If you’re looking for a truly wireless earbud while staying on a budget, you can check out Jabra’s Elite 3 earbuds. Like anything, it has its own set of pros and cons.
| PROS |
CONS |
| Budget-friendly | No AAC |
| Good battery life | Wired charging |
| Water and dust resistant (IP55 rating) | No adjustable EQ |
| HearThrough mode to hear from one earpod | No active noise canceling |
| Noise isolation | – |
| Easy to use | – |
Curious to learn more? Let’s dive deep into its features and performance.
Table of Contents
Jabra Elite 3 Features and Performance
Jebra Elite 3 comes with a good feature portfolio, but since performance is important too, we put it to test. We liked Jebra Elite 3’s performance, but let’s dive deeper into what our tests revealed so you can decide on buying Jebra Elite 3 versus a different pair of earbuds.
Comfortable To Use
Jabra Elite 3 is designed to mimic the curves of your ear. So, they have a rounded triangular shape instead of the usual circular shape. This shape ensures the earbuds nestle into your ear perfectly. It’s made of plastic primarily with magnets inside to keep the earbuds in place.
You also don’t have to worry about wearing them in the rain or during your workouts. It has an IP55 rating, which means they’re resistant to water, dust, and tiny objects.
Earbuds have drivers in them that push air, helping you hear. Larger drivers can generate louder sounds by moving more air particles. Jabra Elite 3 has a 6mm driver in them, delivering a frequency of 20Hz to 20kHz.
User-Friendly Controls
The Jabra Elite 3 has a multifunction panel on each earbud. It’s the plate with Jabra inscribed on it. You can control it with a few taps. The good thing is that the controls are physical buttons and not a touch panel, which means they’re not sensitive accidental touches, making it more reliable.
On the left earbud:
- Pressing once would turn on the HearThrough mode
- Pressing twice would activate the voice assistant or Spotify
- Pressing and holding would decrease your volume
On the right earbud:
- Pressing once would play/pause your audio
- Pressing twice would go to the next track
- Pressing thrice would repeat the track
- Pressing and holding would increase your volume
Audio Quality
With this price for truly wireless earbuds, you usually don’t get excellent audio quality. Thankfully, Jabra’s Elite 3 delivers when it comes to sound quality. It is tuned well with low-end booms when necessary. It has a deep and dynamic kick drum across rock tracks with crisp quality and excellent depth.
On calls, the Elite 3 changes to HearThrough mode automatically, and you can enable sidetone to pipe in even more of your voice, so you don’t have to shout. The earphones also have a convenient mute function that disables the microphones with a simple touch on either side.
Finally, Jabra has included a mono mode or HearThrough mode, allowing you to use only one earbud at a time. So, you can use one while the other charges. If you want to listen to your surroundings, you can use this mode as well.
If you want to block out ambient sound or background noises, you can definitely try these out. Although Jabra doesn’t provide active noise canceling in its Elite 3, it gives you noise isolation.
Battery Life
Jabra’s Elite 3 boasts long battery life and lasts for 7 hours on a single charge. Jabra has three full charging cycles in the case, increasing the overall battery life to 28 hours.
Here’s the kicker: 10 minutes of charging your Jabra Elite 3 will make it last an hour. This is ideal if you’re someone who dreads charging devices frequently.
Jabra’s Elite 3, however, doesn’t support wireless charging. Please note that the charging case isn’t water-resistant, so if your earpods have water on them, make sure you dry them out before docking them inside the case.
Connectivity
Like any wireless earpods, you use BlueTooth to connect it to your phone. Along with the high-quality aptX codec, the Jabra Elite 3 offers the default SBC codec.
aptX access is wonderful for Android users, but iPhone users will have to use SBC because these earpods don’t support AAC. It supports Bluetooth 5.2, which implies it might include the new Bluetooth LE audio protocol and the LC3 codec in the future.
Jabra’s Sound+ App
Jebra Elite 3 is compatible with Jabra’s Sound+ app, which supports several of the company’s earbuds, headphones, and headsets, although the selection is restricted. Installing the app also opens quick settings controls in your home screen’s notifications area.
On the main screen, you can see three options:
- The battery level %
- A HearThrough toggle
- A library of six audio presets (Neutral, Speech, Bass Boost, Treble Boost, Smooth, Energize)
There is no manual EQ and no noise cancellation control, unlike other Jabra devices. There is no slider in HearThrough mode, just a toggle, so it’s either all or nothing.
If you go into the Elite 3’s settings, you’ll notice that it’s compatible with Find My Jabra in case you forget an earbud. You can also use sidetone during conversations to manage your own volume. Sidetone control will be displayed on the main screen when you’re on a call.
You can set your voice assistant here. If you don’t like Google assistant or Siri, you can also set your voice assistant to something else, like Alexa. You can also integrate Spotify. However, you can’t have both Spotify and a voice assistant. If you want Spotify integrated, you have to replace the voice assistant with Spotify.
In Conclusion: Should You Buy The Jabra Elite 3 Earpods?
Elite 3 is designed in to make it incredibly comfortable to use regularly. It offers several essential as well as nifty features like noise isolation and connecting with your phone’s voice assistant or Spotify.
Another cool feature is the HearThrough mode, allowing you to use just one earpod. If you’re on a budget but you’re looking for truly wireless earpods with decent sound and battery life that’ll be worth your $$$, you can most definitely get your hands on Jabra’s Elite 3.
