Jabra Elite 5 – Take 5 minutes to lose yourself

Jabra shows no signs of slowing down with innovation and progress, launching their latest True Wireless earbuds the Jabra Elite 5.

It has been about a year since the launch of the Elite 3 and Elite 7 Pro, and just 6 months since the Elite 4. The launch schedule has certainly been crowded.

Lis loves the Elite 3, so much so she broke out into Danish with Jeg tror, Jeg elsker dig!

Matt loves the Elite 4 Active. I had my moments with the Elite 7 Pro. Whilst the sound was amazing, with long term use I found some issues with fit which affected the audio quality.

With thanks to Jabra, I have been very excited to road test the Elite 5 ahead of it’s formal launch at IFA in Berlin on 2 September 2022. They also put together a clever little pack in the theme of “Take five and relax“.

 

First Impressions

The Elite 5 sits between the Elite 7 series and Elite 4 Active, but with some features that makes it king of the hill.

The design language of the Jabra TW heritage is immediately apparent upon unboxing the Jabra Elite 5. Compared to the Elite 7 Pro’s teardrop shaped button, the Elite 5 is more triangular. The signature curves are all present and accounted for.

 

I had previously complained about how hard it was for me to grip the Elite 85t, and the vast improvement on this front for the Elite 7 Pro. I am pleased that the positive trend has continued with the Elite 5.

My review unit is the Gold Beige colour way, which is probably closer to a light cappuccino froth in colour. It is distinctive and sets it apart from the common whites and blacks. It is quite a classy tone in the semi-gloss finish.

Jabra has long perfected the magnetic steering to sit the earbuds onto the charging pins. The lid also has a magnetic clasp to hold it in place.

In a departure from tradition, Jabra has decided to protect the contact pins with a small piece of tape when shipped from factory. It was not something I have come across in the previous iterations for this brand. And in the true reviewer’s curse, I was scratching my head for a bit when the earbuds didn’t automatically turn on, off or charge even when I had the USB cable plugged in. At least the mystery was easily solved when I looked at the earbuds more carefully.

Under the hood, the Elite 5 comes with 6-microphones call technology, which is a step up from all the other current true wireless line up. Sound is provided by 6mm speakers.

It has a IP55 rating which means complete protection against contact with live or moving parts inside the enclosure. Protection against harmful deposits of
dust. The ingress of dust is not totally prevented, but cannot enter in an amount sufficient to interfere with satisfactory operation of the machine. Water projected by a nozzle against the enclosure from any direction shall have no harmful effect.

This is also down a little from the Elite Pro 7’s IP57 rating which can withstand complete submersion up to 1m for 30 minutes.

 

Getting Started

Pairing is a breeze, and the Elite 5 supports Google Fast Pair meaning your Android phone can automatically discover Bluetooth accessories in close proximity and then connect with a simple tap. When you hit the connect button, you will get the confirmation toast that pairing is successful and an offer to download the Sounds+ from the Play Store. The Elite 5 also supports Microsoft Swift Pair.

Sounds+ will keep your earbuds up to date as well as ability to customise the features such as button control and personalise your ANC. A little more on that later but much of it would be rehash from previous reviews.

Getting the Elite 5 from standstill to working take virtually no time. I was already on a call with another pair of earbuds when I decided it was a great time to try out the Elite 5, which incidentally was still in it’s packaging. I asked my counterpart on the call to hold on a second (he didn’t listen me anyway and kept talking).

Despite having to manually power on the earbuds (thanks to the tape over the contacts), I was paired to the phone and back chatting away in way less than a minute. So much so I barely lost any part of the conversation we were having.

 

In Use

It was incredibly simple and fast to be up and running, but how was it in action?

In short, the voice quality was pretty stellar. Voice clarity was right up there with good reproduction on both sides.

I got to use them under a variety of situations including in the deathly silence of a library (my bad), it picked up my voice clearly even though I was talking quite softly. I would have normally moved elsewhere to talk but it was not an option this time.

The only issue I had initially was that the microphones picked up absolutely everything – me rummaging in my drawer, peeling the plastic wrap off some mints or as one person described it “the thundering sound of galloping horses” when I was typing.

