It is possible to interact with the Jabras in other ways, though, and the company’s ‘Sound+’ app is one of the better examples around. Here, you can adjust the amount of active noise-cancellation you desire, from ‘blanket of isolation’ to ‘mild amplification of external sound’. There’s some EQ adjustment available here too, and an impressively thorough hearing test to help the 85t adjust their levels to best suit your hearing profile. While we felt a little let down by the updated design (if it ain’t broke don’t fix it), the good news is that audio quality is still up there. In fact, it’s actually seen some improvements. In isolation, the Jabra Elite 85t fall into the ‘good not great’ category. They have many strengths and a couple of fairly significant weaknesses. A bigger problem, though, is the quality and the sheer number of rivals – similar money buys you decent alternatives from some of the biggest names around, such as the Sony WF-1000XM4, Apple AirPods Pro 2 or (if you can a good deal), Bose QuietComfort II. You can certainly do better in sonic terms, so unless you value the size and comfort of the 85t above all else, we’d advise you to shop around. However, the main difference here is that they’re not aimed at sports (although they are still rugged enough to be used for low-impact fitness thanks to IPX4 water-resistance).

Thankfully, the same goes for the brand new Elite 85t earphones. As the name suggests, they follow in the footsteps of Jabra’s last release, the Elite Active 75t, with a very similar design. HearThrough makes a return and has five adjustable levels that you can select in the app. It’s a slight upgrade over the previous version and makes external sounds clearer and more pronounced, much like the QuietComfort Earbuds’ ambient mode, which blends ANC and ambient listening together. HearThrough doesn’t do this, but that doesn’t make it any less serviceable. Those who want better awareness of their surroundings or want to engage in brief chats without removing the buds will do in care-free fashion. Jabra Elite 85t review: Audio quality Jabra isn’t a company shy of innovation. More often than not, the Danish audio brand is first to market with cutting-edge in-ear headphone designs, pioneering more compact form factors while retaining the great sound quality the firm is known for. As is only right and proper at this sort of money, Jabra has piled on the features. As far as sound goes, each earbud is fitted with a 12mm full-range driver. That’s pretty big by in-ear standards, and quite startling in the context of the 85t’s dimensions. The overt promise is of full-range sound – so Jabra has incorporated pressure-relief vents into the design to prevent low frequencies generating too much pressure in the wearer’s ear.Each earbud has three mics, too. One governs active noise-cancellation of external sound, another does the same for sound from inside the ear, and the third looks after telephony and interaction with voice assistants. Call quality is excellent, and compatibility with Siri and Google Assistant means it should be straightforward enough to have your bidding done simply by asking.

The Elite 85t is arguably at its best when playing orchestral records. Personal favorites like Ahmad Jamal’s “The Awakening” encouraged me to go on a Jazz binge during the testing phase. It was a soothing listen, but the extra oomph added to the low end sweetened the deal. The double bass delivered some amazing reverberation, which felt surreal, as if the instrument was being played right next to my ear. The Jabras use Bluetooth 5.1 for wireless connectivity – there’s no aptX, let alone aptX HD, but 5.1 alone is more than sufficient to get some hi-res audio files on board. And with an MQA-powered Tidal Masters file of Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) playing, the 85t don’t take long to establish themselves as a reasonably balanced, reasonably sophisticated listen. Update 10/25/2021: These headphones were updated to Test Bench 1.5 and their latency values have changed. Our previous Test Bench 1.4 measurements reported 'PC latency' at 234 ms, 'iOS latency' at 137 ms, and 'Android Latency' at 165 ms. However, our new test bench uses an average of three measurements instead of one, resulting in different values. As a result, we have updated our text to better reflect test bench 1.5 measurements. Bluetooth 5.0 is steady and reliable on the Elite 85t. The buds automatically show up on the available device list the moment you take them out of the charging case and pair instantly to your smartphone, tablet or laptop. Range is solid for about 35 feet of wireless listening. Multipoint technology is also at your disposal to connect the buds to two different devices simultaneously. Jabra Elite 85t review: Verdict

