Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsUpdate three years later: broken, e-waste trash.
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2020
2023 update 2: the right ear loses signal intermittently. The nature of the problem seems to be electrical, since the problem is intermittent and they seem to be able to be "jiggled" back into working order. They're going on the workbench or in the trash. These headphones got frequent use, not not hard use. They were not dropped, shoved in a bag, tossed around, etc. They were simply not built to last through three years of gentle use.
2023 update: Almost exactly three years after purchase, one of the microphones has developed an annoying "womwomwom" signal. (Think "the noises the warp cores make on Star Trek TV shows.") The noise is pretty intolerable, and three years seems like a pretty short time period for something significant to break, and frustratingly barely out of warranty. The following was a four star review prior to this issue:
As others have noted, pairing this headset with a PC is hit or miss based on your bluetooth adapter (or, more likely, its chipset / driver). For me it was a miss. It connects and appears as two devices in the Windows 10 bluetooth interface but they both appear as "other devices" rather than audio devices and no amount of finagling can make them pass audio. I will update if I can resolve this, or if a future headphone firmware / bluetooth driver update resolves it for me.
I live in the PNW and bought these due to their rated water resistance. I am mostly a pedestrian / transit commuter and it rains here often and unpredictably for much of the year. As such, these were basically my only option in this class (higher end ANC bluetooth headphones with water resistance).
The Sony or Bose standard options are likely better in many regards, but I'll be darned if I'm going to buy them only to have them break in a downpour, or worse, to always be leaving them at home out of fear.
I really do like nearly everything about these so far, but the PC support issue is borderline inexcusable in a product of this class. Especially because Jabra obfuscates this fact, failing to mention this caveat on their product pages. My only confirmation that Jabra is even aware of this issue and has committed to *not* supporting general PC use is based on a Jabra official account Reddit post, of all places. At the very least they should mention the caveat on their product pages and/or offer official support on one of their own dongles (they don't, though users have apparently gotten it working).
I'll be using these with the 3.5mm jack on my PC and with bluetooth on my phone. And in the meantime, I'll be eagerly watching to see if any other manufacturers adopt water resistance in the future.
addenda:
☙ Comfort is overall good, but the clamping force is a little bit high and caused me minor wear fatigue after a couple hours. Similar clamping force to the old Sennheiser HD 280 (iirc). Minor for me, but it may be terrible for truly large-headed people. On the other hand, they may "break in" a bit in the headband or the earcup.
☙ Included software works fine. The EQ isn't terribly sensitive (to my ear maybe a 1.5 or 2 dB swing either way) so feel free to crank it in whichever direction if you want to make a non-trivial difference.
☙ The sound signature is pretty natural. It reminds me most of my Sony MDR-V700. Relatively flat frequency response with nothing conspicuously under or over-represented.
☙ The physical controls are overall wonderful. However, the next-song shortcut is mapped to the volume up (top) button and the previous song to the volume down. This is somewhat counterintuitive to anyone used to reading "down" playlists in software (i.e. everyone).
☙ These headphones are in the minority that has their cable (or in this case their 3.5mm jack) on the right ear rather than the left. Fine by me.
