Jabra Elite 3 review: The best wireless earbuds under $100

The Jabra Elite 3 earbuds offer great comfort and sound quality at a very low price-point

Jabra Elite 3 review
Jabra Elite 3 Review
Bottom Line
The Jabra Elite 3 wireless earbuds offer great comfort, battery life, call quality, and sound for a very low price-point. There are some caveats, but they're all forgivable. Ultimately, the Jabra Elite 3 is our top choice for wireless earbuds under $99.
Pros
Lightweight
Pocketable
Secure fit and very comfortable
Good tactile button for controls
Excellent mic for calls
Great sound quality
Long battery life
Affordable
Multiple color options
IP55 dust and water-resistant
2-year warranty
Mono mode
Cons
Silicone ear tip broke during testing
Occasional delay when removing the buds and getting them to pair
No active noise canceling
Can’t personalize button presses
No auto-play/pause
No wireless charging
Can only connect to one device at a time
4.2

Jabra has quickly become one of our favorite headphone brands. Lately, they’re doing everything right. They’ve nailed premium active noise cancelling in-ear buds and over-ear headphones, and their Jabra Elite 3 nails the under-$100 category for wireless earbuds. If you’re curious about how the Jabra Elite 3 fared under our scrutiny, here’s our Jabra Elite 3 review.

The Jabra Elite 3 is not noise cancelling, but it’s noise-isolating. These true wireless earbuds feature an ultra-portable and lightweight design, with a svelte aesthetic and excellent sound profile, for a budget-friendly price.

Design

Jabra Elite 3 are small buds in a small case. We love the case. It’s pocketable and solid with good magnetic docking. It looks good and is easy to use. The box comes with 3 sets of eargels of varying sizes. The buds effortlessly pop into the case without the frustration of needing to reorient them.

The buds are small and light but in a manageable way. They’re about the size of a fingertip and shaped to match the contours of your ear. My ears usually require an ear hook to earloop to stay in, but the lightweight and natural design has these staying comfortably in-ear through most activities.

Each of the buds comes with physical buttons that offer greater control, more precision and are easy to press when you want to. We love tactile feedback, and there are never any accidental presses. The design is overall simple, clean, and minimalistic. The buds and case are matte and come in a few different colors. They have “Danish styling” and are designed in Copenhagen.

Jabra’s Elite 3 earbuds are made to handle just about anything. They’re IP55 dust and rainproof and even come with a 2-year warranty that protects them from damage due to water and dust.

Battery life

The charging case comes with a USB-C port and includes a short USB-C to USB-A cable. There’s no wireless charging, unfortunately. The buds last 7 hours on their own, and the charging case brings them to a total of 28 hours. A 10-minute fast charge will get you an hour of playback.

App

Jabra’s Sound+ app is one of the better apps for getting way more out of your buds. That said, the Elite 3 has less personalization and features than we’re used to from Jabra.

The app allows you to choose from 6 audio presets, and up until recently, there was no custom equalizer. The included equalizer gives you 5 points to adjust the low to high audio frequencies. It’s a bit basic but much better than nothing.

Aside from basic audio tuning, you can toggle off Hear through, update the firmware, and choose whether you can hear your voice while on a phone call (disable this!). The extra app features, like personalizing what button presses do, seem to be saved for the more expensive Jabra models.

While the control buttons aren’t customizable, we’re happy that Jabra gave us all the functionality needed. Through presses and holds you can skip tracks, toggle on/off hear-through, access the voice assistant, and even adjust the volume. It’s easy to get used to it and we like how usable the button controls are.

Audio

The sound quality is great! The audio quality and detail are on par with headphones twice their price. They’re extremely well-balanced with solid bass. They have a warm and natural sound out-of-the-box, and you can bump the bass, treble, or energy in the app. Although the Jabra elite 3 doesn’t support the AAC codec, android users will be happy to know that the Bluetooth headphones come with sbc and aptx support.

Call quality

Jabra knows microphones and they’ve been leaders in hands-free devices for years. Elite 3 comes with 4 microphones for crystal clear phone calls. Our voice comes through clearly and naturally with reduced background noise. The microphone quality is much better than your average wireless earbuds’ microphone.

Bonus features

If you’re on Android, you get a few bonus features with the Jabra Elite 3 earbuds. You can switch to Google fast pair mode to pair your Android device with a single tap after taking the buds out of the case. You can also change the default voice assistant to use Amazon Alexa instead of Google Assistant. Finally, if you prefer, you can configure the double-tap to play Spotify.

Jabra Elite 3 Review verdict

The Jabra Elite 3 Bluetooth earbuds have very quickly become our favorite headphones under $100. They have all the qualities we care most about: pocketability, comfort, and great call and sound quality. They don’t have ANC, but the noise isolation is so good you won’t care.

Aside from that, they’re only missing wireless charging and auto-play/pause, which may not be a deal-breaker for you with the affordable $80 price tag. They even come in a few nice matte color options including lilac, light beige, navy, and dark grey.

Where to buy it?

The Jabra Elite 3 is currently available for purchase on the company’s official website, jabra.com for $59.99.

Recommended
Jabra Elite 3 wireless earbuds
$59.99

The Jabra Elite 3 wireless earbuds offer excellent audio, and comfort for a low-price point.

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