After a decade of selling your parents those embarrassing Bluetooth earpieces during the Entourage era, Jabra was one of the first brands to put forth a solid pair of wireless earbuds, the Elite 65t, before Apple made them popular.
Two generations later, Jabra’s best buds are still teetering at the top of the pile. The new Elite 85t have active noise canceling, an even more ergonomic design, and some of the best sound around, whether you're playing music or in a Zoom call. Plus, with physical buttons instead of sweat-sensitive touch controls, they’re some of my favorite workout buds too.
I'm also impressed with Jabra’s longer-term commitment to its products. It still sells the 65t (now for just $90) and recently upgraded the Elite 75t model with noise-canceling technology via a firmware update. Jabra also offers a better warranty than its peers; last year’s Elite Active 75t came with a two-year guarantee against water or dust damage. Other companies mothball whole products in that time.
The look of Jabra’s buds hasn’t changed much since the original, but they do get slightly more comfortable every generation. The earbuds eschew rubber earfins in favor of a more cozy, twist-in design that got steadily comfier from the 65 to 85t. In the time between models, Jabra claims it 3D scanned thousands of ears.
Each time Jabra engineers were given the chance, they picked the right sections to chisel, based on actual data they collected. These fit both my partner and me much better than previous models.
The 85t has the same slight elephant-tusk design toward the front as the previous models, intended to aim the microphones straight at the mouth when on phone or Zoom calls. Nothing beats a well-aimed mic; these have some of the best call quality you’ll find, just as before.
The most significant upgrade between generations is the addition of active noise canceling (ANC) out of the box. When combined with the excellent fit, the 85t easily passes the “my own pets sneak up on me and scare the crap out of me” test.
As with most noise-canceling headphones, they do particularly well with longer waveforms like my bassy refrigerator and HVAC system. Clacky keyboards and high pitched squeals from needy golden retrievers are less easily hidden, but the headphones do much better than nothing.
I turn ANC off when I'm out running because it can be very dangerous—cars really become that quiet, even when they're right behind you. That’s even more impressive when you consider that the Elite 85t are semi-open headphones like Apple's AirPods Pro, meaning they don’t form an airtight seal as the 75t do. The algorithm Jabra's using is every bit like the AirPods to my ears.