Jabra has been instrumental in popularising soft neckband earbuds or “neckbuds”: basically wireless earbuds that are connected together and slung around your neck. Looks cool, you can’t lose them easily, fantastic battery life and more control over everything.
What’s there not to like?
And that’s not even half of it… Just hang around and let me show what’s good and what’s not.
We’ve been fans of just about everything this Danish firm has concocted over the last 15 years we’ve been reviewing. The Evolve 65e is indeed “evolved” from many previous models. We recently published our findings on the Sport Pulse and the Halo Smart which are similarly styled.
This Evolve 65e (not to be confused with the Elite 65e) is aimed primarily at businesses because of being certified for Skype for Business.
What is this UC and Skype for Business certification all about?
According to the Jabra press release the Evolve 65e delivers professional, UC-certified sound, while also featuring Skype for Business certification, ensuring that users can enjoy crystal-clear call or music quality for a work-life on the go.
Actually, that crystal-clear call quality claim is spot on. There are no echos and the other party hears you loud and clear. This headset sports 4 microphones: 2 in the microphone box capturing your voice and one in each earbud that listens to ambient noise around the user so that this can be filtered out.
Here’s another great feature: The earbuds come with a Jabra Link 370 USB Bluetooth adapter, enabling simultaneous connectivity to your laptop or PC and your smartphone.
That translates to a wireless range of 30m for PC and about 10m for mobile devices.
If you work in an open office environment and you want to make it clear that you do not want to be interrupted, switch on the built-in busylight that serves as a ‘do not disturb’ sign. Some might also want to use that feature to listen to an uninterrupted Spotify session at work…
I tried that out in my own sweet time but for some unexplained reason after having listened to Spotify for about 5 minutes this Jabra set goes very quiet for about 20 seconds and repeats that every couple of minutes after that. Yes, I have Spotify Premium with downloaded music and none of my other Jabra headsets have this problem.
Puzzled but I still think it has something to do with Spotify rather than the headset as other music and audio plays uninterrupted.
I don’t have my headsets on all day, every day. But office workers might and they’ll be pleased to know that the unit only weighs a paltry 36 gram and with a choice of snug-fitting oval earbuds, soft memory wire and multiple sizes of ear-gels and ear-wings with passive noise cancellation, these are arguably some of the most comfy earbuds around.
But what about battery life, you ask?
The Evolve 65e will outlast you every day with eight hours of talk and 13 hours of music on one charge! That claim came straight out of the press release but I think it should be either 8 hours of talk OR 13 hours of music (or a mix of them). We didn’t get 8 PLUS 13 hours on one charge but it’s still pretty impressive.
As usual, there’s an app to support this unit. Just download the Jabra Sound+ to customise call and music settings and to access instruction manuals (the included leaflet was way too brief – but you could read it in 36 languages…)
Also a common feature these days is Single-button connectivity to a voice assistant.
Conclusion
The purchase of the Jabra Evolve 65e at AUD473 is a no brainer for office professionals or mobile workers that are constantly on the phone.
For others it’s probably nice to have but most likely on the dear side.
Highly recommended for its built quality, usefulness and great call quality.