The Elite 5 comes with Hybrid ANC, a first for Jabra true wireless earbuds. It combines feedforward and feedback ANC by placing microphones both on the inside and outside of the ear cup. It can suppress noise at a broad frequency range and less sensitive to the positioning of the earbuds.

In practice, the background noise level was immediately cut to an acceptable level when ANC was turned on. It got finessed a little more when I finally got around to run the ANC optimisation wizard in the Sounds+ app. The galloping horses of me typing at average of 90+ wpm was significantly muted.

Edit: (Thanks @Monocats for pointing it out), ANC does not affect what the other side hears on the call. However during my testing, we were getting a significant difference when it was turned on and I was still typing away. There seems to be more technology in play.

The key difference with the Elite 5 over the Elite 7 Pro for me, is the fit of the earbuds. Where the Elite 7 Pro tends to move when I speak and resulting in me being unintelligible on calls, the Elite 5 had no such issues. They stay in position no matter how long my calls are, and they are comfortable as well.

In between calls I am getting into the writing mood with my usual eclectic mix of music. J-Hope’s first solo album shows a darker side of his persona, a multi-faceted and layered emotional project that is a departure from his BTS contributions. It is carefully crafted, and Hobie nails the execution of the musical landscape that he is painting. His album ranges from narration by a female voice, ominous melodies, scratchy beats, heavy breathing to emo rock.

The sound is fairly immersive. As expected the bass is on the skinny side, but there are clear crisp chords and beats that punches through that I was not really expecting. Speech is where it shines, the rap coming through beautifully without being muddied. There is a beautiful balance in reproducing the subtle artistic flairs that Hobie puts in, such as the muffled rendering of opening and closing beats to make the sound appear just like the “Jack in the Box” opening and closing. The Elite 5’s ability to faithfully reproduce this made it a treat to the ears.

But when you push the boundaries with Ólafur Arnalds’ brilliant “re:member”, the stunning melancholy and vast airy symphonics are a little dampened. It is still an enjoyable listen, but it isn’t quite expansive enough to transport me away.

 

Battery Life

Jabra claims up to 7 hours of battery life with an additional 21 hours with the case. This brings the total run time to 28 hours and these figures are rated for with ANC on.

The per charge on the earbuds are a little down from the Elite 7 Pro but still respectable. The overall charge with case of 28 hours is in line with the minimum duration on the current Jabra true wireless earbuds range.

I ran the earbuds for extended periods during the day with calls and music, popping them back into the case at lunch or as needed, and never worried about running out of juice by the end of a business day. You could push it a little longer if you choose to use the Elite 5 in mono mode.

Fast charging is supported with up to 1 hour use with 10 minutes charging in the case.

 

Other Features

Unlike the Elite 7 Pro, Bluetooth Multipoint is available at launch and you can connected to two devices.

There isn’t much changes in the Sounds+ app, all the familiar options are there including firmware updates, equaliser, customised controls and ANC levels. As always it does pay to invest some time initially to get the earbuds working for you. MyControl gives you ability to customise controls for media, incoming calls and active calls. For each of the three categories you can configure for single press, double press and triple press, for each bud separately.

As is expected, the Elite 5 comes with Alexa built-in, Siri, and Google Assistant (Android only) which can be configured via the Sounds+ app.

The buds can be used in mono or stereo mode. You can grab the closest bud and start using it. There were also no issues with swapping the buds either with the audio carrying on regardless.

 

Key changes

The Elite 5 has some key differences from the previous generation.

As mentioned earlier, the Elite 5 has a total of 6-mic microphones, all of which are utilised for calls. In contrast the other earbuds in the current line up uses only 4-mic technology, regardless whether it has a total of 4 or 6 microphones.

Charging time is middle of the road in the line up. It is rated for 3 hours to fully charge the Elite 5 which is identical to the Elite 4 Active. It is 30 minutes faster than the Elite 3, and 30 minutes slower than the Elite 7 series.

Total number of devices you can pair to Bluetooth in memory is 6, down from 8 on the Elite 7 Pro. Additionally Jabra has dropped support for SPP v1.2 from the supported Bluetooth profiles.

