Jabra Elite 7 Pro Bluetooth Earbuds

Description

The noise-cancelling performance is in league with its overall audio offering, which is to say it’s good and plenty serviceable, but not the best. While it handles static noises fairly well, more sporadic sounds aren’t filtered all too much and the end result is a considerable lessening of unwanted disturbance, but not elimination. 

With that said, even when ANC isn’t engaged, the passive isolation on these buds is better than much of the competition thanks to the tight and deep fit of the eartips and sculpted shape.

There is a sliding scale within the app that allows you to adjust the level of ANC, but we felt the pressure in the upper settings to be a little uncomfortable and quickly fatiguing. As is to be expected, there’s also a transparency mode (dubbed HearThrough by Jabra) that admits external sounds if you wish, and this works as it should.

The quality of both the audio and ANC need to be considered in tandem with the lower price of these buds. They’re not going to beat out heavyweights like the flagship Sony or Bose buds on either desirable feature, but both features work solidly for their price.

When it comes to call quality, the Elite 7 Pro excel. Through a combination of bone conduction and four external microphones, your voice when on a call is picked up rather well. When in windy environments, the extra environmental noise is cancelled from your voice (with the help of those bone conduction sensors again).

As with all true wireless earbuds, the distance from your mouth to the microphones means they'll never be as good as over-ear headphones — or of course talking straight into your phone — but this is some of the best we've heard.

Battery and connectivity

• 8 hours + 22 in case (ANC on)
• Qi wireless charging case
• Bluetooth 5.2

The battery life of Jabra’s tiny buds is rather impressive for the market, with a solid 8 hours of ANC-enabled playback for the buds themselves and an extra 22 in the case, bringing it up to a 30-hour total. By comparison, Sony’s WF-1000XM4 get 8 hours from the buds with ANC engaged and another 16 in the case.

What’s more, the case offers fast charging, with five minutes of case time giving the buds a full hour of playback. You can recharge the case itself with its USB-C port or wirelessly via a Qi-compatible charging mat — a feature that’s typically reserved for the pricier options.

As for Bluetooth standards, the Elite 7 Pro supports the latest 5.2 version, meaning greater connection stability, simultaneous audio streaming to the left and right ear, and better power optimization (this contributes to the decent battery life).

While the buds don’t feature any hi-res codecs like atpX or LDAC, the support for SBC and AAC will be plenty for most listeners that use streaming platforms such as Spotify; the audio is already compressed for bitrates these two codecs support.

Although they don’t currently feature Bluetooth Multipoint connectivity, which will enable simultaneous connection and seamless switching between two devices, Jabra promises this will land in January 2022. If this is a crucial feature for you, you might want to hold out until that time