Jabra Elite 5 Review | 3 Months Later: Constantly Consistent

Despite our busy schedule, I did take my sweet time reviewing the Jabra Elite 5. Coming from the Elite 75t – this new one felt similar in many ways, aside from the highlighted upgrades. This made me question a lot more if there’s anything special or unique to these new ones. But then again, we realized – not many TWS offers consistency. So in this Jabra Elite 5 Review, let us tell you what we think about their new Active ANC earbuds.

Jabra Elite 5 Review | 3 Months Later

A Friendly Design we have seen before

Jabra doesn’t seem to stray away from its simple look and while it may seem a bit bland, its form of it makes it a lot easier to carry it around and even keep it in your pocket. It has a slim case profile with a nice snappy magnetized lid which holds both earbuds inside.

We aren’t a stranger to this design because we have reviewed the Jabra Elite 2 which had the same design and the “wee-bit” bulkier Jabra Elite 75t. We have the Jabra Elite 5 in this black colourway and it comes in the popular beige/cream colour which I am more of a huge fan of.

The earbud’s design is still more in the same profile as any other earbuds from Jabra and you have this very clicky button that does take no effort to click when you are wearing it. The EarGels have a perfect ear canal size, similar to the Sony Linkbuds S I use. So far, one of the two brands that I am aware of is the fact that these earbud tips are properly designed with the proper human ear anatomy. In fact, Jabra does disclose that they have tested with many ear types to design the right earbuds. Honestly, this is one of the comfiest earbuds I have used, on par with the Elite 2 and the 75t, we’ve reviewed.

Okay Battery Life but Now Can be Charged with Qi Wireless

Since it’s an Active ANC-based True Wireless Earbuds, you have two different battery life based on the modes. Jabra claims to offer up to 7 hours of battery life with ANC and up to 9 hours without ANC. With the charging case, expect the battery life to be anywhere from 28 to 36 hours. During my time using the Jabra Elite 5, it’s safe to say that it falls into the numbers they claim to offer. But given that I do listen to music almost all the time, my usage consists of a mix of ANC and no ANC – so the battery life is a little over 7 hours but less than 9.

It charges via USB-C as usual but they have now added a Qi Wireless charging capability to the case. This is useful, especially when you are out and about and, happen to have a low battery and would like to use your phone to reverse charge your earbuds. That is if your phone supports it.

Jabra Sound+: Still by far the Best App

Our experience with Jabra Sound+ has been the best, through and through. While sure the first pairing can be a little finicky, once you get past that, everything is a breeze to use. On the top, you have the usual battery indicators and then you have more audio-related settings such as Sound Modes (ANC, HearThrough and Off), Music EQ (5-point) and Music Presets, where you can make your own presets.

Finally, one of my favourite features – which sadly, is never available in their more affordable range – Soundscape. This is such an underrated feature which we had fun with when we reviewed the Elite 75t. It’s a noise box where you can have pink, white, and other kinds of white noise to keep your mind at ease. Jabra, if you are reading this – make this more widely available across all your earbuds.

Very Familiar Sound Profile and Good Codec Support

Let’s start with Shreea Kaul’s Ladke. With the neutral pre-set, you can tell that the earbuds have a treble-focused sound profile. This was very similar to the Jabra Elite 75t but it wasn’t as sharp as that. These Elite 5 lacks a bit of the full-body/whole-ness feeling. Clarity-wise, it is very nicely done and surprisingly, Jabra fixed one big issue I had with the 75t on this – the sheer absurdity of the bass heavy-ness is gone for good. But if you do want the bass boost while listening to EDM, the Elite 5 has a preset which gives the “right” amount of oomph.

Next, we went for a little lo-fi-like – Can’t Delete You by Joey Gatto. The instruments have a good presence and when the 808-like beat kicks in, the bass isn’t as intense as it should be in neutral. We switched to Bass Boost to get an idea of the bass, it does get a little more intense but at the cost of losing some details here and there. The low-end response seems to be a hit-and-miss. So we tested with another song.

Wasted Times by The Weekend has one of the best bass whole body-ness to it. The echoey vocals seem like it doesn’t quite reach their full potential whereas the bass, does have an “almost” whole body to it. You would be fine listening to songs with no issue but it isn’t going to blow you away with complete details as it does lack the low-end response.

Okay, now the sound profile we experienced with the Jabra Elite 5: It is very nice to have a good casual listening experience through and through. They have definitely tweaked some of the complaints I had with one of their previous generation earbuds and now with the neutral profile, it has an almost neutral sound profile. If you do need the bass, then the Bass Boost is there to elevate the right “oomph” -ness. Kind of sad that it doesn’t give a full body listening experience and if you chase for finer details, it is barely present or not present at all. It is clean and crisp – which I do like about the Jabra Elite 5.

One good thing about these earbuds in the codec department: you get the usual SBC and AAC for Apple but you are also getting Qualcomm aptX which elevates the listening experience.

What’s New: Hybrid ANC

One of their biggest KSPs is the switch to Hybrid ANC versus the traditional ANC. Hybrid is better because it has a feedforward and feedback microphone which covers a wider range of frequencies and doesn’t affect a person’s hearing by causing disorientation. The Active ANC works okay, when you don’t play any songs – you can notice the “static” hiss, which is subtle but audible. Once you start listening to music, you will notice that it does reduce the noise by a lot but it doesn’t get completely cancelled. It’s good and you won’t have any problems with it.

Now there’s another thing you need to remember. Jabra has a sister company that manufactures hearing aid devices. Hybrid ANC is great but what Jabra did is far too genius. Personalized ANC finetunes the Hybrid ANC to a person’s liking – basically a tailor-made profile. It starts off with finding the “best noise suppression”, followed by “balancing the ANC with your left and right ears”. Now personally, I have a hearing imbalance.

This is important for me because normal ANC throws me out of whack. Hybrid on the other hand is a lot more manageable but it isn’t quite there yet, just like many brands but with a few exceptions. Now, with this tool – being able to adjust to my ear, makes my earbuds work like it’s truly mine and helps me even out my uneven hearing situation. I can’t remember if the 75t had it, but this is a feature that is truly unique to Jabra.

Multipoint Capable

Another good feature the Elite 5 features – with Bluetooth 5.2, they have added Bluetooth Multipoint. This allows you to connect to two devices at the same time – useful if you happen to connect to your laptop and your phone at the same time. These features were available on the 75t we reviewed, and these have them too. By the way, there aren’t many true wireless earbuds that do good Multipoint connection – so you can count on these Elite 5 to do alright.

Conclusion

Three months later, the Jabra Elite 5 has been nothing but pure bliss of True Wireless Earbuds that have been constantly consistent. If I were to compare with the Elite 75t, which is “kind-of” the equivalent to this, albeit with last-generation hardware – we do notice the substantial improvements in the Active ANC department.

Unlike your generic Active ANC, Jabra has a better understanding of the human ear and does a tailor-made ANC experience based on your ear. We will talk about this in another article. You can tell that by the way, they design their earbuds which – for the most part, the majority of my friends and family had a comfortable fit.

The sound profile of these Elite 5 seems to be the same as the 75t but works on a limited range when it comes to sound staging. But nonetheless, I can see myself having these earbuds in my pocket for casual and more specifically for workouts – even if it’s not an “Active” series Earbuds because the IP55 is pretty good enough.

At RM 699 (you can find it for even cheaper on online stores, click here), I believe it’s a good buy and you will get a software experience, the best in our books. I had issues with these, but it was fixed almost immediately with an update – that’s how serious they are with the software.

There is a good contender to these Jabra Elite 5, another earbud I carry with me all the time – but that’s for another day.