The Jabra Elite 7 Active offers a grippy in-ear fit and has a superb sound signature. At Rs. 15,999, is it worth choosing over its rivals?
We checked out the Jabra Elite 4 Active a few months ago and while it left us highly impressed with its audio signature and practicality, it lacked a few basics. We knew that Jabra would eventually bring its more decked-up variant to India soon, dubbed the Elite 7 Active. And now that it is here, we got our hands on it and have come up with an opinion of this being the best workout earbuds if money is no bar for you.
Note that the Jabra Elite 7 Active will set you back by Rs. 15,999, which outs it against the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro, Apple AirPods Gen 2, Sennheiser CX Plus TWS, and few more. However, none of them take the durability factor as seriously as the Jabra does. The best part is that you can get the Elite 7 Active at a massive discounted price of Rs. 9,999 at the moment at several online retailers. Should you take the leap of faith for these durable Jabra earbuds? Find out.
Jabra Elite 7 Active Design
The Active lineup from Jabra sticks to the stem-less design and on the Elite 7 Active, it comes across as the best iteration of that design. I won’t beat around the bush – the Jabra Elite 7 Active is easily the best fitting pair of earbuds I have ever worn. The shape of the buds is great and the grippy matte coating makes these earbuds stay inside the ear no matter how vigorously your jaws move. I seldom had to twist and adjust these earbuds, which was usual on the Elite 4 Active, or any other TWS earbuds I have used till date.
The Elite 7 Active also continues to have buttons for controls instead of touch panels. I admire Jabra’s implementation of these buttons – they are soft-touch keys and don’t dislodge the buds from the ear when pressed. My “Navy Blue” variant picks up smudges and dirt easily but that shouldn’t be the case with the “mint” coloured version.
The case itself is slim and is easy to pocket. I find the positioning of the USB-C port weird – it is at the front instead of the conventional rear positioning. There’s also wireless charging baked in, which adds to the convenience.
Jabra Elite 7 Active Audio Performance
The Elite 4 Active left us impressed with its audio quality, which was tuned for gym sessions. The Elite 7 Active takes it a step further. In fact, I can say that the Elite 7 Active is the most “burden-less” pair of earbuds I have ever heard – no extra discomforting bass, no jarring high-pitch tones.
As someone who likes to keep the music flowing, I subjected the Elite 7 Active to Punjabi party playlists, soul-soothing classics from Kishore Kumar, the pop songs from the west, the occasional modern Hindi love songs. The earbuds performed exceptionally, showing a great control over the mids, highs and lows. The sound signature usually stays balanced in its standard Equaliser settings, with a slightly nuanced low-end. It never gets too heavy or shrill across various genres, which is also the reason I wore these earbuds more than usual for my evening music sessions. Bass performance is great and you can enhance it further from the Jabra app. I still recommend leaving it on the default “Neutral” settings, considering how good the tuning is.
Helping with the experience is the noise isolation mechanism, which includes good passive isolation and a strong active noise cancellation system. The ANC system allows you to adjust the strength of isolation, from a minimal intervention to a full-strength cancellation. This is a nice touch for those who have issues with ANC creating an unbearable pressure. I myself suffer from the issue and yet, I never observed the same with the ANC set to full on the Elite 7 Active. As for the effectiveness, the Elite 7 Active can almost make the usual wind noise, ambient traffic noise, and distant dog barking go away. With ANC off, you can hear the surroundings but there still good enough amount of isolation from the world.
The HearThrough feature, which is essentially a transparency mode, allows you to adjust its strength to your liking. It works nicely while taking the Elite 7 Active on the evening walk. Additionally, when you receive a call, the earbuds automatically switch to the HearThrough mode to allow for a comfortable sidetone. Clever thought!
Jabra Elite 7 Active Smart Features
Since you are paying more for the Elite 7 Active, you are getting some smart stuff to play with. The Jabra Sound+ app on both Android and iOS is a must-have. You get the MySound feature for tuning the audio output on the basis of your ear shape, and basically adjust for any audio leakage. You can customize the button controls to your liking, and even play with the ANC modes as well as the HearThrough modes. And obviously, you can download your firmware updates via the app.
The earbuds can also be used in the Mono mode, wherein you can only use one earbud for talking or listening to music. The Elite 7 Active also gets in-ear detection and Bluetooth Multipoint, something which the Elite 4 Active lacks.
Jabra Elite 7 Active Battery
With my average usage lasting 3 hours on an average daily, the Jabra Elite 7 Active lasted me an entire week on a single charge (earbuds and case charge combined), with ANC always switched on. I couldn’t test Jabra’s claim of the earbuds lasting 8 hours but even after a 3-hour call, I saw the earbuds showing 70 percent charge left. There’s support for fast charging, wherein a 5-minute top-up can give 1 hour of backup. Otherwise, it takes close to two hours to do a full charge. I often left it on my 9W wireless charging pad for an overnight recharge.
Verdict
In the midst of brands raining good TWS earbuds in the premium segments, the Jabra Elite 7 Active stands out with two things – its superb in-ear fit and a great audio tuning. For most of you looking for a pair of great sounding gym earbuds, or just a nice pair of TWS earbuds for daily use, the Jabra Elite 7 Active comes up as one of the nicest pair of earbuds to choose. It has got some smart features to make life a bit easier (the HearThrough, ANC, MySound), offers great battery life, sounds lovely, and, most importantly – stays in the ear despite having a stem-less design.
Even though Jabra lists the Jabra Elite 7 Active at an MRP of Rs. 15,999, the current discounted price of Rs. 9,999 make it a bargain for earphone shoppers at the moment. Leave everything else and pocket these before the price goes up.
Rating
Price
INR 15,999/-
Product Name
Jabra Elite 7 Active
Brand Name
Jabra
Pros
- Superb fit
- Great sound
- Long battery life
Specifications
-
Speaker bandwidth
20Hz - 20000Hz
-
Noise Isolation
ANC + HearThrough
-
Connectivity
Bluetooth
-
App Support
iOS, Android
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