Jabra Elite 7 Pro Review – Crystal Clear Call Supremo

While many wireless earbuds in the market focus on mere aesthetics and others focus on acoustic quality, the Jabra Elite 7 Pro is a different breed altogether that aims to surpass the competition as it not only aspires to offer solid sound performance but has some serious hardware to offer superior call quality too but is it all it’s cracked up to be? Here’s our Jabra Elite 7 Pro review where we put it through its paces.

What is the Jabra Elite 7 Pro

The Jabra Elite 7 Pro is currently their most powerful wireless earbuds model in the market alongside its sibling, the Elite 7 Active. In essence, the Jabra Elite 7 Pro is the successor to their earlier Jabra Elite 75t that was released a while back and aims to fulfill the same mission profile of offering a comfortable fit, powerful performance with active noise cancellation and ups the ante with enhanced call quality along with some modest improvements in performance and battery life. 

 

If you get down to brass tacks, the Jabra Elite 7 Pro is a marked improvement over the older Elite 75t with more MEMs microphones ( 6 vs 4), longer battery life (30 hours vs 28 hours), better water resistance (IP57 vs IP55) and improved acoustic tech for better call quality though both retain a similar in-ear design, adjustable active noise cancellation (ANC) support and use similarly sized 6mm drivers to kick out sound.

While a Jabra Elite 85t does exist in the market, it’s more of an unrelated evolutionary offshoot with larger 12mm drivers and a dedicated active noise cancellation chipset for better noise cancellation capabilities but downgrades the water and dust resistance to just IPX4 which means that it’s only sweatproof which makes it better suited for music listening duties.

More astute readers will note the existence of the Jabra Elite 7 Active that was launched alongside the Jabra Elite 7 Pro but is a different kettle of fish altogether.

What’s the difference between the Jabra Elite 7 Pro vs the Jabra Elite 7 Active

Both the Jabra Elite 7 Pro and the Jabra Elite 7 Active debuted at the same time but are intended for different audiences with slightly different features to their respective designs. Both wireless earbuds are however built on the same solid foundations with identical 6mm drivers, similar battery life, IP57 dust and water resistance and active noise cancellation.

 

The Jabra Elite 7 Pro is intended for more business oriented users and earns its Pro moniker on account of the fact that it has their Jabra MultiSensor Voice tech which integrates a bone conduction sensor as well as a more businesslike design that’s available in Titanium Black, Gold Beige and an all-black paint job.

The Jabra Elite 7 Active is designed for a more active, outdoorsy demographic and features a sportier looking and more grippy matte finish all around. Where it differs from the Elite 7 Pro is that it lacks its sibling’s MultiSensor Voice tech and bone conducting sensor though it’s still no slouch in voice call quality.

Jabra Elite 7 Pro Review – Build and Design

Out of the box, our Jabra Elite 7 Pro review sample comes in a shade called Titanium Black that primarily features an all-black matte finish for the charging case and earbuds alternated with silvery control surfaces and smoky grey silicone ear tips. The Gold Beige variant features a primarily creamy beige finish all around while the appropriately labeled Black swaps the silver control surfaces in the Titanium Black for an all-black paint job.

The charging case of the Jabra Elite 7 Pro features a fairly conservative lozenge shaped design with rounded edges that makes it very pocketable with sufficient width to allow users to open the case one-handed. 

Save for the Jabra logo embossed on the top lid and a subtle LED charging indicator and USB-C charging port, the case looks otherwise unremarkable but it has an additional trick up its sleeves as its underside has Qi-wireless charging support, allowing you to juice it on a compatible charging pad.

Pop the lid open and you’re greeted by both earbuds nestled in their respective trays that are held securely in place via magnets.

Each earbud features a somewhat bulbous housing that terminates in a swappable silicone ear tip and a button that responds to a combination of taps on the left and right earbud. The use of actual buttons rather than the typical control surfaces seen in other earbuds is a welcome move as it makes for more responsive feedback and tactility.

On the underside of each earbud are a pair of charging contacts along with a subtle embossed letter L or R to indicate if it’s the left or right earbud. On a test fit, the medium sized ear tips fit perfectly and the earbuds nestled comfortably just outside my ear canal.

