tag earbuds. I will start with my dislikes.

Dislikes:

1. The case: Yes the case is a nice size and has a nice opening and closing mechanism. My complaint is the super soft material it's self. It grips to the inside of your pocket making it annoying to both insert and to remove from your pockets easily.
2. The actual cable: My Jaybirds have a flat cable that feels study and looks really good. I really think that that all headphones should adopt this style of cable. The cable on the Anker earbuds are a decent length, but it feels thin and does not make me real confident as far as long term use.
3. The cable sizing clip: I really did not like this clip.
4. Owners manual statement: The manual clearly states to not drop the earbuds. This statement concerns me.
5. The battery gives no warning when it is about to die: They just seem to die.

Likes:

1. The magnetic off and on mechanism: The earbuds are square in shape with a magnetic connection. When the earbuds are connected they are off and securely hang around your neck with little concern of falling off. To power the earbuds on and connect to their last known device simply pull them apart and they are ready to go. I really have grown to like this feature in the week that I have used them.
2. Battery life: They claim 6 hours of use and six hours is what I got. I mainly used them for music but I did make a few calls. Charge seems about on par with our other bluetooth earbuds at about two to three hours depending on charger.
3. Fit: When I took them out of the box thought these were going to fit horribly. They are square, a tad large and the earwings are different than other types that I have used. But I was wrong. Once you put them in your ears they feel great and do not fall out unless you are really moving. They hold just as well as my more expensive Jaybirds.
4. Sound: And now here is the part everyone is looking for, the sound review. Let me start by saying that I like bottom end when it comes to music. I also prefer that get that boom at low volumes. These Anker earbuds deliver nicely. I was blown away when I first hit play on Whitney Peyton’s Automatic. I was expecting to hear distortion and the sound of earbuds that simply could not handle the bass. I was so wrong, and I am glad that I was. Whitney's vocals were clear, strong and right there backing Whitney's voice was a great hard hitting bass and focused sound. I then flipped to Whitney's song Woopty Woo Woo. The results were the same. The Anker SoundBuds at both low and high volumes were delivering her vocals clear with a strong and focused bass beat behind her. I was very pleased so far. Next up Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction. The bass guitar came in strong, high hats and cymbals clear not harsh and the guitars sitting very well in the mix. Drums and vocals both sounded great. These are a bass lovers earbud. All of this is happening with the volume around 3 maybe 4. Anything louder and my ears start to hurt real bad with any earbud. I almost always run earbuds around a volume of 2 for long time listening if I can. I did crank these for a second and again they sounded great. There were many times during the week I made the comment “damn”, “my Jaybirds were four times more expensive.” I really think these SoundBuds have a very good spund to them. Especially at the price of $35.99. After a few more songs from different bands I decided to jump into some podcasts. Again clean audio. No hissing and no harshness to the audio.
5. Call quality: It's 2017 no one really talks on the phone much anymore. But, for this review I answered some calls.On all calls (3 calls) the caller started they heard me and heard me well with little to no background noise. On my end the calls sounded fine. There is really not much to say on this.

Overall thoughts:

Cable could be better but this cable may surprise me. The look is not bad, the sound is great, the calls were fine and they are only $35.99. I paid $179.99 for my Jaybirds. The SoundBuds have a look to them. But it grows on you. Overall I say if you need or want Bluetooth earbuds that won't break the bank these should be considered. I have now had these SoundBuds for almost two weeks and I am still carrying them. I am just amazed at how much bass they have and how well I like the magnetic switch. I know that Anker sent these to me for a review at no charge but they are really that good as far as sound and call quality. We will have to see how well they hold up after I continue to carry them for a while. One thing I did notice is I did hear some breakup when I was mowing and had my phone in my left front pocket. I only really noticed this while I was mowing. While I was mowing I did move my phone to my right pocket and the issue went away. I did not notice this while I was just walking and had the phone in left pocket. Your mileage may very with this one. I think the receiver is in the inline controller connected to the right earbud. I would suggest leaving the phone in your right pocket while you are using these.

Here is link to the Anker page for more information.

AnkerSoundBuds

Anker SoundBuds on Amazon

here are some photos. 

Anker Soundbuds Digital IE10

Hey everyone,

I received a set of Anker Soundbuds Digital IE10 to review and here are my thoughts.

