It’s plastic and fantastic!
Jabra has clearly worked hard on the design and made the Elite 75t even more compact as compared to the Elite 65t, which themselves were rather small. The earbuds come in a compact carrying case with the brand’s name engraved on the front. It is a flip-open charging case (it can be flipped open easily, just with a push of the thumb) which is home to our tiny buds. The case is compact enough to easily slip into the pockets of your trouser. The buds sit very tightly inside, thanks to a magnetic connector. There is a USB Type-C port on the back of the case for charging. The buds themselves are really small in size. The head of the buds is a circular button with Jabra’s branding on top. The button is also home to a small LED indicator that blinks to indicate pairing and charging status. A small canal-like extension has the ear tips at the end of it. The earbuds come with three different sized silicone ear tips and you can choose the one that fits your ear size the best. The inside of the earbuds have two gold pins that connect the earbuds to the case. The buds also have “L” and “R” markings right next to the two gold pins to show right and left earbuds. We received the Titanium Black color and we really like how they look. The case is all black in color while the buds are a combination of black and titanium. Unlike most TWS which seem to be trying to ape the AirPods, the Jabra Elite 75t have a look that is all their own – a rarity. Once you have selected the right sized ear tips, the earbuds will fit like a glove. They fit in seamlessly and stay put. Because these buds are really compact, they will not make you look like Frankenstein’s monster with screw-like buds coming out of your ears. Both the case and the buds are predominantly plastic with a hint of silicon.
But that does not mean they look cheap in any regard. They look very classy and modern. The buds can be a part of your morning run or a meeting and will not look out of place in either situation. The fact that they are really light means they do not feel like a burden even if you use them for a prolonged period of time. They come with an IP55 rating to protect them against dust and water and Jabra also provides a 2-year warranty on the Elite 75t against dust and water.
Easy connectivity, slightly complex commands:
Connecting the Jabra Elite 75t is pretty easy and hassle-free. In order to pair the Elite 75t with your device, all you have to do is take the buds out of the case, long-press the button on the buds for three seconds, or till you see the blue LED indicator. Then go to your Bluetooth connection list on your smartphone or laptop, select the Jabra Elite 75t and you are good to go. You can connect up to two devices with the buds at the same time which means you do not have to go through the pairing/unpairing process every time you switch between your laptop or your phone (or any other device). Once connected, you just have to take the earbuds out of the case and they will connect to the last paired device. The buds will turn off automatically if they are not connected to a device for 15 minutes or are inactive for 60 minutes.
The earbuds come with Bluetooth 5.0 and the company claims they have 10m range. While the connection stays strong when you are relatively close to your device, we found abrupt disconnections as we moved further away, especially as we got closer to the 10-meter mark. The buds get reconnected quickly but the connection drop can be very disturbing, especially if you are on a call. We are not the biggest fans of button controls on the buds and while there are not any tiny buttons on this one, the single button on each bud still cannot manage all the responsibilities placed on its shoulders. A single press on the right bud will play/pause your audio while a single press on the left bud will turn on “Hear Through” mode, which is basically like transparency mode, but not as ‘transparent.’ You get a clear and enhanced idea of the sound around you in the Hear Through mode but only when the music is off. If you have music playing, the Hear Through mode is not a lot of help which basically defeats the purpose of its existence. You have to double press the left bud to skip a track and triple press it to go back to track (you get how confusing it can be, right?) Long pressing the right bud will increase the volume while long-pressing the left bud will decrease it. Now, this takes a lot (a lot!) of getting used to. So much so that we often found ourselves reaching out for our phones to control the volume. It seemed like an easier option. Double tapping on the right bud will also invoke your virtual assistant. Again, we often accidentally played/paused the music while trying to summon the virtual assistant and vise-versa. Even skipping tracks or going back to one was often a pain.
Packs a bass-y punch!
If we had to define the audio performance of the Jabra Elite 75t in two words they would be– bass-heavy! The earbuds are powered by 6mm dynamic drivers with a frequency response range of 20-20,000Hz. That does not sound too impressive, right? Well, their performance tells you how all these numbers do not always make a lot of sense.
The audio on the Elite 75t has a lot of body and is not flaky at all. The sound has got a lot of weight to it, thanks to the bass-heavy signature that it offers. The audio produced by the Elite 75t is very impactful. And can be very divisive. The ones who like that extra bass punch in their audio would love the Elite 75t sound but those who prefer a more balanced sound experience would definitely steer clear of this one. The problem is that all that bass actually muddies up the sound and on high volumes, you can hear a slight rumbling which can cost you the little details in your audio. You can solve this problem by customizing the sound according to your liking by using the Jabra Sound+ app. The app which is available for free on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store has a built-in equalizer that you can use to set your own details. You cannot get rid of the earbuds’ bass-heavy personality completely but you can tame them to an extent. The app also has features like Find My Jabra which helps you find your earbuds if they are nearby and have location turned on, on your smartphone. Jabra recently updated the app and added the MySound feature which tries to personalize the sound of the buds for each individual, which is again very cool. The app also has music presets and different Soundscapes that include different sounds of nature and noises.
The Jabra Elite 75t do not come with active noise cancellation but thanks to their design and snuggly fit, the passive noise cancellation on the earphones is pretty great and they manage to keep ambient noise at bay without too much effort. The call quality on the buds is very good. The buds come with four-microphone technology and handle calls very well. We did not hear our friends complain about our voice and neither did we have a problem with hearing them while using the buds. The company claims the Jabra Elite 75t can give you playback of about 7.5 hours straight which turned out to be mostly true in our case. The buds stayed alive for about 6.5-7 hours depending on the volume levels at which we used them. The carrying case gives you a battery life of up to 28 hours which means you can easily see a day and more with a single charge in the case. The case comes with USB Type C with fast charging support. They take about two and a half hours to charge from zero to 100 but can give you playback time of up to an hour with 15 minutes of charge.
A pint sized headache for the competition
At Rs. 15,999, the Jabra Elite 75t are a decent proposition for all those who are looking for a good looking pair of earbuds that packs a heavy bass punch. They had big shoes to fill as the Elite 65t’s successors and they have not only done that but have very comfortably stretched them to make them their own. The earbuds are priced in the zone of Apple’s AirPods 2 but all that body in the audio and impact puts them right in the AirPods Pro league in terms of sound quality. The sound is not balanced and can be overwhelming for the ones who do not like such a strong bass presence and the absence of ANC might disappoint some, but other than that the earphones tick most boxes in terms of design and details. They still remain very strong competitors in the TWS segment and can give many high-end buds a headache. Jabra has not only got into the AirPods zone with the Elite 75T (in fact it had already got there with the 65T) but has created a zone of its own in the TWS space.