Technical specifications

Turning on ANC gives bass an incremental boost that only those with detailed hearing will notice. These buds can get extremely loud, which was a major complaint I had with the Elite 75t, but I recommend bringing the volume down five notches from the max level if you want to feed your ears lively sound and prevent any hearing damage. Oddly, the Elite 85t’s sound was much lower coming from my phone than from my MacBook Pro, though this issue was temporary and gone the following morning. Jabra’s last attempt at ANC headphones, the Elite 85h, was surprisingly good and fared well against category kingpins like the Bose QuietComfort 35 II and Sony WF-1000XM3. The same can be said about the Elite 85t’s noise-neutralizing capabilities when pitted against the AirPods Pro and Bose QuietComfort Earbuds. If having virtual assistant support is important, then the Elite 85t won’t disappoint you, as the buds demonstrate excellent speech recognition to register voice commands. Much fun was had using Google Assistant to pull up World Series box scores and voice-to-text friends when playing video games in the office uninterrupted. Siri gave me the same attention on macOS and didn’t skip a beat when pulling up calendar invites. Jabra confirmed that Alexa is coming in a Q1 2021 software upgrade. Jabra Elite 85t review: Active noise cancellation and HearThrough

Audio has never been an issue for Jabra and the Elite 85t is exemplary. The engineers doubled the speaker size (12mm) to pump out even bigger, more detailed sound, which can be personalized in the Jabra Sound+ app, though many find that the default EQ is sufficient for enjoying all popular media formats (e.g. music, videos, podcasts, games) on the go.Another thing impacting the fit is the new oval-shaped buds. Jabra says this fresh “semi-open” design features pressure relief vents to prevent pressure build-up inside the ear, while the silicon oval EarGels help create a more secure seal for better noise-cancelling. While that sounds all good and well in practice, we found that they actually don’t fit as tight as the older, rounded design and feel like they’re constantly on the verge of falling out, even when twisted to fit deeper in the ear. De Evolve2 modellen met Microsoft Teams-certificering ondersteunen Microsoft Teams als een plug-and-play-ervaring. De plug-and-play-ervaring biedt de volgende voordelen:

Battery life on the Elite 85t is standard: 5.5 hours with ANC on and 7.5 hours with ANC off.This is higher than the AirPods Pro (4.5 hours), but shorter than the QuietComfort Earbuds and Sony WF-1000XM3, with ANC on (6 hours). At least the Elite 85t gives you the option to power off the feature, but so does the WF-1000XM3, and that model offers 30 mins more playtime. Update 09/22/2021: We have retested 'Multi-Device Pairing'. These headphones can connect to two devices at once by sliding the power button towards the 'Bluetooth' label on the headphones to enter pairing mode. The headphones give you an audible confirmation that you have two devices connected. However, you can only hear audio input from one device at a time. Unfortunately, you can't play audio from a console and a Bluetooth device at once. There hasn't been a change in our results. Speaking of deep sounds, Jabra is renowned for its booming bass reproduction so we're elated that they’ve only sought to improve it this time round with the Elite 85t buds. It makes up for the less impressive fit, for one.

Ever wonder why Jabra hasn’t adopted touch controls? According to the company, some user experience studies showed that people liked the sensation of using buttons versus tap gestures. I’m not one of them, specifically because physical buttons require pressing the buds into the ears which creates discomfort, but I give credit to Jabra for making control management less painful. During our time testing the Jabra’s Elite 85t earbuds, we found they lasted for just over five hours per charge with noise cancellation left on. While this falls short slightly of Jabra’s quoted 5.5-hour battery life, it’s still inline with what else is available on the market right now. Take Apple’s AirPods Pro, which last just 4.5 hours per charge. That’s because Jabra has introduced larger 12mm speakers in the 85t, twice the size of those inside the 75t buds. What this means is a slightly wider and better balanced soundstage, alongside even deeper bass, helping to give your music a bit more depth.