My daily commute consists of more than two hours a day via commuter rail and walking, while I also run two or three times a week for 30 minutes to an hour each session. Music, podcasts, and audio books are playing during these times and for long term comfort and size, earbuds are my preferred headset. For the past month I’ve been enjoying the new Jabra Elite 7 Pro for most of this time.
The Jabra Elite 75t set the bar for me when they were released a couple of years ago and were made even better when Jabra pushed out a firmware update a year later to add ANC. This was a novel release and with it the Elite 75t was clearly my favorite. About the same time as this update, Jabra release the Elite 85t with ANC as a central tenet of its feature set. The problem for me is that the 85T was too big to stay put while running and I never fully adapted to the design changes.
Also: Jabra Elite 85t review: Powerful ANC in an earbuds form factor, six mics for calls
With the new Jabra Elite 7 Pro we see a combination of great fit and ANC with a continued focus on advanced call quality support. The ANC is more subtle than we hear on other headsets, but for $199.99 all of the other compelling features deserve your consideration as you try to find the best headset for your needs.
Specifications
- Microphones: Two MEMS mics and a bone conduction sensor in each earbud
- Speaker size: 6mm driver
- Dust/water resistance: IP57 rating
- Audio codecs supported: AAC and SBC
- Battery life: Up to 8 hours of play from each earbud. The charging case provides another 22 hours of battery life. Five minutes of charging provides up to one hour of battery life.
- Wireless connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2
- Earbud weight: 5.4 grams each
The microphones and battery life are standout features here while the 6mm speaker driver isn’t anything extraordinary.
Hardware
The retail package includes the two wireless earbuds, a charging case with an integrated battery, a short USB-A to USB-C cable, and small/medium/large silicone gel earbud tips. You can charge up the earbuds case with any USB-C cable, which is nice when you have lots of USB-C mobile tech in your arsenal. It also supports Qi wireless charging so you can set it down and charge it up without cables too.
Magnets help keep the earbuds secure in the case while also helping to align the earbuds into the correct orientation in the compartment. The magnets in the case are particularly strong and help you align and position the earbuds quickly and easily. It’s a bit unusual to see the USB-C port on the front of the charging case, but it doesn’t impact usability. The charging/storage case is a bit flatter than past Jabra cases, but is still fairly pocketable.
Jabra states that more than 62,000 ear scans were used to create the new shape of the Jabra Elite 7 Pro and while fit is very specific to each person I find this new design perfect for my ears. I’ve worn them for hours on end with no discomfort and while running, and sweating in the rain, I have not had them slide out or even require adjustment while exercising.
There are two mics and a bone conduction sensor on each earbud and it is clear that superb call quality is the focus of the Jabra Elite 7 Pro. Calls in various background environments sounded fantastic and callers said I sounded amazing too. Jabra calls this new combination mic/bone sensor technology Jabra MultiSensor Voice and with it delivers one of the best earbuds ever for calling.
An eight hour battery life with another 22 hours provided by the charging case is advertised by Jabra, for music playback. Talk time is advertised as six hours and these earbuds are definitely designed for call quality optimization. My experiences confirm the battery life estimate is accurate. With just five minutes of charging via USB-C you can also get another hour of playback. Each earbud also works independently so you can extend the battery life with single earbud use and coordinated charging with the case.
Large physical buttons comprise most of the outside surface of the Elite 7 Pro and the button works flawlessly and reliably. I’m not a fan of companies using a stem pinch or tap for audio controls so appreciate the simple and effective button solution on the Elite 3 earbuds. Button controls include play/pause, next track, restart track, answer/reject calls, mute, and volume down.
Also: Jabra Elite 3 review: Forget AirPods, these $80 earbuds offer more for less
Smartphone software
The Jabra Sound Plus app is used to manage all of your Jabra headsets. After pairing the Jabra Elite 7 Pro and taking them out of the charging case, all of the capabilities of the app will be enabled. Battery life for each earbud (they can be used independently) and the charging case is shown near the top of the display.
Three sound mode options are positioned below this with options for ANC, HearThrough, and off. A slider bar appears for ANC, but more on that next. Below the sound mode options is a section for the music equalizer with six preset options and the ability to create your own custom preset too. Lastly, we find the Soundscape section where you can select from a wide range of nature sounds, background noise, or comfort ambiance to listen to as you try to relax. These four widgets can be reordered or toggled on/off too with a tap of the Edit Widgets button at the bottom of the display.
To access more settings for the Elite 7 Pro, tap the gear icon in the upper right corner. Firmware updates, headset settings, personalization settings, find my Jabra, product registration, manual access, and voice assistant settings are managed here. You can select to use a voice assistant (Google Assistant, Samsung Bixby, Amazon Alexa, Siri) on the Elite 7 Pro. A double-tap on the left earbud activates your selected voice assistant.
Within the headset settings are three options; audio experience, call experience, and headset configuration. Audio experience options include auto-pause, HearThrough settings, and MySound toggle for music. Call experiences include mute reminder tone toggle, Sidetone option and slider bar, and even a call equalizer. The Jabra Elite 7 Pro is clearly focused on helping you enjoy the best call quality experience with a set of earbuds. Headset configuration settings include the sound modes to toggle through, sleep mode timing, type of guidance provided by the earbuds, and in-ear detection toggle.
There are a host of options available in the personalization section of the settings too, including naming the headset, checking the fit of the ear gels, personalizing the ANC, setting up MySound with a hearing test, choosing button controls, and choosing your language. I found the ANC personalization a bit underwhelming and it is clear you need to be in an environment with noticeable background noise for the noise suppression slider bars to have any impact on audio performance. It was through this initial ANC personalization process where I suspected an aggressive ANC filtering was not present on these earbuds.
Daily usage experiences and conclusion
If you are solely focused on the best Jabra earbuds for music, then the Elite 85t with its 12mm drivers is probably the better buy. The Elite 7 Pro is the successor to the Elite 75t with a balance of a solid music experience with an excellent voice calling experience. Since I prefer not to run with ANC enabled and the 85t will not stay in my ears with excessive motion, the Elite 7 Pro is the clear winner for my daily usage patterns.
Speaking of ANC, the Elite 7 Pro implementation is better than the 75t, but not as good as the 85t. Active noise cancellation is far more subtle than I anticipated and the background noise from my train and a fan were not as suppressed as we see with earbuds from Apple, Sony, or Samsung. Don’t buy the Elite 7 Pro solely for the ANC or you may be disappointed. Turn off the ANC and extend your battery life instead.
Google Fast Pair and multipoint support, connection to two devices at once, are not supported by the Elite 7 Pro. Jabra stated that a future update will bring multipoint support so you can easily flip between your computer, tablet, watch, and phone without having to disconnect from the other device. I’ve been enjoying Google Fast Pair with recent earbuds and not sure why it’s missing here. It’s a bit of a mystery (possibly internal processor differences) why the entry level $80 Jabra Elite 3 supports aptX and Google Fast Pair where this $200 pair does not.
There are plenty of options to fully customize the earbud experience with the Jabra Elite 7 Pro and I highly recommend you go through the hearing test, ANC slider optimization, and all of the rest to get the headset setup just how you like. The $200 price point is fair for a high-powered headset with all of these features, but if you don’t make many calls and don’t care much about ANC then I highly recommend you save your money and pick up the Jabra Elite 3 instead.
