This is the review of the comparison between two speakers from the same brand and from the same series. The comparison here is between the Anker Soundcore Flare and the Anker Soundcore Flare 2. There is only six dollars difference in their price range currently but that does bring changes. To know whether the changes make them worth buying or not, go to the detailed review.

Anker Soundcore Flare	Anker Soundcore Flare 2
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Punchy sound for such a compact speaker. Affordable. Lights well executed. Waterproof. Lightweight and portable.	Great sound quality. Graphic EQ. Can sync up to 100 speakers. IPX7 waterproof rating.
CONS	CONS
Clunky voice control compared to smart speakers. Various EQ modes don’t really alter audio that much. Highs can be harsh.	No way to check the battery charge level directly on the speaker. EQ in the app cannot be customized.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Anker Soundcore Flare

The Anker Soundcore Flare is the first speaker from the Anker that came with the Soundcore companion app. This speaker has a nice look, 360 degrees sound output, it is waterproof, and also, has better battery life all at a budget-friendly price range. This speaker is retailing for around sixty-four dollars currently on Amazon.

Anker Soundcore Flare 2

The Anker Soundcore Flare 2 is the updated version of Flare 1 from the Flare series speakers. Actually, these two speakers are the larger version of the Flare Mini speakers from the Soundcore. The only noticeable change in the Flare 2 compared to the Flare is that the Flare 2 has an additional light on its top while the Flare has only one at its bottom. This speaker is retailing for around seventy dollars currently on Amazon.

DESIGN: 

Anker Soundcore Flare

The Soundcore Flare is a $60 speaker with a 360-degree omnidirectional sound. The first thing I noticed about it was the design. It has a cylinder-shaped body kind of like the Soundcore Mini. On the top of the speaker, there are your regular media control buttons. Then on top of the media control buttons, there’s a little light symbol that’s going to change the LED lights in the speaker. On the bottom, there’s an arrow that’s going up and it’s the bass boost button. Going down on the cylinder body, the speaker is covered with a really nice fabric, under that, there are two back-to-back drivers, and dual passive radiators that are supposed to create a 360-degree sound.

At the bottom, there’s a multicolored halo light that changes colors to the beat that’s gonna blow your mind. Then near the bottom, the backside of the speaker, there’s a Bluetooth button, power button, and a little flap that’s gonna open up to show you the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, and a micro USB charging port. It was kind of tough to open up that little flap but it does open and it didn’t rip, so the speaker’s still waterproof.

Anker Soundcore Flare 2

This speaker doesn’t look better than the Pulse 4 or the Pulse 3 but it does look really good in its own way. It also does not look as fragile as the Pulse 4. So, as far as the design, it has two light rings one on the top, and one on the bottom, which actually looks pretty good. Also, it’s covered in a fabric body which feels good in the hand. At the front of the speaker, there is the Soundcore logo and behind there is where you’ll find your Bluetooth connection button, and the bass up button for going into the bass mode but also, behind the flap is your USB-C charging port. Then on the top is where you’ll find your media control button as well as your power on and off, and the white control button.

FEATURES:

Anker Soundcore Flare

The Anker Soundcore Flare 2 comes in a nicely packed box, and in the box, you get the speaker itself, your user manuals and warranty card, and your USB cable for charging this. As far as the features on this, the Soundcore is fully waterproof that is IPX7 certified, so you can submerge this in one meter underwater for 30 minutes, and it should survive. This speaker also gives your access to the Soundcore companion app which allows you to customize your EQ. This speaker also comes with the Bass up button that improves the bass out of this speaker on accessing it.

As far as the battery life on this speaker, I got a week’s worth of use out of this Anker Soundcore Flare. The company claims that it should give you a battery life of up to 12 hours, and I believe it, I got 12 hours maybe even more. But if you have the LED lights on, you’re definitely going to get lower battery life. One more thing, I was using the speaker an hour a day and I also didn’t have the LED lights on, and I was playing music at around 50% volume, so that’s how I got more than twelve hours approximately out of this.

The Soundcore companion app gives you access when you download that on your smartphone. The app actually allows you to do two things for the speaker that is for the sound quality out of this, and also, for its looks. As for the sound quality, there is an EQ setting within the app, where you can customize the bass, treble, and such. As for the looks, you can customize the color of the light that glows on the bottom of the speaker as you want. Also, there is an additional great feature that we mostly get in the JBL speakers mostly. That is you can actually pair two of these speakers together with the help of this app, and get the stereo sound out of this.

Anker Soundcore Flare 2

The unboxing experience of the Flare 2 is actually pretty good, reminds me a bit of how JBL packages their speakers. In the box, we find the USB-C cord, user manual, and lastly, the speaker itself. The Flare 2 is a 360 speaker and it’s running two drivers in two PRS with a total power output of 20 watts. It’s IPX7 rated, which makes it completely waterproof and is also submersible into water. It’s rated for up to 12 hours of playtime depending on how you use it.

