Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Anker Soundcore’s Motion X500 packs spatial audio into a more portable package

Anker Soundcore Motion X500 speaker in three colors.
Anker Soundcore

Anker Soundcore has added yet another model to its Motion family of portable Bluetooth speakers — the Motion X500. It’s a scaled-down version of the Motion X600 and includes that speaker’s integrated carry handle and spatial audio sound. Anker plans to sell the Motion X500 for $170 when it hits regular retail channels on November 9, but it’s also knocking that price down to $130 for those who preorder the speaker before that date.

Just like its bigger brother, the Motion X500 comes in three colors: black, blue, and pink. But unlike the X600, the X500 includes a subtle Soundcore “d” logo embedded in the paint scheme on the speaker’s metal grille.

Anker Soundcore Motion X500 speaker in three colors.
Anker Soundcore

Anker claims the Motion X500, which weighs 3.59 pounds, can produce 40 watts of power from its three full-frequency drivers (two for stereo channels and a third, up-firing “Sky Channel” unit for spatial effects). Its internal rechargeable battery is reportedly capable of keeping your tunes playing for up to 12 hours, though if you ever run it completely dry, you’ll need six hours to bring it back to full.

Despite its metal grille and carry handle, the Motion X500 is fully waterproof with an IPX7 rating, and it can stay afloat if it happens to end up in the pool. Like the rest of the new metallic Motion speakers, including the X600, Motion 300, and Motion 100, the X500 is compatible with Sony’s LDAC Bluetooth codec, giving it the ability to reproduce hi-res audio at up to 24-bit/96kHz — which is something of an anomaly for smaller Bluetooth speakers.

We were pleasantly surprised at just how effective spatial audio proved to be on the Soundcore Motion X600. When activated, it drastically increased the height and width of the soundstage for a much more immersive experience that regular stereo.

The X500 promises to achieve something similar, but in its own unique way: The the Sky Channel top-mounted driver is equipped with LED lights that can create a mini light show, with variations based on the EQ mode you pick.

Editors' Recommendations

Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like…
The most innovative streaming device of 2023
The Amazon Fire TV Max 4K was the most innovative streaming device of 2023.

Look, we’ll be completely honest here: There’s nothing particularly innovative about streaming devices these days. That’s actually a good thing. There’s nothing to blow up or reinvent from one year to the next, which points to a product category that mostly does what it does pretty well, allowing features along the edge to really differentiate.

That means when we do get new hardware, it mostly looks and acts like the hardware it’s replacing. To wit: A Roku is still a Roku. Chromecast with Google TV hasn’t been updated in a while. Apple TV plods along in that very Apple way with minor changes every couple of years.

Read more
The most innovative headphones and earbuds of 2023
The Hed Unity were the most innovative headphones of 2023.

In 2023, we saw plenty of great new wireless headphones and wireless earbuds emerge, like the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC, Sony WF-1000XM5, and the new USB-C variant of the Apple AirPods Pro 2.

Each of these products delivers better performance than its predecessors in one or more categories like sound quality, active noise cancellation (ANC), battery life, or spatial audio. But for a product to be considered innovative, it can't just offer incremental improvements. It needs to break new ground by offering us something new or by getting us to think about an existing feature in an entirely new way.

Read more
The most innovative TV tech of 2023
LG MLA OLED technology is the most innovative TV technology of 2023.

While 2023 was more evolution than revolution for TVs, a few standout innovations this year set the stage for big competition among TVs in 2024.

In 2022, Samsung Display's QD-OLED display technology made headlines as the most innovative display technology since OLED was introduced to consumer TVs by LG some 10 years prior. In a remarkably timely effort to clap back at Samsung, LG Display unleashed the most meaningful update to its OLED display technology in 10 years, and this year, that tech earns our top award for the most innovative TV tech of 2023.

Read more