One of the most interesting releases in the true wireless earphone space in the last year were the Jabra Elite 75t earbuds. As the next iteration in the Elite line, the 75t earbuds improve on the 65t in a number of ways, which is saying a lot because the Elite 65t earbuds were (and possibly still are) considered some of the best on the market. With the 75t earbuds, you get ridiculously good battery life, a solid fit and finish, and the sound and call quality that you’ve likely come to expect from Jabra. I ordered a pair in titanium black and put them through their paces during a real few days in my busy city life.
Design: Simple and tiny
The 75t earbuds are taking very clear cues from Samsung Galaxy Buds. That is to say that Jabra is putting a big emphasis on making these earbuds super-tiny, barely even visible when you put them in your ears. The shape is really interesting, sporting an almost amoeba-like look that actually works to help stabilize them against the inside of your ear. When you put them in your ear, basically the only thing you can see is the circular button printed with the Jabra logo. One point of interest is that Jabra’s flagship color, called titanium black, actually features two tones: black on the inside with the silicone ear tip and more of a gray-gold on the outside. You can also choose to purchase these earbuds in either one of those colors alone (called black and gold beige respectively). This is interesting when many manufacturers choose to stick to only a black offering. The battery case is also a real selling point on the design front as it’s one of the sleekest cases I’ve seen to date—even smaller and simpler than Apple’s Airpod cases.
Comfort: Super tight and pretty secure
Similar to my experience with the 65t, the 75t earbuds rely very heavily on the tightness of the earbud fit to stay secure in your ear. This makes choosing between the three included ear tip sizes extra important. One thing about the eartips is that they provide a very tight fit in your ear, so if you’re someone who likes a little breathability in their earbuds then you might not find them super comfortable. The 75t’s offset construction leaves a nice bulge on the back of each earbud that serves to rest on the inside of your outer ear. Even though I’d prefer a physical rubber wing tip to grab the inside of my ear, this actually works better than most ear tip-only fit methods. And since each earbud only weighs about 5.5 grams, they’re very easy to get used to. For both gym sessions and long workdays, I found these a lot more comfortable than most tight-fitting earbuds.
Durability and Build Quality: A noted improvement on last-gen
The one complaint I had with the 65t iteration of these earbuds is that, though the quality of sound is top-notch, the feel of the build left a lot to be desired. As a result, I wasn’t surprised to find this as a key improvement Jabra chose to make on the 75t generation. Most notable is the improved battery case. While the 65t case required a snap to open and close (which was really stiff right out of the box), the 75t opts for a strong magnet similar to the AirPods case. There’s also now a set of magnets inside the case to easily align the earbuds automatically to charge. These are two very welcome improvements that make the experience of interacting with these earbuds that much better. Otherwise, everything is mostly the same here, with an all-plastic construction that feels sturdy but not ultra-premium. There’s also IP55 water and dust resistance—the water resistance is on par with other premium earbuds, allowing ample protection against sweat and light rain. The fact that it includes dust protection which is often not present on true wireless earbuds truly sets the Elite 75t apart. All in all, this category is a win in my book.
Sound Quality: Impressive, with plenty of oomph
Jabra has done a pretty amazing thing for true wireless earbuds on the sound quality front. For a brand that had been previously known as a phone headset company to climb to the top of the ranks against audiophile names like Bose and Sony is a true feat. Most listeners praised the 65t for their powerful, clear response, so I had really high expectations for the 75t earbuds. The sonic response here is truly powerful, with a lot of support on the low end—something that’s often lacking in the tiny drivers included in earbuds. While some people might find the bass too powerful—there was plenty of thump when I turned on some four-on-the-floor EDM music—this ends up being a positive because it gives most music enough presence to push pack the typical earbud thinness. And because you’ll get a really solid seal with these, the passive noise cancellation provides a shocking floor of silence to work form. The other side of the sound quality coin has to do with call quality. One interesting note is that while Jabra marks the frequency spectrum of that earbuds at 20Hz to 20kHz, that range changes to 100Hz to 8 kHz for calls. I’ve never actually seen this change advertised on earbuds because on some level it doesn’t make much sense. A speaker has the spectral range that it has, period. But what this means to me is that Jabra has created a software situation that adjusts the frequency response of the speakers artificially to better reproduce the natural frequencies of the human voice during calls. This, paired with the classic Jabra four-mic array gives an impressively crisp response for phone calls. To be clear, it doesn’t sound good in the traditional sense as it tends to be much sharper than you’d expect. But this means that no phone call will be muddy, and it certainly won’t suffer from low-frequency hums and rumbles.
