Anker Soundcore Life Q30 Headphones...

  I bought these 'over-ear' headphones 9-10 months ago on Aliexpress, and they weren't cheap, costing $86 back then - right now they're selling for $98.  Up until a few days ago, I was an Anker fan-boy.  They performed admirably, being comfortable to wear, had a long battery life, great sound and effective noise cancelling.  Basically, as advertised - what wasn't there to like! - and my positive review on Aliexpress reflected this.

  However, a few days ago, I discovered a design flaw that has left me feeling rather peevish.  Two plastic 'clips', used to help couple the headband to the earpieces, have cracked, with chunks after falling off & now lost (see pics).  Having treated these headphones with 'kid-gloves' ever since I got them, I'm certain that it's not down to physical abuse.  The fact that the clips on both sides have cracks & pieces missing, is all the proof I need to show that it's a design issue.  Being a  mere 6mm, they can be seen to visibly flex whenever the earpieces are separated when being placed on head.  They are in no way strong enough to endure this for long -  I guarantee that anyone buying these, will experience the same problem in short order.

  I tried updating my Aliexpress review, only to discover that it's no longer there!  I've raised this point already in another post, the fact that Aliexpress Sellers (apparently) can just pull & resubmit their advert, wiping all customer reviews in the process.  Not only does this render the review process from the Buyer's perspective, pointless, it also forms a 'rinse & repeat' haven for Sellers of shoddy goods - place ad & sell until such time as negative reviews effect your profits, then pull ad, resubmit and repeat!  Shouldn't be allowed.  In contrast, Amazon purchases, a decade old, can still be edited by the Buyer.

  The only upside here is that I noticed the problem before either of the clips snapped off completely, so had the opportunity to apply a fix - basically, just a couple of miniature black cable-ties, tightened and secured with B7000 adhesive (see pic).  Not too hideous in appearance, with the added advantage that they 'point the way' when matching ear-to-earpiece.

  Incidentally, the B7000 is another recent Aliexpress purchase, that is not living up to the advertising.  It's not awful - turns out it's basically just a watery Evostick/Bostick-type glue, with a rather clever applicator, so easy to apply accurately.

  By the way, the Q30's claimed 60hrs(ANC Off) / 40hrs(ANC On) usage between charges is horseshit.  True, it lasts quite a bit, but you'd never see 60 hours.  It turns out that the ANC, while effective, is not spectacular, so a bit of a gimmick as far as I'm concerned.  As a result, I almost never have ANC (Active Noise Cancelling) switched on.  Same for  'Transparent' mode, which gives a bit of a boost to the external audio, so would impact the run-time as well.  Seeing as I'm posting this, I'll probably do a run-time test on the headphones and post my results here before long.  An easy claim to test would be Anker's 4hrs from a 5min charge.  Stay tuned.

Update.

 Looks like I'll be eating crow again.  Runtime tests complete and I must admit, I'm gob-smacked.  As a preliminary, while listening to music, audio-books, etc. I ran the Anker headphones until they powered off, then waited 24hrs, and did the same again - just to make sure that its battery had no significant charge remaining.

 First test was the easy one - Determine the listening time possible from a 5min charge.  Seeing as the Ankers don't come with a charger, the one I used had dual 2.1A USB outputs, which is a far greater charging current than the Ankers require (measured Max Current was 0.61A).   Being finicky, I regulated the charge-time precisely, using an electronic switch to switch the charger on/off - resulting in a charging period that was accurate to 1sec.

5min charge: ran for 3hrs 57 minutes.

 Wow, just 3min off the claimed 4hr listening time - I was impressed!  But it got even better;

Listening timed-sessions from fully-charged.

Session 1; 5hrs.
Session 2; 5hrs.
Session 3; 3hrs 10min.
Session 4; 5hrs 30min.
Session 5; 8hrs.
Session 6; 9hrs.
Session 7; 6hrs.
Session 8; 2hrs.
Session 9; 6hrs.
Session 10; 6hrs.
Session 11; 4hrs.
Session 12; 3hrs 30min.
Session 13; 5hrs.
Session 14; 5hrs.
Session 15; 4hrs.

Total time: 77hrs 10min.

 That I certainly did not expect, that's one extraordinary amount of listening-time between charges!!!

 Edit. 

 A quick update to highlight a MAJOR problem with the Anker headphones.  As can be seen from the photos below, the padding on both ear-pieces have split along the join-seams, exposing the foam inside.  These are critical, non-replaceable items.  Although I only have pics of the latest padding failure, its companion had split in a similar manner, but thanks to 'Super Glue', I caught it early, and it is at least usable again.  This time round, the split was more extensive, and after the photo-shoot below, was compounded when I tried repairing the damage - it split a full 180 degrees!  As a result, the final 'repair' is a bit of a mess, lots of glue evident, so it will probably be uncomfortable to wear.

 As it happens, identical 'splitting' occurred with the MPow headphones, though being smaller, proved infinitely easier to glue.

 So riddle me this, what good are headphones that are comfortable to wear, with superb battery life, have excellent sound & user options - but have cheap, irreplaceable ear-pads that WILL fail in a relatively short amount of time?

 Yep, not feeling so good about this purchase now.  Thank God for Super Glue though.  Without it, repairing this type of damage would be nigh impossible.