Annoying Cables
I love the idea of wireless everything, and the Jabra Sport bring a bit of that to the earphone side of things. Most wired earphones can get in the way of workouts (accidentally pulling the wire occurs) The Jabra Sport does get rid of that annoyance. It also remains fairly well on your ears even with a lot of head movement. They are not as comfortable as I wish they were, but maybe I have not broken into them enough (like brand new shoes).
| Buttons There are four buttons on the earphone and they are easy to access and memorize. The buttons include play/pause, volume up and down, and FM radio mode. These buttons are multi-purpose and you can access their secondary functions by holding them down for a second. Once memorized they are easy to access. | Looks I think these are some of the best look bluetooth earphones dedicated for "workouts". They are definitely "sporty" which makes them very different when compated to most bluetooth earphones. |
| Audio Quality When working properly they do retain good audio qualilty and that includes a decent amount of bass. I'm impressed. | Answer Calls I didn't get to try this, but it's a feature included with the earphones. |
| FM Radio If you ditch that portable media player and want to go FM radio only get ready for a mixed experience. If you have good radio stations around then the quality can be good (especially if you are not moving around too much). But if you have some bad reception the FM radio can be fairly useless. | Charging and Battery Life The one thing that drives me nuts about the "wireless" technology is that it needs to get charged and that usually requires the tedious task of plug/unplug constantly. The Jabra Sport only has about 3 hours of battery life so you will have to plug/unplug them all the time. My suggestion to improve this is by using technologies like "powermats" with devices that don't require any type of connection, just good ol inductive charging. |
| Sunglasses And Jabra Sport Adding sunglasses + the earphones is not really such a good idea. Both of these things have to be held with your ears and it doesn't feel "secured" at all. For runners this is an issue, if you are indoors at the gym then all you need is the Jabra Sport and it's not a big deal. | Left Earphone Low Volume The left earphone seems to lose it's volume when you switch to FM radio, the right remains at its full volume. One way of fixing this is by playing the volume up and down until the volume is restored. Maybe Jabra can do a firmware update to fix this. |
| Audio Source Distance Matters Jabra does have a few notes in their documentations about the placement of the audio source device. They recommend that you get an armband and you place it on your right arm. Their notes are spot on because if you try placing your mp3 player/cell phone anywhere else it can be trouble for runners. If you don't follow instructions the earphones seem to "skip" which basically means that audio is cut off for a split second. It seems that when indoors the reception is better (maybe the signal bounces off the walls). For some indoor scenarios there's no need for that armband. | Endomondo Did not try, but it does have the Endomondo (helps you track your workouts) |
Conclusion
I love the idea of wireless earphones. In a way I think Jabra is ahead of the game on bluetooth workout earphones but there are negative things to consider. Maybe Jabra can improve upon their current design and come out with something even better on the next round.
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Its suppose to work in 10m range. Are u shure it needs to be so close to the transmitter - aprox 0.5m from your review?
ReplyDeleteIf you were to be very still during your workouts then yes you could have the audio source at 10m range. However, because during running sessions you may be moving a bit too much the radio waves seem to have a harder time reaching the earphones. Jabra highly recommends an armband to get the best possible experience.
DeleteI wish to use them at home, not for sports, watching cinema, laptop, skype etc. So I want it to work notmally around the room (5-6 metres around teh reciver) with good sound qulaity. Will these be usefull for that?
DeleteIt seems that radio waves bounce from walls and therefore the Jabra captures them better. I think they will work ok indoors. There are many reviews at Amazon, I recommend reading a few to gain the perspective of what owners are experiencing.
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