Welcome to my review of the Anker PowerConf H500. Of course, it is manufactured by Anker, known for a whole range of different hardware including speakers, headsets, power banks, and much more. The PowerConf H500 is a wireless headset that will help those in online meetings whilst you’re in the big open office and want to drown out the background noise.
Rid The Open Office Noise With The H500
How did the Anker PowerConf H500 work for me during my meetings in the office? Continue reading to find out. You can also see our previous hardware reviews.
The Hardware
Upon opening the box containing the Anker PowerConf H500, we see a nice carry case that safely holds the headset. We also have a quick start guide, a charging cable, and a USB A Bluetooth adapter. If you bought the version that comes with a charging stand, you will also have this in the box. The charging stand has a clever space-saving design. You can take the two pieces apart, rotate one piece 180 degrees, and pop them together. They will then hold themselves together with magnets that are inside the stand. Clever idea.
The charging cable can also connect to the charging stand using a small channel that has been designed into the stand. This will allow you to neatly tuck it away which will also help with keeping your desk tidy, and more importantly, the charging port safe from tugs on the cable. The headset will neatly sit on the stand allowing charging. The battery is stated to last up to 24 hours, and I have used it for a good few hours over the course of a day. I left the headset off charge and continued to use it the next day for a few hours over the day, and it didn’t show signs of giving in any time soon.
Me being me, I had to place it on charge as I didn’t want to curse myself and potentially run out of battery during an important meeting I had the following day. This was just me worrying though, I am pretty certain the headset would not have died for a good 3 maybe even 4 days of use after that. I just couldn’t afford to run the risk on that day.
The Anker PowerConf H500 takes 1 hour and 40 minutes to charge from dead to full. However, you can get 3 hours of talk time from 5 minutes of fast charging.
Design and Functionality
The headset itself has the Anker logo on both sides of the “on-ear” headphones. We also have a few different buttons, these allow muting of the mic, changing the audio mode from active noise cancellation, normal mode, and transparency mode. The transparency mode works very well, when wearing the headset I could hear my colleagues situated on the desks around me as if I wasn’t wearing a headset at all.
There is also a little button that also acts as a volume wheel on the opposite side of the headset from the microphone. This allows you to pause sounds, skip audio, and change volume levels.
I particularly like the microphone, if you want to unmute it, you flip it down to your mouth. If you want to mute it, keep it in the vertical position. This works similar to an Astro gaming headset if you’ve ever used one of those.
Connection and Software
The Anker PowerConf H500 connects to your computer or mobile device using Bluetooth 5.0. Not to worry if you don’t have Bluetooth on your computer as it comes with a USB A Bluetooth adapter in the box as mentioned above.
There is no software needed for your computer (or mobile) to recognise and use this device. However, there is an AnkerWork program you can download to your PC. This will help with fine-tuning the device, as well as downloading/installing new firmware.
Conclusions
The Anker PowerConf H500 is an incredible headset. The mic clarity is really good, really good. I love the way you mute the microphone by flipping it to the upwards position. The only qualm I have is that it felt a little tight on my head, which resulted in it feeling uncomfortable after around 30 minutes.
This may have been me, but I had to remove it ASAP after the meeting I was in which lasted around 45 minutes. I also experienced some issues with the transparency mode not enabling at times. Because of this, I score the Anker PowerConf H500 an 8/10.
A sample was kindly provided for us to review this product.