From a technical standpoint, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) does not have a standard SPP (Serial Port Profile) service so any support is custom coding. It is far more efficient to drop it in favour of something that is standardised.

Jabra has added Qualcomm aptX to the supported audio codecs in the Elite 5, along side AAC and SBC which were the only two available on the Elite 7 series. Whilst aptX has been supported on the Elite 4 Active and Elite 4, it is nice to see it debut along side AAC which hasn’t been the case before.

Are you confused by all the codec and acronyms?

In a nutshell, AAC offers better streaming quality on Apple devices, and aptX provides high-quality streaming on Android devices. As for SBC, it is the mandatory and default codec for all stereo Bluetooth headphones within the A2DP standard.

The table below gives a feature comparison of all the current true wireless earbuds.

 

Gripes

I encountered significantly less issues with the Elite 5 then it’s predecessor during the test phase. There were a couple of oddballs, such as the earbuds rebooting near the start of a music listening session. I have come across it a few times now, coinciding usually with the first time I settle in for music. It doesn’t seem to happen on calls though. From my testing it seems to be prevalent specifically with Google Assistant enabled.

A few times the earbuds have failed to connect to the phone Bluetooth when calls come in, and sometimes it can take longer than usual. It has on a few occasions forced me to answer the call on the phone and waited until the Bluetooth connection kicks in.

When Google assistant is enabled, some of the controls are locked. Such as long presses to change the volume is no longer available because the right earbud long press is hard coded to launch the Google assistant.

 

Conclusions

I have quite intensively tested the Elite 5 in the prelaunch period, and it has rarely lets me down. I am happy with the comfort level, and never fear talking or movement is going to cause the fit to shift and lose fidelity on the other side without notice. The fit in ear is a significant improvement over the Elite 7 Pro and much more in line with the older generations.

The microphone tends to pick up ambient sounds but by tuning the ANC settings, these are easily managed to an acceptable level.

The MSRP of the Jabra Elite 5 is AU$219 (NZ$239), which I have to say is extremely impressive considering it comes with the wireless charging case. In comparison it is a solid $130 off the base Elite 7 Pro with the optional wireless charging case. The Elite 3 retails at $119 and the Elite 4 Active retails at $179.

Edit: Pricing updated.

 

Specifications

Main unit dimensions (WxHxD): 20mm x 20.54mm x 27mm | 0.787in x 0.809in x 1.063in
Charging case dimensions (WxHxD): 26mm x 38.9mm x 64.1mm | 1.024in x 1.531in x 2.524in
Earbud weight (each earbud): 5g | 0.176oz
Weight (charging case): 40g | 1.411oz
USB cable length: 20cm | 7.874in
IP rating: IP55
LED features and functions: Battery status, Bluetooth pairing

Audio
Active Noise Cancellation (ANC): Hybrid ANC
Adjustable HearThrough: Yes
Noise-isolating fit: Yes
In-ear pressure relief: Yes
Noise reduction on calls: Yes
Speaker size: 6mm | 0.236in
Speaker bandwidth (music mode): 20Hz – 20000Hz
Speaker bandwidth (speak mode): 100Hz – 8000Hz
Audio codecs supported: AAC, Qualcomm® aptX, SBC
Microphone type: MEMS
Number of microphones: 6
Microphone bandwidth: 100Hz – 8000Hz

Battery
Music time total ANC off (earbuds and charging case): Up to 36 hours
Music time ANC off (earbuds): Up to 9 hours
Music time with ANC (earbuds): Up to 7 hours
Music time with ANC (earbuds and charging case): Up to 28 hours
Wireless charging: Yes
Charging: time Up to 180 minutes
Fast charge: Up to 1 hour use, when charging earbuds for 10 minutes in charging case
Standby time: Up to 275 days
Sleep mode: Yes
Battery type: Rechargeable lithium-ion battery

Connectivity
Connectivity: Bluetooth
Bluetooth version: 5.2
Bluetooth profiles: A2DP v1.3, AVRCP v1.6, HFP v1.7, HSP v1.2
Operating range: Up to 10m | 33ft
Paired devices: Up to 6 bluetooth devices
Auto pause music: Yes
Auto power on: Yes
Auto power off: Yes