Soundcore Life Q35 Bluetooth headset test: an unchanged and still winning recipe

The Life Q35 follows on from the Life Q30 released a year earlier but only very timidly revises the recipe of its predecessor. We therefore recommend that you read the Life Q30 test beforehand to correctly understand this test which focuses on evolutions.

The first change is among the accessories supplied with the helmet. An airplane adapter joins the USB-A to USB-C charging cable and the mini-jack cable, the latter now including a remote control; an appreciable gesture for the use of the wired headset. The connection possibilities do not change on this Life Q35, which can still be used either wired or Bluetooth.

Support for the LDAC codec (in addition to the SBC and AAC codecs) is emerging; however, be aware that its use deactivates the multipoint connection and therefore prevents the headset from being connected simultaneously to two different sources. Note also that during our Life Q35 test, 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, dropouts brief … problems are rare, even very rare, but can still arise unexpectedly.

The Life Q35 offers an experience extremely similar to that of the Life Q30. The arrival of a presence sensor on the headphones, assigned to an automatic music pause / resume function, is appreciable, although the latter is significantly lacking in responsiveness – detection can take several seconds at each change of state. . The improvement of the hands-free kit promised by the manufacturer unfortunately does not materialize; the microphones do pretty well in a quiet environment, but are quickly overwhelmed when there is a little too much noise around.

In terms of sound performance, the Life Q35 is extremely similar to the Life Q30. There is a very subtle difference in the treatment applied by the headphones to the engagement of the active noise reduction on the lowest frequencies, but nothing that really changes the situation. We always have an interest in calming them very quickly via the application’s equalizer to gain balance and readability.

Finally, the isolation provided by the active noise reduction of the headphones retains its effectiveness, which is strangely not the case with the mode of listening to surrounding noises “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 find out in detail what the QC35 has in store for you.