Jabra Elite 75t
Pretty early on Jabra,one of the few companies that actually produced aviable Airpods alternative. But, as the likes of Samsung and Beats have caught up in recent months, it's getting harderand harder to recommend their true wireless earbuds. So, it makes sense that here at IFA 2019 Jabra's announced a follow-up. They're called the Elite75t's, and while they don't really change too muchabout Jabra's earphones, there's enough small, incremental changes to make them a really good upgrade. Now, full disclosure:Jabra has provided us with a really early sample of the Elite 75t's, but they're not a working sample. They don't produce any sound.
So, whilst we can talkabout their features and their fit and their feel, we can't say anything about how these earbuds actually sound. That said, given Jabra'shistory of producing earbuds that do sound really good, we still think they're really interesting. Let's get into top line specs. Now, Jabra is claimingthat you'll get 7.5 hours of listening out of the earbuds themselves for a total of 28 hours whenyou include the charging case. That's about a 50%improvement over the 65t's. Now, that's not quiteas good for our top pick for the best true wirelessearbuds out there at the moment, which is the Beats Powerbeats Pro which gives you about nine hours or so, but it compares favorably to the Airpods or Sony's true wireless earbuds, which will give you five hoursand six hours respectively. So, if we turn our attention to the case, not only do you get slightlybetter battery life, it's also a little bitsmaller and finally, it charges over USB-C, which is pretty much a given in 2019, but I'm still reallythankful to see Jabra do it. Oh, and the inside of the case, the little, I'm gonna call them cradles, where you put the earbuds,they're now magnetic. Which just makes it slightlyeasier to put them in and it means they don'tfall out quite as easily.
Now, the old Jabra's, as wellas having bad battery life and charging over Micro USB, they're also kinda bigand bulky and not only was that plain annoying, butit meant that people with, I guess, smaller ears foundthem really uncomfortable. So, the big thing thatJabra's happy about this time is they've made them smaller. They've said 20% smaller,which should hopefully mean that they'll fit in amuch wider range of ears. Now, me, I'm captain average. I have completely average-sized ears and everything just seemsto fit them just fine. I didn't have a problemwith the previous Jabra's. But, I know someone whobelieves deep in their heart that Jabra's old earbudswere just plain too big. So, I'm gonna ask her whatshe thinks of the Elite 75t's, and whether they've actually solved that problem once and for all. - All right, John, here goes nothing. Oh, tell me it isn't so. Oh, damn. - But fit isn't just about comfort and Jabra reckons thatby having better fit, you should also get better sound quality by having a better sealagainst your ear canal. Unfortunately, we can'tverify this ourselves, we'll have to wait for thefinal earbuds to actually tell. Now, it's a real shamewe can't listen to these earbuds ourselves because I have a lot of questions about them. Not just in terms of sound quality, but also in terms ofhow well they maintain their connection with a phone. Because smaller earbuds mean less space for things like a Bluetooth antenna and that's really importantwhen you wanna maintain a good connection with a phone.
Now, Jabra claims it's founda neat little workaround where it runs the antennaaround the top of the earbud right here, but we just don't know how this is gonna work in real world use. And the bigger problem is that whilst I think Jabra seems tohave done a really good job of catching up with the competition, in recent years thecompetition has been moving on at a breakneck pace. Features like wireless charging and active noise cancellationare becoming more and more important as time goes on. And these aren't things thatthe Jabra Elite 75t supports. Jabra does say that it's gonna add a new wireless charging model next year, and I think that's a really good move. Especially as we see so manyrumors about the iPhones this year support bi-directional charging. Which then, in future, in theory, will be able to charge these earbuds. So, Jabra's finallycompetitive again in 2019. And if these earbuds areable to sound as good as Jabra's previous earbuds,then it might just have itself another really compellingAirpods alternative. Until, I guess, the market moves on again. Which, to be honest,with the breakneck pace that the true wirelessearbuds market has been moving in recent years, mightnot be that long at all. So, the Jabra Elite 75t'sare gonna be available in mid-October in the U.S. for $199 or in the U.K. for $189Great British Pounds.
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