• Packaging: The box that the headphones came in were top notch. It actually felt like I was opening the box of a new phone. 
• Cable build: Since Anker is a cable company I was pretty sure that these headphones were going to have a nice strong cable and I was right. The headphones are grey with a good cable length and a Lighting connection. There is a very nice microphone on the left earbud cable that tested very well as I made several phone calls in which everyone reported that I sounded clear with no stuttering. Siri also appeared to have no issues understanding me while I was out about through out my day. 
• Accessories: Inside the box are the following included items. Earbuds, three different sizes of ear wings which are used to help hold the earbuds in place. Three different size earbud tips. One set of deep ear canal ear plug style tips. Warranty card and user manual and a nice little zipper case to hold everything together. 
• Inline Controller: The Soundbuds have a very nice inline controller that controls play, pause, volume, tracks and an interesting preset EQ.  The controller is large, but still looks pretty good. The controls I found to be easy except for the EQ button. I hate the EQ button. I am also not overly fond of the EQ tone presets. There are 3 presets, voice enhanced, Balanced and bass boost. I found that the enhanced bass sounded the best for almost all listening. The enhanced voice actually bothered my ears as it had so much treble.  I listened to everything from Iggy Azalea to Megadeth and just about everything in between. All music sounded best with the bass enhanced setting. I then tried podcasts and even on spoken work I found the bass enhanced setting to be the best. The voice setting is just very harsh to me. I will say that these earbuds are not going to win any audiophile awards in the near future. I did find them to be pretty good overall as long as you used the enhanced bass setting and left the volume up a little. Volume was very weak which meant cranking the earbuds up to hear the music. Calls were a bit better in regards to volume but not a whole lot. Call did sound really good on them though.
• Conclusion: These earbuds come in a great package with a ton of accessories. The build quality so far seems top notch. Appearance is stunning. Volume is pretty weak unless you crank the phone all the way up. Nice microphone, inline controller is a big larger for my taste but it looks good and functions well, minus the EQ button. I do not think I will ever like that button. I just felt that it was awkward and not needed. Build the earbuds with the bass enhancement feature and forget the rest. I found Anker IE10's very easy to wear with no issues of falling out. I did not notice any fatigue while wearing them which I find to be a good thing. I guess in the end. I would consider this set of earbuds against other sets. I did not like the volume or the EQ but the rest was great. 

                                     Click here to go to Anker's product page for the IE10s

Anker Powerline Micro USB cables.

Hey everyone,

I recently received a two pack of Anker's, 3 foot long, Powerline Micro USB cables to review.
Here are my thoughts on the cables.

• Build: I have used Anker Cables for as long as I can remember and I have never had a build quality issue with the cables. My daughters use the Anker Lighting cables for their iPhone's and my wife, son and I all use Anker Micro USB cables for our Android phones. I would say between the six of us we have about thirty Anker cables and none of them have ever failed. They also do not seem to restrict the charging speeds like some cables do have a tendency to do. My family has yet to have one break even when they get caught in car doors. I have never had one that was not recognized by the device it was plugged into. I know these are simple cables, but I have had great luck with these cables. Here is an example of our Anker cables usage. I have Three Anker micro USB and one Anker Lighting cable in my car to supply power to everyone. The wife has four Anker micro USB and two Anker Lighting cables in her car providing power. My girls all carry an Anker Lighting cable and charger in their purses. My wife has an Anker micro USB cable in her purse and my son and I both carry Anker micro USB cables and chargers in our bags. The cables are just solid. 
• Warranty: Anker has a hassle free 18 month warranty. It just works. I had an Anker mouse that failed after a few months and Anker replaced it. Simple. I emailed them the issue, gave them the order number and they sent me a replacement. Simple, easy, and convenient. 
• Cost: Anker products cost a lot less then they could charge. I have never felt that an Anker product was over priced. 

In conclusion. I just don't think you can wrong with Anker. You can purchase Anker on Amazon and I am now seeing Anker products at Walmart. 

I received this Anker two pack of Powerline Micro USB cables for review from Anker and was very happy to write this short review. 

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerLine-Micro-USB-3ft/dp/B012VWH6PQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1493606500&sr=8-2&keywords=anker+powerline+micro+usb+3ft

https://www.anker.com/products/A8131011

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Anker-3-Pack-PowerLine-Micro-USB-3ft-World-s-Fastest-Durable-Charging-Cable-Assorted-Lengths-Samsung-Nexus-LG-Motorola-Android-Smartphones-Black/114206735

Video Review 

Anker Astro E1 Review.

