Jabra Elite 5 True Wireless Headphones Review

The Jabra Elite 5 have a similar teardrop earbud shape as the Jabra Elite 3 True Wireless. There's a small manufacturer's logo printed on the back of the body, and they stick out of your ear a little. They come in two monochromatic color variants: 'Titanium Black' and 'Gold Beige'.

These earbuds are decently comfortable. They're lightweight and don't put much pressure on your ears. However, they create a plunger-like feeling, and using the physical control buttons can push the buds further into your ears, which can be uncomfortable over time.

The Jabra Elite 5 have great controls. Each bud has a physical button that's clicky and responsive. The controls aren't intuitive since each bud has its own control scheme. The buds feature HearThrough technology, which lets you hear ambient sound while wearing the headphones to engage in a conversation or hear someone. You can also enable the controls to toggle Spotify Tap, which either restarts your last listening session or selects a new playlist for you to listen to. There are no voice prompts, but the earbuds give you feedback tones to indicate input commands when powered on and off.

On the left earbud:

• Single press: Cycles between ANC/Off/HearThrough.
• Double press: Activates voice assistant and Spotify Tap.
• Press and hold: Lowers the volume during a call or when audio is playing.

On the right earbud:

• Single press: Plays or pauses audio.
• Double press: Skips to the next track.
• Triple press: Skips to previous track.
• Press and hold: Raises the volume during a call or when audio is playing.

On either earbud:

• Single press: Answers a call as well as mutes and unmutes the mic when you're in a call.
• Double-press: Ends and rejects calls.

These are very portable earbuds. They can easily fit inside most pockets and bags without issue, even if you have them in their carrying case.

These earbuds have a great carrying case. It's a similar design to the Jabra Elite 4 Active True Wireless' case. Magnets hold the buds in place, and a single LED indicates the case's battery status. This case also supports wireless charging.

These headphones have good build quality. They're mostly made of plastic with silicone ear tips. They feel sturdy enough to survive a few drops without damage and have an IP55 rating for protection against dust and direct water exposure. Unfortunately, like the Jabra Elite 4 Active True Wireless, the control buttons feel a bit cheap.

These earbuds have good stability. They come with three different sizes of ear tips to help you get the best seal and fit. They stay in place during high-intensity movement but may come loose while talking or chewing.

• Jabra Elite 5 headphones
• 3x ear tips
• Charging case
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Safety Guide

The Jabra Elite 5 have a clear and balanced sound profile. Although they have significant bass roll-off and lack thump and rumble, they still have a touch of bass to add boom and warmth to mixes. Lead instruments and vocals sound clear, and an emphasis in the mid-treble makes sibilants like cymbals bright but not overly piercing. If you're looking for more sound personalization, their companion app features a 5-band EQ with presets.

Note: some users have reported a hissing noise coming from one or both earbuds. Our unit didn't experience this issue but if you have had this problem, please mention it in the discussions.

These in-ear headphones have excellent frequency response consistency. If you can get an airtight seal, you'll get consistent bass and treble delivery each time you use them.

The Jabra Elite 4 have mediocre bass accuracy. The low-bass and mid-bass are both underemphasized, so audio lacks boom, thump, and rumble. The high-bass is still neutral, so the bassline in songs like Dreams by Fleetwood Mac still sound warm and full.

These earbuds have great mid accuracy. The mid range is somewhat flat, but there's a slight mismatch between the left and right drivers. The dip in the low-mid affects the right driver more, making vocals and instruments sound a bit thin and hollow. The continuation of the dip into the mid-mid affects the left driver more prominently, nudging these sounds to the back of your mix. These dips are somewhat minor, and vocals, as well as instruments, still sound detailed and clear.

These headphones have good treble accuracy. Instruments sound detailed and present in the mix, while a slight overemphasis in the mid-treble makes sibilants like S and T sound crisp without being piercing.

