Jabra Elite 4 True Wireless Earbuds – Active Noise Cancelling Headphones – Discreet & Comfortable Bluetooth Earphones, Laptop, iOS and Android Compatible – Dark Grey

I’ve been waiting a couple months to give these a try before sharing a review, but I can honestly say that I am impressed. After trying some other brands that hurt my ears so bad I returned them, these Jabra Elite 85t are comfortable enough to stay in place all day, provided you can keep the battery charged. With moderate activity I can feel them start to slip out of my ear, so they are probably not the pair you want to take running.

The noise cancellation (ANC) and HearThrough modes are novel features, but honestly I don’t spend the time switching through them and rather keep them off to conserve the battery. What I want is a hearing aid that can amplify the ambient sound around me, but also let me hear the audio from all my devices or act like ear plugs. There is not that much amplification from the HearThrough mode unless there is nothing else playing through the speakers and you are right in front of the source you are trying to hear. ANC works to dull the sound around you if the speakers are muted, but with music playing there’s not much difference since the volume drowns out any other noise.

The battery life is somewhere in the 5-7 range, but be warned that the last hour you will be interrupted every 15 minutes that the buds need to be recharged. It hasn’t been a problem to find time to return them to the case at some point during the day, but expect to plan your day around charging at least once in the middle. Having a wireless charging pad has made charging effortless.

Now for the pet peeves that are just a fact of life with these buds. The right bud is the primary bud and in fact, the left bud can not be used without using both buds. You might think you can get five hours out of one ear and then switch to the other ear for another five hours, but that is not the case. This may not affect you, but seems like an odd feature.

The next peeve deals with pairing and connectivity. You might have read some reviews that discuss issues with connectivity, but you should know that Bluetooth pairing has been a straightforward easy experience to get up and running out of the box. My issue is that the specification states that the buds can be paired with up to 8 devices, but only 2 at any given time. I haven’t tried that many since after 3 devices I could tell it was going to be confusing to figure out which device they are connected with. If the buds are connected to 2 devices and you want to use them with a third, you must first manually disconnect or turn off Bluetooth on one of those first two devices before the buds will connect to the third. You may think this is a connectivity error but really they will only do what you tell them and they will prefer to connect to the last connected devices. Once you are connected to two devices, because you can only connect to two devices, you might think the buds have sort of a built in mixer where you can hear audio from both sources at the same time. Again, don’t be disappointed, but only one device can actively be sending an audio signal to the buds. You can not have music playing on one device and watch a movie on the other. You must stop all audio transmissions from one device before it will allow the second audio to play on the buds. Both devices are connected, but only audio from one device can be played at a time. This seemed to not affect in coming calls ringing from a phone though. I believe the makes the phone take priority of the audio stream. This might actually be a limitation of the Bluetooth protocol, but again different than I expected.

Well, there you have it! These are the top issues I’ve found with these buds, but I’m still happy with them enough to use everyday. Also, no problems with sound quality and the full range is good enough for casual listeners.

Bought these mainly to get multi-connect tech, which no one else but Jabra seem to consider important. But was enamored by claims of much better sound than my 75Ts, which at the mo are so battery-degraded, they can’t hold a charge more than a couple of hours. These were on sale, so bit…

Have a pair of earbuds I intensely hate for their painful ear retention, shoddy build quality, wonky feature set, and inability to reliably charge when plugged in… but whose sound is still after 5 yrs, amazing in comparison to every other earbud save $500-in-ear-monitors I’ve tried: the Tronsmart Apollo Bold. What a waste of a bill… but its sound has begrudgingly kept me from throwing it away all these years despite flaws. So a far more reputable European product, claiming similar fidelity yet features I liked in the 75T only improved? Gave it a try…

More bass than the Elite 7 Pros? If there is I can’t find it. Yes I’ve noodled in the Sound+ app — barely-perceptible change in sound no matter how I change the EQ. Back to back with the crappy Apollos, not even a comparison. Still falls out of my ears no matter the earcups, despite the loss of mass vs. 75T; that were another letdown. So much for all those ear canal scans — maybe scan more non-European ears?

There is some good. The confusion the 75T has with pairing, connecting only for calls and not audio 4 of 5 times, needing cradle / uncradle to solve… has vanished with the Elite 5, thank effing God. Doesn’t remember my laptop or phone tho so must be manually connected, thus not as useful as the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1, another set long in the trash for its showstopper flaws. But the features it does bring, all seem to work much less cynically than other earbuds, esp the Sino-made ones.

Don’t fully regret spending what I did for these earbuds. But ignore the marketing; it’s no game-changer for sound. Getting 7 hrs of battery life vs. the 75T’s 5 hrs, higher build quality with features that are well-conceived and well-executed, are more practically why I looked for these in the first place… but can also see why they’re heavily discounted. For calls and such and a *barely-perceptible* bit more bass, these are fine if you can’t find the Elite 7 Pro at a similar price. But not if you’re looking for in-ear monitors at a cut rate price, or want to workout in them. Suppose that’s why there’s an Elite 7 Active ⭐️⭐️⭐️_ _