One interesting fact to note here is that the earbuds have an IP57 rating which means that they are able to survive in up to 1 meter of freshwater for up to 30 minutes though the charging case itself is not water resistant. You also need the earbuds to be completely dry before you start charging it but this measure of water resistance means that you can take it out for a jaunt in the rain or the shower without issue.

Overall build quality with our Jabra Elite 7 Pro review sample is excellent with the matte finish on the charging case and earbuds providing a firm grip while repelling fingerprints in an effective fashion. The matte, grippy finish also makes it easier to remove the earbuds from the charging case rather than having to fish them out in certain competing models.

In terms of extra kit, the Jabra Elite 7 Pro comes with the usual warranty leaflet, the charging case itself with its associated earbuds, a smaller and larger set of silicone ear tips with the medium one preinstalled on the earbuds and a USB-C to USB-A charging cable.

Jabra Elite 7 Pro Review – Specifications

The Jabra Elite 7 Pro features 6mm drivers, adjustable noise cancellation, support for AAC and SBC codecs, a total of 6 MEMs mics and has a pair of bone-conducting sensors that work with their Jabra Multisensor Voice tech to enhance the clarity of your voice during phone calls. To pair with devices, it uses Bluetooth 5.2 and features SBC and AAC codec support. Here’s how they stack up on paper:

Price	RM999
Speaker size	6mm
Speaker Bandwidth (music)	20Hz – 20,000Hz
Speaker Bandwidth (voice)	80Hz-8000Hz
Codecs supported	AAC, SBC
Microphones	6 MEMs
Microphone bandwidth	80Hz – 8000Hz
Connectivity	Bluetooth 5.2, USB-C (charging)
Battery	8 hours playback per charge, up to 30 hours inclusive of charging case (quoted)
Size/Weight	19.1 x 16 x 17.6mm/5.4g (earbuds) | 40.3 x 25.3 x 69.6mm / 44g (case)

Some notable features are the ability to offer up to 8 hours of playback on a single charge with ANC on and up to an additional 22 hours in total with the charging case factored in which offers about two and a half or so additional charges. That’s quite an achievement on paper and is exceptional compared to many other competing earbuds that offer two thirds or even half of its endurance.

Jabra Elite 7 Pro Review – Controls and Customisation

By default, the Jabra Elite 7 Pro can be controlled through a combination of button taps on the left and right earbuds that are hardwired in but which can be customised to some degree with a downloadable Jabra Sound+ app that’s free to download on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. 

If you tap the left earbud, you’re able to toggle ANC and HearThrough mode or to take a call with a single press. Tapping twice cancels a call or activates the voice assistant of your choice. Holding down the button on the left earbud lets you reduce the volume.

On the right earbud, a single press lets you pause or play a track as well as accept a call, two presses move you forward one track or cancels a call and three taps move you back. Holding down the button on the right earbud also lets you increase the volume.

From there on in, the Jabra Sound+ app offers a wealth of customisation options beyond the usual ability to offer firmware updates. In the app itself, you’re able to modify the controls for both earbuds, run a diagnostic to ensure the best fit for your earbuds, tune the strength of the ANC to your personal tastes as well as customising the acoustics via 6 presets and via a simplified equalizer. 

That’s not all as it also offers a series of soundscapes that help to mask annoying background noise ranging from generic pink noise to more soothing ones like ocean waves, a rainy day or birdsong. It even has a MySound hearing test to truly personalise your own sound profile based on how your own left and right ear perceives different frequencies.

To date, this is one of the most full featured earbud customisation apps available and it’s extremely gratifying to have this amount of control over the Jabra Elite 7 Pro’s higher functions.

Jabra Elite 7 Pro Review – Performance

Getting our Jabra Elite 7 Pro review unit up and running was a relatively straightforward process. It paired up in seconds with a test laptop running Windows 10 as well as a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 though it’s a case of doing so one at a time by unpairing and repairing it with each device. 

Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, the Jabra Elite 7 Pro does not have one of Jabra’s signature features – multipoint pairing which allows it to maintain a simultaneous connection to multiple devices but according to Jabra, they will push out a feature update that will enable it sometime this year.

Sound quality by default out of the box is a flat and inoffensive affair that doesn’t quite impress and you’ll really need to get into the equaliser settings to tweak it to taste before you uncover its true potential.

This also holds true for its ANC which can even be individually tweaked on a per earbud basis in terms of strength and intensity of the noise cancelling effect. Needless to say, the Jabra Sound+ app is a requirement to get the most out of the earbuds.

This deep level of customisation with the app and for the earbuds is gratifying and will likely take several hours to customise the Elite 7 Pro’s sound signature and capabilities to your own tastes. Less patient users will likely balk at the work required but it’s well worth the trouble.

When properly dialled in and with a solid seal from the silicone ear tips, our Jabra Elite 7 Pro review sample’s ANC was able to effectively mute out most of the background noise to a comfortably dull murmur in a coffee shop with the bustling traffic outside and the humming from a clattering table fan in our office faded into almost nothing. 

The passthrough mode helps to amplify ambient sounds even when you’re wearing the earbuds which comes in handy when crossing streets and interacting with others though it has to be manually triggered to work unlike the Galaxy Buds2 which has a Voice Detect mode.

Overall, the ANC is one of the better ones we’ve tested and will cater to almost all but the most challenging scenarios in daily life short of working in the middle of an orchestra of jackhammers or a gunnery range.

In its default sound profile, the Jabra Elite 7 Pro has somewhat underwhelming bass with good sound staging and fair detail. Taylor Swift’s ‘Wildest Dreams’ with its synth bass heavy opening ensemble sounded slightly improved though it isn’t as thumpy as I’d prefer which required selecting the bass preset in the Jabra Sound+ app.

Kaleida’s ‘Think’ seen in the first John Wick movie club scene sounded much better with the Bass preset selected, offering good sound staging especially for the left/right percussion arrangements throughout the track. The quaint ‘Dirty Paws’ by Of Monsters and Men with its simple acoustic and vocal arrangement sounded pleasantly clean with the vocals sounding crisp and clear.

Acoustically speaking, it isn’t going to outgun more specialised audiophile earbuds that prioritise sound quality but the Jabra Elite 7 Pro and its 6mm drivers paired with decent ANC make for a very competently done offering that can handle most music genres.

The biggest draw to the Jabra Elite 7 Pro though is their mastery of call quality and they’ve leveraged their experience in making business headphones for years to give it an exceptionally sophisticated setup. You get six MEMs microphones as well as a pair of bone conducting sensors to ensure clear voice calls even in the midst of a cacophony of noise.

The bone conduction sensors detect when you’re speaking while tweaks to their algorithms ensure traditionally irksome noises like wind noise and background clatter are squelched with extreme prejudice.

I tested it outside in a voice call with a colleague in the middle of an unseasonably heavy rain storm complete with gusting winds and the results were excellent with crystal clear clarity throughout the conversation on the receiving end. Needless to say, calls in a conventional office setup with the usual background noise were crystal clear.

Battery life is on the dot with the provided earbuds lasting a few minutes short of the full quoted 8 hours on a single charge and our test which split it into three sessions in the course of a single day proved to be a relatively comfortable affair in short three-hour stretches.

Overall comfort and fit is sufficient for a quick jog or a run at the gym but the Jabra Elite 7 Pro’s mission profile is best suited for the urban jungle with its sundry coffee shop watering holes, noisy streets, bustling malls and commutes.

Should you buy the Jabra Elite 7 Pro?

The Jabra Elite 7 Pro proves to be a relatively solid all rounder pair of ANC-equipped wireless earbuds that offer impressive customisability via their Jabra Sound+ app  and excellent call quality.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have multipoint support at present though Jabra states that it’ll arrive in a firmware update in 2022. If you prize call quality above other factors, the Jabra Elite 7 Pro is a solid all-rounder that has a decisive edge above the competition.

Jabra Elite 7 Pro review sample courtesy of Jabra. For more details visit https://www.apac.jabra.com/bluetooth-headsets/jabra-elite-7-pro