The peaks and dips performance is adequate. There's a mismatch between the left and right drivers, which affects the balance of your audio. A wide peak in the high-bass helps to make up for the low-bass roll-off, giving the mix a bit more body. However, the drivers are most mismatched in the upper mid-range, with a dip in the mid-mid and a peak in the high-mid that makes vocals and instrumentals sound pushed back and honky simultaneously. A significant peak in the mid-treble also means that sibilants, like cymbals, sound piercing.

These headphones have good imaging performance. Jabra's products tend to have well-matched L/R drivers, especially within the Elite lineup, which are all in-ears. It's important for the accurate placement of objects like instruments in the stereo image. Our unit's drivers are mostly well-matched too. However, there's a peak in the mid-range of the phase response, which indicates an audible mismatch. The left driver is louder than the right, and it can be heard with real-life content like music. Imaging can vary between units depending on quality control and ergonomics, though.

The passive soundstage on these earbuds is bad, which is typical for in-ear headphones. Sound needs to interact with the outer ear to create a wide and immersive soundstage. These aren't designed for that since they fit straight inside your ear canal. Audio sounds like it's coming from the inside of your head rather than from speakers placed in the room around you. They also don't feel as spacious as headphones with an open-back design.

These earbuds have a good weighted harmonic distortion performance. All frequencies fall within acceptable limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test the Jabra Elite 5 True Wireless. Our results are only valid when used in this configuration.

These in-ear headphones have passable noise isolation. Unlike most other noise cancelling Jabra earbuds like the Jabra Elite 4 Active True Wireless, their ANC can block out slightly more ambient sound than when used passively. Although the ANC doesn't perform that much better, and it can still be hard to hear the difference between both forms of isolation, it can still block out mid-range noise like ambient chatter well. Unfortunately, the buds struggle to cut out the low rumble of bus and plane engines, making them a mediocre choice for commuting compared to other noise cancelling earbuds like the Sony WF-1000XM4 Truly Wireless.

Like a lot of in-ears, these earbuds have an amazing leakage performance. They don't leak much sound, meaning you can turn up the jams without disturbing people around you.

The integrated mic has good recording quality. Your voice lacks body but is clear and easily understandable.

The noise handling on the integrated mic is unremarkable. It performs similarly to the Jabra Elite 4 Active True Wireless and struggles to separate your voice from background noise. If you're taking a call on a busy street or subway station, your voice may be drowned out.

The Jabra Elite 5 have good battery performance. The manufacturer advertises them to have a seven-hour continuous battery life, but we measured them lasting longer at eight hours. The case comes with three additional full charges, and you can fast charge them in 10 minutes for one hour of playback time. Keep in mind that battery life can vary depending on use, though.

The Jabra Sound+ app is good. You can see a video of how it works here. It's compatible with iOS and Android devices and includes a 5-band EQ with presets for sound customization. You can also use sliders to further personalize the ANC and HearThrough functions. You can toggle the voice assistant, activate Spotify Touch and change the music and media controls for the buttons as well. You can also access the 'Pink Noise' feature, which is a kind of constant sound that's advertised to help you fall asleep.

These earbuds have great Bluetooth connectivity. You can pair them to two devices simultaneously, but they don't support NFC pairing. They support the basic SBC codec as well as aptX, which is a proprietary codec designed to improve latency and sound quality over Bluetooth. Unfortunately, they still have high latency using either codec on PCs, which can result in your audio and visuals falling out of sync. However, they have extremely low latency on iOS and Android, meaning that video and audio won't fall out of sync on mobile devices. Some apps and devices compensate for latency, so your experience may vary.

You can't use these headphones wired. They're truly wireless headphones and the included USB-A to USB-C cable is used to charge the carrying case.

These headphones can only connect to PCs via Bluetooth and have full mic and audio capability.

These earbuds come with a portable charging case. It supports Qi wireless charging as well as charging via the included cable.