Jabra Elite Active 65t Wireless Earbuds

There is certainly no shortage of wireless earbuds on the market and while many Apple fans think the only option is Apple Airpods, there are many more choices. We’ve already looked at a couple of offerings from Jabra including the Jabra Elite Sport (read our review here), and the Jabra Elite 65t (read our review here). While we think either of those would be a great choice, Jabra has another option to consider, the Jabra Elite Active 65t.

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Jabra Elite Active 65t – Unboxing

If you read our review of the Jabra Elite 65t, you already know much of what we will say about the Jabra Elite Active 65t. In fact, when we first received our evaluation unit we thought Jabra had sent us a product we had already reviewed. It was only on closer inspection that we saw the word Active on the box and realized this was a different product. That said, the family resemblance is striking.

In the box are the two Jabra Elite Active 65t wireless earbuds, and what looks to be the identical charging case as the Elite 65t. There is also a multi-language quick start guide, a UBS charging cable and two extra sets of ear-gels in different sizes to allow you to select the ones most comfortable for you. The Jabra Elite Active 65t uses the same Sound + app which allows you to fine tune the Jabra Elite Active 65t to your personal audio taste with the included equalizer and Soundscapes (more on that in a minute.

Set up of the Jabra Elite Active 65t was quick and easy.

Although the earbuds were well charged when we took them out of the box, we decided to put them in the case and charge everything. A single LED on the bottom of the charging case, which turns a solid green when the case is fully charged, indicates Battery status. Another LED in the inside of the case also turns green to show the earbuds are fully charged.

With a full charge the Jabra Elite Active 65t earbuds provide about 5-hours of battery life. The case will recharge them twice, giving you a full 15-hours of use. That should be enough to get you though even the busiest of days.

Pairing of the Jabra Elite Active 65t was effortless. The voice guidance instructed us to open the Bluetooth panel on our iPhone 7 and within a few seconds the earbuds appeared and connected.

To use the earbuds, you place them in your ear with the small microphone facing down, and twist them up until the microphone is facing forward. That seems to lock them into your ear. We found them to be extremely comfortable and seemed secure in our ears.

It’s no surprise that we found the sound quality of the Jabra Elite Active 65t excellent. Music reproduction was crisp and phone calls were clear. We had no trouble hearing people on the other end of a call and they reported that we sounded great and couldn’t tell that we were using wireless earbuds.

We spent a fair amount of time testing out the Jabra Elite Active 65t. We don’t think it is necessary to provide a lot of the detail since much of what we would tell you is identical to the review of the Jabra Elite 65t. Instead, we thought we could focus on the differences between the two models to better allow you to decide which is best for you.

	Jabra Elite Active 65t	Jabra Elite 65t
Wearing Style	True wireless in-ear	True wireless in-ear
Battery life	Up to 15 hours	Up to 15 hours
Colors	Copper Blue, Titanium Black	Solid Black, Copper Black, Gold Beige
Motion Sensor	Yes	No
IP Rating	IP56 (sweat & dust)	IP55 (water & dust)
Warranty	2 years	2 years
MSRP	$189.99	$169.99

As you can see, other than color (although we do love the Copper Blue), the two biggest differences are the IP rating and the motion sensor.

Here’s what the IP Rating Charts have to say about the difference.

While both an IP55 and IP56 rating gives a high level of protection from dust and liquids, the IP56 rating of the Jabra Elite Active 65t provides that extra protection that you might need due to sweat from an active workout.

The other difference is the inclusion of a Motion Sensor (accelerometer) to track fitness and performance. Using the Sound + app, you can measure;

• Duration of workout
• Total steps
• Average steps per minute
• Maximum steps per minute

The app will also pass your data to the Apple Health app.

Jabra Sound + App

Like the earbuds themselves, we have covered the Sound + app in detail so we won’t repeat that here but there is one feature of the app that we wanted to mention, Soundscapes.

Soundscapes is a variety of sounds that will play through your Jabra Elite Active 65t earbuds. There is a group of sounds to mask noise around you like White Noise, Waterfall and Diving, sounds of nature like Ocean Waves or a Babbling Brook, and comfort ambience with sounds of a Cavern or a Crowd.

These may not suit everyone since many people prefer to work in total silence but we often find that we like some form of background sound while working and sometimes music just doesn’t work.

We tried a couple of the included sounds and actually found them very soothing, especially when we lowered the volume a little so the sound stayed in the background.

The Bottom Line

Truth be told, it’s hard for us to make a recommendation between the Jabra Elite 65t and the Jabra Elite Active 65t. We think the sound quality is about equal and either one would be a good choice.

We do think adding the Motion Sensor is a nice touch and as the name implies, if you are going to be using them in a more active setting, the slight upgrade in the IP rating is worth the small difference in price.

The Jabra Elite Active 65t is available from Amazon.

We would like to thank the folks at Jabra for providing the Jabra Elite Active 65t for our testing and review.

How do you listen to music and make calls when on the go? Why not joint the conversation and leave a comment below.

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