It’s easy to get overwhelmed when choosing a new set of earbuds. There are so many options out there – at several price points – that dialling into the right ones for you can be tricky. It’s a personal choice, but the new Elite 8 Active Gen 2 from Jabra arrives as a set of earbuds that could do all things for all wearers. Building on the successful first-generation Elite 8 Actives, these Gen 2 models aim to build on the toughness of their predecessors while introducing a series of new features that could help to make them even more usable day-to-day.
Highlights of these upgrades include a refined HearThrough setting – allowing you to better hear your surroundings while still listening to your music – as well as enhanced noise cancellation. Plus, there’s a new case which has a dual-end cable – connect it to an aeroplane 3.5mm jack and you’ll be able to stream the audio from a seatback television through to the headphones. Put short, you’ve got loads of new features in these rough-and-tough earbuds which aim to make them ideal not only for your next workout but for travel and more leisure-focused listening.
Sphere Score
For
- Great sound quality
- Excellent robustness
- Good choice of rubber tips
- Handy to have the option to connect 3.5mm audio cable to case
Against
- Reasonably expensive
- Rubber buttons on buds themselves need a decent ‘click’ to activate
- Only four colours to choose from
Tech specs
- Price: £229.99
- 8-hour battery life with 32 hours charge in case
- Bluetooth multipoint connection
- Spatial sound by Dolby Audio
- Sweatproof, waterproof shockproof
- IP68 rated
What does the Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 have to offer?
As we’ve touched upon, the Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 weighs in with a whole host of features. The earbuds themselves come with an eight-hour battery life – so good enough for even the longest of runs – and you’ll get an extra 32 hours out of the pleasantly finished case which is boosted through a USB-C connection. Both the case and earbuds have a solid, rubberised finish to them which gives you a sense of their quality and robustness.
Remember, too, that the case can be connected either via USB-C or 3.5mm jack to a device of your choosing, such as a treadmill. The Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 are some of the first earbuds to get this technology, too, and though it might not be something that you use all of the time – we didn’t feel the need to plug them into any device we’d find – it’s something that could help out on the odd occasion.
Revised active noise cancellation is said to block out twice the noise compared with the previous-generation 8 Active and newly designed microphone technology helps to make calls clearer even when it’s windy, or when you’re running along. Plus, rather than adopting any kind of haptic feedback, the 8 Active Gen 2 gets rubberised physical buttons that – in theory – make adjusting different settings easier. Bluetooth Multipoint allows you to connect the headphones to more than one device at the same time, too.
Backing up Jabra’s toughness claims surrounding the 8 Active Gen 2 is its IP68 rating, meaning that they can be submerged in up to 1.5 metres of water and still push on. They’re sweatproof and waterproof, too, and even the case is dust and splash-proof and comes accompanied by an IP54 rating.
Wearing – what are they like?
First off, the fit. The Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2s give you the kind of unshakeable fit that gives you the impression that even sprinting across cobbles wouldn’t be enough to wobble them out of your ears. You’ve got plenty of rubberised cups to choose from, too, so there should be a fit for you. Once they’re in place, the Gen 2s feel comfortable and assuredly placed. You’ve got physical buttons on each bud, too, and though that does mean you can’t accidentally change a track, it also means that they require a decent ‘push’ to operate them – and sometimes it feels as though you’re pushing them a little harder than you’d like.
But when they’re in place, the sound quality is great. The noise cancellation does a good job of isolating those annoying high-level sounds and although they don’t remove absolutely all of those exterior noises, they’re good enough for use on a plane to cut out that annoying background hum. You’re able to toggle through the various noise cancellation settings by clicking the button on the left-hand bud, too. There’s also the option to reconfigure the buttons to change different modes via the Jabra app which is also excellent and packed with features. One of these is a handy ‘find my Jabra’ facility, for when you’ve misplaced your earbuds – something that we all know is incredibly easy to do.
We’re also big fans of the ‘Shakegrip’ coating applied to both the buds and the case. This silicone covering gives a tactile, non-slip feel to both areas and avoids any of that ‘soap bar’ effect that you sometimes get on earbuds. Plus, it gives you a little extra purchase when putting the earbuds into place or grabbing them out of the case when you’re in a rush. You can choose them in one of four colours, too, and though it’d be quite nice to have a little more choice in this area – there is no plain white, for instance – the available colours do look good. ‘Our’ olive-coloured model had a nice, natural appearance to them.
To finish
If you’re looking for earbuds that’ll do it all, then the Jabra Elite Active 8 Active Gen 2s are bang-on. Sure, they might not deliver the out-and-out sound quality that you get from a more home-focused setup, but given that these earbuds are primarily designed for use when you’re – you guessed it – being active, they’re remarkable.
At just shy of £230, they do represent quite an investment. But the Jabra Elite Active 8 Gen 2s are the kind of earbuds that’ll impress time and time again, both in terms of sound quality and rock-solid build.
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