Disclaimer: This battery was sent to me by Anker to be reviewed. I would also like to add that I have several Anker products and I really like the Anker products and feel they are wonderful devices. Now on to my thoughts of the battery.

The Anker Astro E1 is a member of a very large proud family of portable external batteries. Some are smaller than the E1 like the Anker Astro Mini but most are larger like the Anker 2nd Gen Astro3. So if you are in the market for a portable battery Anker should have something to cover all of your needs.

The Model that was sent to me was the Anker Astro E1. The unit ships in a nice small brown box that has a form fitting cardboard liner. The box contains the following: Astro E1, small micro USB cable, warranty information, and an information card that discusses the IQ charging technology used by Anker for these products. The instructions for the battery are in the form of a full color slip that wraps around the product box.

Once you open the package you will find either a white or black battery of your choosing. The Astro E1 is a decent size. Coming in at 3.8 inches in length, 1.7 inches in width and 0.9 inches in height and a weight of 4.2 ounces, This unit is still quite easy to carry in your pocket. I actually found the cable to be more annoying to carry in my pocket. But that is probably a personal annoyance.
The body of the battery is very well constructed and shows excellent fit and finish when compared to some of the other external batteries that I have. I definitely will say that I prefer the fit and finish of this unit when compared to others.

The Anker Astro E1 is super easy to use. The battery has only one button and two USB ports. The button is used to check the power level in conjunction with the four blue LED lights on the face of the device. On the top of the device one will find a micro USB port which is used to charge the Astro E1. I found the device to charge in about five hours using the supplied cable and my Anker 5-port 25 watt desktop USB charging block. The other port is the Anker IQ smart USB port. The claim here is that when you plug a device into this IQ port, the port will be able to provide the connected device with the proper charging output for optimal charging of the attached device. I have a few Anker products with this and it appears to work. I really have no way of actually testing the claim. I can say however that I have plugged several devices into the various Anker IQ ports that I have in my possession and have never had an issue.

When it came time to charge my phones the Astro E1 did not disappoint. I was able to take my Galaxy S3 from a 20% charge to a 100% charge in about 1.5 hours. I then took the Astro and charge my LG G2 from 34% to 100% in about an hour. During this time the battery did not get annoyingly hot like some batteries that I have used. So I have no complaints there. Now I am sure that if you were in a warm area or were using the device while it was charging the battery would possible get warm. But simply laying it on my desk to charge both of my phones. I did not notice allot of heat.

 LG G2 and the Anker Astro E1

Another great point to make before I tell you the price of the unit is that Anker offers a no hassle warranty for 18 months as well as a cash back guarantee for the first 30 days. On top of that you will also get tech support for the life of the product. I have had to use the Anker no hassle warranty once in the past. It was a complete dream. I simply contacted them via email, provided the amazon order number and new mouse was at my door in just a few days. Super easy! Now for the part everyone is waiting for.
The price for the Anker Astro E1 $15.99 on Amazon which is Anker’s preferred vendor. For the build quality of this unit along with the warranty this seems like a great deal.
Here is a link to the Amazon page for the Astro E1.

In closing. If you are in the market for an external battery I do not think a person can go wrong with an Anker product. The Astro E1 is great. I am actually looking at a larger Anker battery for camping and I think I am going to get the Anker external battery that can also jump start your car. Here is the link to that product. Anker’s newest battery. You can find all of the Anker products on Amazon as well as on their website which is here.

Again, I was given this unit to review by the Anker company.

More Thoughts on my Chromebook

So, I got an HP 11 when they first became available and I am still using it to this day. Actually. I am stilling loving it to this day.

I am an IT professional in a Windows world. All day and night I am in front of a Windows machine fixing, poking, testing and of course griping. When I am not working I prefer the simple, clean and somewhat minimalist Chrome Operating System. Now don’t get me wrong, I feel that if connected to the web one could do most needed or desired tasks with a chrome OS device. I for example do most if not all of my blogging, learning, researching, writing, etc. etc. . All from the comfort of my very lightweight and cool running HP Chromebook. I simply love this machine. Well, I love the OS and like my current Chromebook.

The HP Chromebook 11 is a very under powered device. But it has an excellent build quality and display. My daughter has an Acer C720 which looks funky, has a washed out display, but is so much faster than my HP. I am talking night and day difference as far as performance. Her Acer was also only $170.00 where my HP was around $270.00. I will add that when it comes to watching movies my HP is a beast.

