JABRA has built a solid reputation in recent years for its range of small but powerful wireless earbuds. Its latest offering, the Elite 5 wireless earbuds with noise cancelling, is yet another crowd-pleasing device that offers the best in terms of sound quality, while also being easy on your wallet.
The earbuds come in a simple and unassuming cardboard packaging, encased in a sleek charging case that fits easily in the palm of your hand or pocket.
Both the charging case and the earbuds are magnetised, which allow them to easily snap together to prevent any movement while charging or being stored. Accompanying the case is a USB-C charging cable and two sets of spare silicone eartips or varying sizes.
To use the earbuds, you will need to download Jabra’s Sound+ mobile app (for iOS or Android) which allows you to control certain features or learn a little more about your device.
The earbuds themselves are nice and compact. If you’re a first time user, it may take a few turns to find the right angle for them to sit in your ears, but once they are settled in there, you will hardly feel them. The outside surface of each bud – where the logo is visible – functions as a button.
Pressing the left earbud once allows you to switch between Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and HearThrough modes – or turn either one off completely – and by pressing twice, you can summon your phone’s voice assistant, if you so choose.
The right earbud is for controlling your music and for answering phone calls, so expect to be using that one more often.
Neither side allows you to regulate sound volume, however, so you will need to rely on your phone’s own volume button for that.
During a phone call test in both outdoor and indoor environments, the earbuds actually did a pretty good job. The call quality was very clear, and the person on the other line was able to hear my voice with very little interference.
The Bluetooth range on the device is also quite good. I was able to leave my phone in place and walk around both my apartment, as well as the other end of the office, while still remaining connected.
In terms of battery life, even after nearly one whole days’ worth of use, I still had plenty of juice left over before popping it back into the case. And it did not drain my phone’s battery all that much either, which I rather appreciated.
Where I feel the earbuds excel the most is in noise cancellation. Considering the price point, I was quite impressed by the excellent job it did at blocking out almost all outside noise, acting like a sort of vacuum seal. While it took a bit of getting used to at first, it soon became my favourite setting to have in place at the office to block out any distractions while working.
Spotify users will be able to use the Spotify Tap feature to allow them to control their music. As for how they actually performed when playing music, I found it was largely a mixed bag. Certain types of music sounded better than others, even after making some adjustments to the controls in the Sound+ mobile app.
I discovered that the earbuds perform quite well when playing songs with a heavy bass, or when playing podcasts. However, some finer songs, with high notes, ended up sounding a little tinny. Nevertheless, this is a minor point, when considering all the other advantages of the earbuds.
The Jabra Elite 5 is priced at RM699, and comes in two colours: Titanium Black and Gold Beige.
Shop for Jabra products here.