Battery Life: Reliable for the long run
Considering both the earbuds and the charging case occupy such a small, sleek footprint, it’s all the more impressive how much time on a single charge you’re able to squeeze out of these earbuds. On paper, Jabra promises an impressive 7.5 hours of listening with the earbuds alone and up to 28 hours when you throw in the charging case. These numbers would likely be different if you’re making a lot of phone calls or leaving the HearThrough mic passthrough on a lot, but even so, they rival some of the best earbuds I’ve tried. I actually wasn’t able to drain the battery case to empty at all despite days of normal use. It was trending toward the numbers Jabra advertises, but even just the fact that I couldn’t drain it gives these earbuds high marks in my book. This makes sense because Jabra clocks the standby time at 6 months, meaning they’ve optimized the earbuds not to pull phantom charge when not in use. It’s this last fact that I’m most impressed with because leaving a pair of earbuds in your bag for use whenever you decide to need them is the most common use case—if you’re bored on a train and want to throw on a podcast, there’s nothing worse than finding dead earbuds. Plus, with USB-C and fast charging allowing for up to 60 minutes of listening after a 15-minute charge, these earbuds have quite the battery offering.
Connectivity and Setup: Seamless and stable
Setting up the Jabra Elite 75t earbuds was about as painless as you can get outside of Apple’s native chipset. The earbuds were already in pairing mode after first removing them from their case, and my iPhone had no trouble pulling them into the Bluetooth list. What’s more is, because they employ Bluetooth 5.0, they’re capable of holding two Bluetooth devices at once. After pairing, simply hold both earbuds’ buttons at once to reenter pairing mode. I was able to seamlessly swap back and forth between my laptop and my phone—something that isn’t often the case, even for earbuds that claim Bluetooth 5.0 capabilities. The Bluetooth connection was also one of the most stable I’ve tested. Even other premium brands are plagued by hiccups in high-interference areas. To be fair, there were a couple of skips on the Jabras, as this is a common side effect of having the freedom of truly wireless earbuds. But for my money, these are possibly the best on the market when it comes to Bluetooth connectivity.
Software and Extra Features: A nearly full offering
The Jabra Connect+ apps is largely unchanged from the 65t generation. That isn’t a big deal, because I found that app to be more than capable as a feature-extending offering. There are the usual suspects at play: the ability to customize the tap functions, choose your voice assistant, and set up an earbud locating extension. There’s also a basic graphic EQ on-board here to give you better control over the already-solid sound profile of the Elite 75ts. Finally, the HearThrough transparent listening mode allows a certain amount of outside sound to come through via the microphones. While this mode is easily toggled with one press on the left earbud, the sensitivity can be adjusted in the app. There’s also an interesting feature called SideTone that passes your voice through the microphone during a call. This is a little disorienting at first, but is actually pretty useful to ensure the other person on your call can adequately hear you. The only feature missing here that would have put these earbuds basically at the top of my list is the presence of active noise canceling. When reviewing Sony’s latest WF-1000XM3 earbuds, I found this feature to be truly important because so few true wireless earbuds have it. Otherwise, the Jabra Elite 75ts are the full package.
Price: Less expensive than you might think
With most of the rest of the premium true wireless earbud market sitting around $200, finding that the Elite 75t earbuds go for as low as $179 was a little surprising. It makes me think that Jabra is trying to price themselves lower than the rest of the premium earbud market. Considering the sound quality, the impressive battery life, and the much-improved fit and finish, the $179 price point is really a good deal, provided you’re already in the market for premium true wireless earbuds. There are definitely cheaper ones to be had, but for this quality and feature set, you can’t do better than these.
Jabra Elite 75t vs. Sony WF-1000XM3
In short, these are very solid earbuds. There are very few shortcomings to dig up on them, but there are a few: the lack of breathability in fit, and the fact that there’s no stabilizing wing makes someone like me less apt to want them—I’m extremely prone to jostling earbuds loose during a workout. But, beyond that, these earbuds check virtually every other box you could imagine, except for the missing noise cancellation. If pressed to pick a top three of true wireless earbuds, the Jabra Elite 75t would definitely make the cut for me.
