Soundcore Life Q35
Just one year after the Life Q30 which surprised us in many ways, Soundcore launches its successor: the Life Q35. The recipe remains the same, only a few minor ergonomic changes are made.
Presentation
The Life Q35 follows on from the Life Q30 released a year earlier, but only very timidly changes the recipe of its predecessor. We therefore advise you to read the Life Q30 test beforehand to properly understand this test which focuses on the evolutions.
The first change is among the accessories that come with the headset. An airplane adapter joins the USB-A to USB-C charging cable and the mini-jack cable, the latter of which now includes a remote control; a nice touch when using the headset in wired mode. The connection possibilities do not change on this Life Q35, which remains usable either in wired or Bluetooth.
The support of the LDAC codec (in addition to the SBC and AAC codecs) makes its appearance; be aware, however, that its use disables the multipoint connection and thus prevents the headset from being connected simultaneously to two different sources. It should also be noted that during our test of the Life Q35, the wireless connection sometimes behaved strangely: Bluetooth profile problem (headset recognized as a car audio kit), volume control not synchronized with one of the source devices, short dropouts ... the problems remain rare, even very rare, but can still arise unexpectedly.
The Life Q35 offers an experience extremely close to that of the Life Q30. The arrival of a presence sensor on the headset, assigned to an automatic music pause/resume function, is appreciable, although the latter lacks significant responsiveness - detection can take several seconds for each change of state. The improvement of the hands-free kit promised by the manufacturer is unfortunately not verified in reality; the microphones manage quite well in a quiet environment, but are quickly overwhelmed as soon as there is a little too much noise in the surroundings.
In terms of sound performance, the Life Q35 is extremely similar to the Life Q30. There is a very subtle difference in the way the headphones process the lowest frequencies when active noise reduction is engaged, but nothing that really changes the game. It is always very quickly interesting to calm them via the equalizer of the application to gain in balance and readability.
Finally, the isolation provided by the active noise reduction of the headphones retains its effectiveness, which is strangely not the case of the mode of listening to surrounding noise "Transparency", whose rendering loses drastically in naturalness ... and therefore in relevance. Beyond that, we invite you once again to consult the Life Q30 test to know in detail what the QC35 has in store for you.
Conclusion
In spite of its few promises, the Life Q35 finally makes a copy extremely close to that of its elder. This is a bit frustrating, but it does not detract from the qualities of the headset. Its use remains pleasant, with relatively complete possibilities and very honest sound performances on the whole. This new iteration is therefore just as recommendable as the previous one... although we prefer the latter for its more interesting quality/price ratio.
