Jabra Elite 4 Active True Wireless Headphones Review

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have a teardrop earbud shape with silicone tips and the manufacturer's logo printed on the outside surfaces. They come in a few one-color designs: 'Βlack', 'Navy', and 'Mint'.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active are decently comfortable. They don't put much pressure on your ears, but using the physical buttons can hurt. They also create a plunger-like feeling inside your ears, which can be uncomfortable over time.

The Jabra Elite 4 have great controls. They have physical buttons on each earbud, which some may prefer to touch-sensitive surfaces. The onboard control scheme also offers a good variety of functions, and there are beeps for most actions. However, the different commands aren't very easy to remember at first. The buttons aren't especially clicky either, and there are no voice prompts. Pressing the buttons can also hurt your ears, especially when registering a double or triple press.

On the left earbud:

• Double press: Activates voice assistant.
• Press and hold: Lowers the volume when audio is playing.

On the right earbud:

• One press: Plays or pauses audio.
• Double press: Skips the track forward.
• Triple press: Restarts the track or skips to previous track.
• Press and hold: Raises the volume when audio is playing.

On either earbud:

• One press: Answers a call, mute/unmutes mic during a call, or cycles between ANC and HearThrough mode. (You can customize which modes it cycles through in the app).
• Double press: Rejects or ends a call.

Like most in-ear headphones, the Jabra Elite 4 Active are very portable. They easily fit inside most bags and pockets, even if you have them in their carrying case.

The Jabra Elite 4 come with a good case. It can fit into most pockets or bags and has a magnet to help keep the buds in place. There's also an LED light inside that indicates the case's battery status.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have a good build quality. They're mostly made of plastic and feel sturdy enough to withstand a few drops and bumps without damage. They're also rated IP57 for resistance against dust and brief immersion in water. Unfortunately, like the Jabra Elite 7 Active True Wireless, the buttons feel a bit cheap.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have a stable fit. Unlike some sports earbuds, they don't have stability fins; however, there are three different tip sizes included to help you find a more stable fit. They should stay in place even if you make exaggerated movements.

• Jabra Elite 4 Active headphones
• 3x ear tips
• Charging case
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Manuals

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have a well-balanced sound profile. They lack some low-bass, but most of the response is very neutral, making them suitable for a variety of genres. That said, the treble is also slightly underemphasized, which makes instruments and lead vocals a bit less detailed and bright. If you prefer a different sound, you can customize them with a graphic EQ and presets in the headphones' companion app.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have fantastic frequency response consistency, like most in-ear headphones. Once you achieve a good fit and seal with the included ear tips, you should hear the same sound each time you wear them.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have excellent bass accuracy. The mid and high-bass ranges are very neutral, so instruments like kick drums have body and punch and mixes sound warm and full. Ηowever, the low-bass is underemphasized, so your audio lacks some thump and rumble.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have incredible mid accuracy. The range is very neutral, so instruments and lead vocals are reproduced accurately and sound clear and intense. There's a small dip in the mid-mid range that nudges instruments and vocals slightly towards the back of the mix.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have good treble accuracy. The entire range is somewhat underemphasized, so the upper harmonics of vocals in songs like Lana Del Rey's Young and Βeautiful are gentle rather than harsh. Sibilants like S and T sounds are dull, though.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have very good peaks and dips performance. There's a peak across the mid to high-bass that adds some punch and body to your audio. A dip in the mid-mid nudges instruments towards the back of the mix. There's also a peak in the high-mid, more present in the right driver, that adds intensity to instruments. There's a dip and a peak in the mid-treble, so sibilant sounds sound alternately dull and piercing.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have a superb imaging performance. The weighted group delay falls below the audibility threshold for the entire range, resulting in tight bass and transparent treble reproduction. The L/R drivers of our unit are also very well-matched in terms of phase, amplitude, and frequency response, which is important for the accurate placement of objects, like footsteps and instruments, in the stereo image. Imaging can vary between units and can indicate a manufacturer's quality control and ergonomics.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have a bad passive soundstage performance, which is typical for in-ear headphones. By design, sound bypasses the outer ear, which results in audio that seems to come from inside your head instead of speakers in the room around you. They also create less wide and open-seeming soundstage than most open-back headphones.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have a good weighted harmonic distortion performance. All frequencies fall within good limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test the Jabra Elite 4 Active. Our results are only valid with these settings.

