Jabra Elite Active 75t Review

The Jabra Elite Active 75t are some of the few truly wireless earbuds to sport IP57 waterproofness, meaning they can survive complete submersion in a meter of water for 30 minutes. However, that additional waterproofing comes at the cost of sound quality and, unless you drop the earbuds in a puddle, isn't necessary.

Analysis and Test Results

Sound Quality

The Jabra Elite Active 75t sounds good. However, their siblings, the Jabra Elite 75t (non-active) sound exceptional. The tradeoff is that the Jabra Elite Active 75t is waterproof as opposed to only water resistant. If waterproofing is very important to you, the Jabra Elite Active 75t sounds good enough for most situations, but if you're fine with just water resistance (which easily stands up to sweat) the original Jabra Elite 75t sounds appreciably better.

The Jabra Elite 75t is essentially an incredible sounding pair of earbuds wrapped in a waterproof casing, and that's about what it sounds like. Everything still sounds good, but slightly muffled and garbled. The bass is fairly powerful, but many of the particularly low notes lose some of their boom. Mid and treble ranges come through fairly clear, but with just a hint of a muffled quality.

Comfort

We've had more than a dozen testers try on these earbuds, and the main lesson we've learned is that people either love them or hate them, with very little middle ground. The moral of the story is to buy these somewhere that offers returns in case you end up in the latter group.

Some of our testers put these earbuds in and it was like they were custom made. They fit comfortably, securely, and gave absolutely no issues over multiple hours of wear. Others felt immediate discomfort upon putting them on, and that discomfort only grew as time went on. The only way to really find out is to try them on, so make sure you have the option of returning them!

Athletic Performance

Like comfort, we found the athletic performance of these earbuds to vary greatly between individuals. If they happened to fit well, then they worked great for athletic endeavors. If they didn't happen to fit well, they were not great workout companions.

Those testers that could easily find a comfortable fit with the Jabra Elite 75t were able to take them on runs, down bouncy downhill mountain bike trails, and do burpees and jumping jacks with no discomfort nor semblance of instability. Those that could not find a comfortable fit found these earbuds to naggingly tug at their ears as they ran and felt like they were going to fall out while doing jumping jacks.

Battery Life

The Jabra Elite 75t lasts an impressive 7.5 hours on a single charge. The battery in the charging case carries another 2-3 charges as well, tripling the overall battery life.

Portability

The case is one of the smaller and slimmer we tested. It easily fits in jean pockets. It also has a removable lanyard.

Ease of Use

Each earbud is controlled by a single button. The right earbud's button serves as a play/pause button, summons virtual assistants when double pressed, and raises the volume if you hold it down. Holding down the button on the left earbud lowers the volume. This button can also skip tracks forward/backwards using double and triple presses. Like every good pair of truly wireless earbuds, music is automatically paused when you take one of the earbuds out.

While these commands are not the most intuitive that we've seen, we quickly got used to them. We did like the design of the buttons, which register a clear 'click' when you press them but don't require so much force as to create undue pressure in your ears.

Value

The Jabra Elite Active 75t are quite expensive, but do provide total IP57 waterproofness, somewhat of a rarity in the truly wireless earbud world. However, we've found other buds that are totally waterproof and sound slightly better, so we don't think the Jabra Elite Active 75t's performance totally justifies the high price tag.

Conclusion