Jabra Rox Wireless (Review)
I have been looking for a good pair of wireless in-ear phones for a while now, not because I do a lot of sports, but more like I like the feeling of having no wires to hold you back. So I got the Sony Bluetooth Earphones earlier on in the year and ever since I got it, I have had nothing but bad audio. You may have a better experience with it, but this is mine was wrought with intermittent connection issues.
So, I decided to check out some other wireless bluetooth earphones, and initially I was considering the Plantronics Backbeat GO 2 wireless earbuds because of the chio-ness of the design, there was none of the cumbersome extra piece of plastic like the Sony. The downside of the Plantronics model was the short battery life and I thought that I would need more than 2.5 hours of playback.
And then while tinkering on the website, I found the Jabra Rox Wireless. It was almost double the price on some e-stores, and therefore I had to think about it for a longer time before buying it. Eventually desire got the better of me, and I bought it off the Apple Store for a much higher retail price than if I had gotten it off Amazon. Oh well.
The standard items in the box were displayed nicely so that you can ignore them if you don’t need to know all these and get straight to using the earphones for their sound quality. But from the picture above, it tells you the basic function of the earphones. And what it comes with. The Rox Wireless has a unique on/off feature which allows users to “turn off” the earphones and allow it to save power by attaching it together. There are these unique power magnets that allow the two ear-buds to come together and by doing so, activate power-saving mode. Quite nice I thought.
The good part for me was the chio-ness of the design plus the fact that the ear-buds had this rubbery thing called “ear-wings” which basically helps fit the earphones in the ears while users do heavy-duty sports. This feature I like very much. The sound quality is amazingly clear (dolby sound), and it handles bluetooth calls quite well. So that’s very good for me.
The ear-wings fit nicely into my ears, and with three different sizes, I thought it would fit into anyone’s ears. The items that came along with it also made sense to me. A small earphone pouch, almost weight-less. The usual micro USB cable, a nice fit-clip to hold the wires together. The wires are short anyway, so I doubt you would really need the fit-clip. The wires fit around the neck quite nicely and didn’t get in the way of anything, plus the power magnets feature allow it to be worn around the neck like an accessory, very intuitive design. Each package comes with three sets of ear-wings and there are three extra sizes for the in-ear molds in addition to the one already attached.
When unattached, it actually looks very cool. I can see myself wearing this when I rock climb.
The ear-wings needs to be attached onto the earphones. At first they look quite big and bulky, but actually it fits nicely into the grooves in our ears, so it is actually quite snug. And you can shake your head violently and the earphones won’t fall out. This feature I like very much. In fact when I saw the promotional video by the Jabra guy, I thought it was gimmicky, but I really tried it out and it really didn’t drop out.
The backs of each earphone has the magnetic connection and clips together nicely and the earphone enters into power saving mode. Nice feature.
The controls are very discreet and almost “invisible” to the eye, but it’s meant for “feeling” rather than “seeing”, so it works for me. The middle control buttons turns on the bluetooth “seeking” mode, and once it is detected, it pairs with the phone or the bluetooth function on your notebook computer. I use it to listen to YouTube playlists on my computer and radio when I am on the move. The dolby quality sound of the earphones makes MP3 playback a breeze.
This is by far one of the best purchases, really love the fact that it is very discreet and easy to use. Once you detach the earphones from the power magnets, there is a voice that says, “connected” and you can use it immediately. Totally worth whatever price I paid for it. But of course if you can get it cheaper, why not right?