Jabra Evolve 65t Truly Wireless Headphones Review

The Jabra Evolve 65t look pretty much the same as the Jabra Elite 65t Truly Wireless, even color-wise. They have the same bulky in-ear design that's larger than most truly wireless earbuds, and they slightly protrude out of your ears. Their design looks better when placed inside the ears.

The Jabra Evolve 65t kept the same design as the original Jabra Elite 65t Truly Wireless and Jabra Elite Active 65t Truly Wireless. The buds are larger and fit inside your ears, so you don’t need stability fins. They can be decently comfortable for those who can fit in the buds but might not be ideal for people with smaller ears. Also, the in-ear design isn’t for everyone, and some will feel listeners fatigue faster than others.

The Jabra Evolve 65t have a similar control scheme to the Jabra Elite 65t Truly Wireless, but with an additional command for talk-through. Each bud has a main button. The right one offers calls and music management, and you can also trigger your device’s voice assistant. You can control the volume on the left earbud and skip tracks backward and forward. The controls are easy to use, but the layout could be improved. Also, when using the control scheme, you have to push the earbud even further inside your ear canal, which is uncomfortable.

Like most in-ears, the Jabra Evolve 65t don’t trap much heat inside your ears. Their bulky bud design might be a bit less breathable than some smaller in-ears, but this shouldn’t make a big difference in temperature. You can wear these during physical activity without sweating more than usual.

Like most truly wireless headphones, the Jabra Evolve 65t are very portable. You can easily fit both earbuds inside small pockets or a bag. They also come with a small case that doesn’t add too much bulk and will still fit inside pockets.

The Jabra Evolve 65t come with a similar case to the Jabra Elite Active 65t Truly Wireless, which was a great upgrade over the original Jabra Elite 65t Truly Wireless' case. The size and shape are practically the same, but the lid closes effectively and doesn’t open easily. The case protects the earbuds against scratches and minor impacts. However, the earbuds aren’t held by magnetic force inside the case, and the lid is quite hard to open now. This results in the buds often popping out if you’re struggling to open the case.

The Jabra Evolve 65t are practically made the same way the Jabra Elite 65t Truly Wireless are. The buds are thick, dense, and feel durable. They should survive a few accidental drops without suffering too much damage. They're certified IP55 for dust and direct water resistance, which is a slightly lower water resistance than the IP56 rating of the Jabra Elite Active 65t Truly Wireless. On the upside, the case is similar to the Elite Active 65t. The lid doesn’t open as easily as the original, meaning the buds are better protected, which is a good thing since the earbuds aren't held in place by magnets.

The Jabra Evolve 65t have the same stable design as the other 65t models. Their unique shape doesn’t require stability fins since the bulky design holds in place inside your ears. Unfortunately, since they do not have any stability fins, you can't adjust the fit if you have smaller or larger ears. They should still be good enough for running and working out, and since they're compact and wireless, they won't hinder your movements. You also won’t have to bother with a cable getting stuck on something.

• Jabra Evolve 65t headphones
• 3x tip options
• Charging case
• Proprietary USB dongle
• Micro-USB charging cable
• Manuals

The frequency response consistency is outstanding. Assuming the user can achieve a proper fit and an air-tight seal using the assortment of tips that come with the headphones, they should get consistent bass and treble delivery every time they use the headphones. However, since the buds are quite big, some people may have difficulty getting a perfect seal with them.

The Jabra Evolve 65t's bass is good. The LFE (low-frequency extension) of 26Hz is very good. Low-bass lacks by about 1dB, meaning the Jabra will be a bit light on rumble and thump, but this won't be very noticeable. Mid-bass, responsible for the body of bass guitars and punch of the kick drums is well-balanced. However, high-bass is overemphasized by more than 4dB, which adds a bit of boominess to the sound.

The mid-range is excellent. The response is even and mostly flat. The overemphasis, which is the continuation of the high-bass bump, adds a bit of muddiness to vocals/leads and clutter to the mix. However, at 2dB, the effect will be subtle. The dip around 850Hz nudges the vocals and leads towards the back of the mix by giving more emphasis to the lower frequencies, but again, this effect will be subtle.

The treble performance is good. The range is underemphasized, so vocals and lead instruments are a bit veiled and lacking in detail. The mid-range is a bit more neutral, though, so sibilants like S and T sounds are present in your mixes.