The Jabra Elite 4 have an unremarkable noise isolation performance. Their in-ear design allows them to passively block out a good amount of mid-range and high-pitched noise like conversations or a humming A/C unit, so they can help reduce distractions at the office. Ηowever, turning on the ANC feature doesn't improve their passive noise isolation performance, and they struggle to isolate you from bass-range noise like the rumble of bus and plane engines. Even if you personalize the ANC feature, there isn't a noticeable difference with it turned on, aside from some white noise and a feeling of pressure in your ears. That said, they seem to have the best noise isolation performance with the ANC personalized and set to low. You can see a comparison of the different ANC levels here.

The Jabra Elite 4 have an incredible leakage performance. They barely leak any sound, so you can use them to listen to loud music without bothering people around you.

The Jabra Elite 4's integrated mic has an alright recording quality. Your voice sounds bright and is easy to understand but lacks body.

Note: You can hear skipping and distortion in our recording, which we make in Reaper. When using Windows Voice Recorder on our PC, the track also has skipping and distortion present. However, it's much less noticeable than when using Reaper. That said, this issue may still be noticeable when connected to your phone or other devices.

The Jabra Elite 4's mic has a disappointing noise handling performance. It struggles to separate your voice from ambient sound, meaning moderate background noise may be audible on your phone calls. Your voice can be drowned out in loud environments like a busy subway station.

Note: You can hear skipping and distortion in our recordings, which we make in Reaper. When using Windows Voice Recorder on our PC, both the pink noise and subway noise tracks also have skipping and distortion present. However, it's much less noticeable than when using Reaper. That said, this issue may still be noticeable when connected to your phone or other devices.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have a good battery performance. They last almost eight hours off a single charge, longer than the advertised seven, although battery performance varies with real-life use. The manufacturer also advertises them to provide one hour of playback with 10 minutes of charging. The case holds about three extra charges, and you can use one earbud while the other charges in the case.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have a good app. There's a 5-band EQ and presets like 'Smooth' and 'Βass-Βoost' that you can use to customize their sound profile. You can personalize the ANC feature and choose if your audio is muted or continues playing when you turn on 'ΗearThrough'. You can also decide which modes it cycles through when you press either earbud: ANC and off, ΗearThrough and off, or ANC, ΗearThrough, and off. If you're using an Android device with OS 6.0 or higher, you can choose if double-pressing the left earbud activates your device's phone assistant, the built-in Alexa voice assistant, or 'Spotify Tap', which opens Spotify and lets you control your music from that app. Ηowever, unlike the Jabra Elite 7 Active True Wireless, they don't have a 'MySound' feature that uses a hearing test to personalize their sound profile.

The Jabra Elite 4 Active have decent Bluetooth connectivity. Unlike the Jabra Elite 4 True Wireless, they don't support multi-device. They also don't support NFC pairing, but if you're using a compatible Android phone, they support Google Fast Pair, which lets you pair them by tapping a prompt that pops up on your device. Their latency with iOS and Android devices is low, so you shouldn't notice any audio lag if you use them to watch a video on your phone. Unfortunately, their latency with computers is much higher, so if you use them for a video call, you may notice a bit of delay between your audio and visuals. That said, some devices and apps compensate for latency.

You can't use the Jabra Elite 4 Active wired, and they come with a USB-A to USB-C cable just for charging the case.

The Jabra Elite 4 can only connect to Βluetooth-enabled PCs with full mic and audio capability.

These headphones come with a portable charging case. The only input is a USB-C port for the charging cable. Unfortunately, the case doesn't support wireless charging.