The battery life on the HP started off around 8 hours per charge with the screen at about 70%. Now I run the display around 50% and I get about 5 to 6 hours. I am very disappointed about that. The display still looks great, the audio still pumps to your heart’s content. Keyboard still feels and sounds great. Hinge and overall build are both still holding on great. This is a very well built machine. Camera and microphones do not get used very offened but when I do use them. They appear to work fine.

Just to let everyone know. I also had an HP 13 Chromebook with better processor, more ram, 32GB hard drive and a metal body. I really wanted to love the larger device. Unforchantly, I almost hated it. I did like the extra power the larger device possessed. As well, I really preferred the 13 inch size over the 11 inch size. That was about all that I liked. The display was the worst part of the machine. That and the charger. The HP 13 has the same old tired HP style of charger. I was hoping for something a little more modern. Overall the 13 inch is not the one that I recommend if it came down to just the two HP models. The 11 has way more “wow” factor to it as well as costing less.

Well, that is my rant. I am currently looking for a new Chromebook and I think I am leaning towards one of the new Acers with a touch screen. I really like the Asus models but I want 4GBs of ram on my next machine and it appears though the Asus does not offer the Chromebooks with higher ram.

The Chromebook and You

Is a Chrome book for you? I will admit when I first learned about the Chromebook I liked the idea but I though to myself  "this will never work for me," "I'm a power user." Well, I was mistaken. Allow me to explain. So the Chromebook that changed my stance was the new HP Chromebook 11. Right away I will tell you that the build quality of this device is very solid. I am not going to go into a review in this post. I am working a full review that I will get to here soon. I am still editing a few photos that will go into that review.

Now, back to the Chromebook. First off I would like to say that YES, YOU CAN YOU USE A CHROMEBOOK WITHOUT AN INTERNET CONNECTION.  The Chrome OS is in fact an actual  very lightweight stripped down Linux OS. Now, I will tell you that when the Chromebook is offline it is of course limited in what it can do. But, then again so is a regular laptop. There are several offline applications that can be installed onto a Chromebook through the Chrome store. You won't be able to install normal software but once you spend some time in the Chrome store I think you will find some options that will truly fit your needs.  I would also like to add that you can in fact install Ubuntu Linux onto the Chromebook which would give you more options as well as more conventional operating system. I may touch more on that in a later blog.But, with that being said if you need certain software or if you are a hard core gamer the Chromebook may not be for you as a primary device.

If you are a blogger, writer, student or simply a normal daily user who wishes their tablet was just a but more. I feel the Chromebook will be a great tool for you. With the low cost, low weight, great battery life and the fact that there really is a lot of stuff that you can do with a Chromebook I can see many people adding one of these devices to their ever expanding tool shed. I probably would never recommend a Chromebook as a persons only computer but I might. I am finding out more and more everyday how much I can actually do on a Chromebook and how little I truly use  my full blown Windows computer. I can comfortably say that my Chromebook has extended the life of  my old computer as I hardly ever use it anymore. I think I only use my desktop for long term photo storage, gaming, and really as a spare computer now. I truly can use a Chromebook for most of my personal life.

I am currently trying to become a true programmer. I have taken some programming classes in the past but now I am focusing on at home self learning of the langue Python. I mention this because I was surprised to find out just how much programming could be done online now and from a Chromebook.  After joining a few cloud based services I am hopefully on my way to becoming a better programmer. So far I have doing most if not all of it from the Chromebook and so far it has been going very well.

I am also very interested in blogging and currently have a few blogs that I work on which sometimes includes photo editing.  I am very happy to announce that I have been able to edit photos and videos online with no real issues at this time using only titles from the Chromestore. I am really trying to find out what all I can do on a daily basis with a Chromebook and I can comfortably say that blogging from a Chromebook is great.

Sitting on the couch with the Chromebook on my lap which runs cool and quiet is a big change from my Macbook which would get scorching hot and in comparison is actually quite a bit larger and heavier. IT is a much welcomed change of pace. I have noticed no performance difference between the two devices. In fact sometimes I would go as far to say that the Chromebook seems to run better with multiple tabs open. I am not afraid to recommend a Chromebook to anyone. I really do find them to be amazing devices so far.

I am planning on creating more posts regarding my time with a Chromebook. Also, I am working on an actual review on the HP 11 which will include a few photos. One of those photos will be what the device looks like on the inside. There are no moving parts within the device and when you open the case the internals are mainly just the battery.

So please stay turned and I will continue to post more about this device.