The imaging performance is decent. Their weighted group delay is 0.26, which is within good limits. The GD graph also shows that the group delay rarely crosses the audibility threshold. This ensures a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. In terms of driver-matching, the L/R drivers of our unit were very well-matched in frequency and phase response. However, just like on the regular Jabra Elite 65t Truly Wireless, we measured more than 3dB of amplitude mismatch between the L/R drivers, which skews the stereo image and makes it noticeably heavy on one side. This could be considered a marker for poor quality control, and the unit you purchase may or may not have this mismatch.

The Jabra Evolve 65t's soundstage is bad. This is because creating an out-of-head and speaker-like soundstage is largely dependent on activating the resonances of the pinna (outer ear). The design of in-ears and earbuds is in such a way that fully bypasses the pinna and doesn't interact with it. Also, because the Jabra have a closed-back design, their soundstage won't be perceived to be as open as that of open-back earbuds like the Apple AirPods (1st generation) Truly Wireless or the Bose SoundSport Free Truly Wireless.

The Jabra Evolve 65t's noise isolation performance is great. In the bass range, where the rumble of airplane and bus engines sit, they achieved 12dB of isolation which is sub-par. In the mid-range, important for blocking out speech, they reduce outside noise by 20dB, which is very good. In the treble range, occupied by sharp S and T sounds and fan noises like A/C systems, they isolate by more than 42dB, which is great.

The leakage of the Jabra Evolve 65t is outstanding. A significant portion of the leakage is spread over a very narrow range in the treble, making their leakage very thin sounding and mostly consist of S and T sounds. The overall level of the leakage is also very low. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage averages at 23dB SPL and peaks at 31dB SPL, which is way below the noise floor of most offices.

The Jabra Evolve 65t's integrated mic with the dongle has an okay recording quality. The LFE of 276Hz results in a recorded or transmitted speech that is relatively thin. The HFE of 6KHz with the dongle suggests a clear and detailed speech, but it may lack a bit of airiness. Without the dongle, the HFE was around 3.3KHz, which results in a speech that is muffled and lacks detail. The understandability of speech on this microphone will be decent in quiet environments.

The Jabra Evolve 65t's microphone is mediocre at noise handling. In our SpNR test, they achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of about 14dB, indicating they're best suited for quiet and moderate environments. However, they will struggle to separate speech from ambient noise in loud situations.

The Jabra Evolve 65t have almost six hours of playback on one charge, and you also get two additional charges from the case, which gives you an estimated total of about 15 to 18 hours of playback. We expect them to have the same auto-off timer of one hour of inactivity, which is considerably longer than most truly wireless headphones and wastes a bit of power.

The Jabra Sound+ is a decently well-made app that offers a good amount of customization options. You get an equalizer, hear-through, options for the mic to reduce wind and ambient noise, as well as battery data and setting profiles and widgets to change your settings if you're at work, home, or commuting. Also, you have access to ambient sounds like white noise, ocean waves, etc., to help you focus and mask the noise around you. However, the app lacks an adjustable auto-off timer and in-app player, but it's a good app that improves your experience with the Evolve 65t.

Also, the Jabra Evolve 65t have a desktop app called Jabra Direct. This app is more oriented towards office use cases, and customization options will be more related to the microphone. You also use it to download the latest firmware for your devices.

You can connect these Bluetooth-only headphones to two devices simultaneously, which is very convenient if you want to switch between your phone and office computer. They also tell you which two devices are connected, which is nice. Unfortunately, they don’t support NFC, and you can't use them with consoles. While the headphones are Bluetooth 5.0 compatible, curiously, the provided USB dongle only supports Bluetooth 4.2.

Like most Bluetooth headphones, the Jabra Evolve 65t have high latency that may not be ideal to watch video content and gaming. They have about the same latency with and without the provided dongle, which is disappointing. However, apps like YouTube and Netflix offer some compensation, so you might not notice the delay on those apps.

You can't use these truly wireless headphones wired.

The Jabra Evolve 65t come with a USB Bluetooth 4.2 dongle that gives you better mic performance and audio support on your PC. Also, like truly wireless headphones, they come with a charging case that gives about two additional charges.