Like a few speakers that have been coming out lately, it’s also missing an audio input which sucks because it really sucks an audio-video latency, it’s really bad. I understand that the future is Wireless but whilst not just rush there before fixing the issues that we have before we can get there. Even this doesn’t have the 3.5 mm audio jack so that way instead of using Bluetooth I can watch a video without latency. 

The Soundcore Flare 2 has a bass button right there and this is basically the bass up mode and the regular one. As the name suggests, this bass-up mode is basically lifting the lower end of the frequency curve, and bumping it up a little bit, and not touching anything else really. This is only apparent when you are at lower volumes because when you go to maximum volume, the difference between bass mode and regular mode is really small, and that’s because they really do cut down bass quite a bit at maximum volume.

The only thing that I wanted to mention though because the drivers are facing sideways, you’re not really getting a true 360 speaker performance, but it’s not bad. Overall, I think the Flare 2 is a nice-sounding speaker, and it’s very pocket-friendly in most especially if you’re comparing it to the JBL Pulse 4. It’s very very pocket-friendly, and for the sound that you get with it, I think it’s worth it. Personally, I would recommend not to spend any money on this if you plan on watching Netflix or a bunch of videos using this thing because it really has lagging issues.

SOUND QUALITY:

Anker Soundcore Flare

As far as the sound quality of this little speaker, it sounds good but for sixty dollars it doesn’t sound as good as I thought it would. For me, I like a little more bass, and the speaker lacks bass. Even when I turn on the bass boost, that feature there’s just not enough bass for me. But this speaker though sounds nice, it sounds good, there’s just not enough bass for me but it does have good bass, and it’s more like a balanced speaker. It’s all-around good for every type of genre, and it can get pretty loud. The 360 degrees sound is okay, it’s not really 360 but it works like there are some spots in the speaker where the sound is incoming and I can hear it when I turn the speaker but it is still going to give you that 360-degree sound experience. The speakers are located back-to-back on each other, so if you put it in a corner of your room, the sound is definitely going to bounce back and forth and make it seem like it’s 360.

Anker Soundcore Flare 2

The Flare 2 has two drivers throwing sideways and gives 360 degrees sound. I tested out the sound quality on this speaker, and the results were a little surprising to me most especially when it comes to loudness. Honestly, I thought the Pulse 4 is going to be a lot louder than the Flare 2 by seeing its size but they are about the same when it comes to loudness. The bass performance of the Flare 2 is actually pretty good, and very comparable to that of the Pulse 4. The Flare 2 is very apparent at lower volumes but when you go all the way up to max volume and probably somewhere between 80 and above 80% volume and above the Flare 2 starts to lose quite a bit of bass even if it’s in the bass up mode.

WHICH ONE IS WORTH BUYING?

In my opinion, the Anker Soundcore Flare 2 is worth buying than the Anker Soundcore Flare if you don’t have the Flare already because there are only two extra features that you gonna get with the Flare 2 that is the one extra light on the top of the speaker and another one is that you can pair this speaker with hundred plus Flare 2 speakers and pair only two get stereo output while the Flare has only the stereo feature. If you already have the Flare then the Flare 2 is not worth buying if you are not that much into the lighting and pairing hundred plus speaker feature on Flare 2.

Expert Reviews of Anker Soundcore Flare:

By kit.honestjohn.co.uk
Anker’s Soundcore Flare is a portable waterproof speaker — fully submergible in water, no less, so you’re safe if some idiot kicks it into your swimming pool at…

By PCMag
The Soundcore Flare from Anker is a powerful portable speaker that puts on a cool LED light show.

By TechRadar
The Anker Soundcore Flare combines the best features of its competitors into an affordable package that’s tough to beat. For the price, the Flare offers good…

By Sound Guys
The Anker Soundcore Flare might be the speaker to beat this summer. It’s waterproof, inexpensive, and has a much better design than any of the previous Soundcore speakers.

Expert Reviews of Anker Soundcore Flare 2:

By Tech Radar
The Anker Soundcore Flare 2 is an excellent go anywhere, do anything Bluetooth speaker. The design fits well in the home and its rugged construction…

By RTINGS.com
The Anker Flare 2 is fair for music. With its BassUp setting on, it still struggles to reproduce low-bass. Vocals and lead instruments are clear and present, but higher frequency…

By Tech Hive
Like the original Flare, the Flare 2 is a Bluetooth speaker, a bit larger than a 16-ounce aluminum can, equipped with 360-degree speakers that pump sound out in every direction. Like its predecessor, it’s also…

By PCMag
The portable Anker Soundcore Flare 2 speakers deliver solid audio and cool LED lights in a waterproof design for a fair price.