Jaybird earbuds are widely regarded as a better sounding alternative to more expensive earbuds on the market right now. Jaybird earbuds are truly designed from the ground up for athletes. Well today we’ll be reviewing the Jaybird Freedom Wireless Earbuds. How will they compare to the all new Powerbeats 3? As always, remember to pick up a GYMCADDY™! GYMCADDY™ and wireless earphones go together like a protein shake and a banana as your post workout meal!
Lets get the easy stuff out of the way. When you open your Jaybird Freedom box you're going to be greeted by the earbuds themselves, a carrying pouch, 4 pairs of different sized wingtips, 3 pairs of different sized Comply ear tips, 3 pairs of different sized silicon ear tips, a charging cradle that also acts as a standalone charger, and a short micro usb cable. The cable its self has a soft touch feel to it and is round. The earbuds themselves are solid metal construction and are super small. When you wear these earbuds, the only thing visible is the wire.Theres also an inline controller on these earbuds that let you control volume, skip tracks, answer and end phone calls, and activate your phones voice assistant. The controller its self is a mix of metal and plastic. The controller houses the battery, has 3 buttons, and also has contact pins on the back so you can charge your earbuds up. All in all, the Jaybird Freedom Wireless Earbuds are exceptionally well made.
Now that we got that out of the way, lets get to the interesting stuff. These earbuds have a 4 hour battery life by themselves. The charging cradle that comes included can also charge these earbuds once to a full charge. In total these earbuds have an 8 hour battery life. You can even clip the charging cradle on to the earbuds and play music siamotainously. Having a charging cradle that also has its own battery to charge your earbuds while in the carrying case is a great idea. It helps extend the battery life of the product, but doesn't force the engineers to cram a larger battery into the product itself. Sadly there is some risk to this idea. If you for any reason lose the charging cradle to these earbuds then you wont be able to charge your earbuds. Luckily, if you do lose the charging cradle you can buy another one from Jaybird’s site for $24.95 (insert sarcastic sigh here)
Like we mentioned before, a lot of people in the tech space recommend Jaybird products over more expensive competitors because of their amazing sound quality and lesser cost. And its true, the Jaybird Freedoms sound amazing… if you play around with the MySound App. When we first got these earbuds we noticed they sounded very flat and there was little to no separation. It wasn't until we downloaded the MySound App we were able to adjust the earbuds to our liking. You can truly customize these earbuds to sound exactly how you'd like them to. Even if you don't know anything about music and sound engineering the MySound App has plenty of pre-made sound profiles, you’ll surly find a sound profile you’ll like.
Speaking about customized sound, the Jaybirds Freedom also let you customize how you wear them. Like we mentioned before, you’re given 3 pairs of silicon earbuds and 3 pairs of Comply earbuds. Comply earbuds are made out of a water/sweat retardant memory like foam material that expands inside your ear canal to form an almost perfect seal. This seal helps block outside noise which allows you to listen to your music without having to turn up the volume all the way up. You are also given 4 pairs of wing tips that you can fix on your earbuds. The wing tips are meant to rest inside the bowl of your ear and help prevent your earbuds from falling out. You can literally spend hours customizing the sound and fit of your Jaybirds.
Sadly, these earbuds suffer from a huge design flaw. The inline controller on these earbuds are placed near the right side earbud. Like we mentioned before the inline controller houses the battery, buttons, and radios. That means the inline controller is rather heavy. We noticed while we were running, doing circuit training, or doing other aerobic exercises the right earbud would fall out because of the heavy inline controller. We also noticed there was some latency when it came to watching videos with these earphones. The audio and sound were never in sync causing some annoying distortion.
In conclusion, the Jaybird Freedom Wireless Earbuds is a slightly more cost effective option for someone looking for great wireless earphones. Unfortunately the design flaw these earbuds suffer from make it hard to recommend to anyone looking for earphones for running or aerobic style exercising. Instead, the Jaybird Freedom is a great option for anyone who wants to wear earbuds while wearing a helmet for bike ridding, snowboarding, skateboarding. You should checkout our review on the Powerbeats 3 instead! They have a 12 hour battery life and have been greatly improved upon from the previous version.
Jaybird Freedom
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$149.99 From Best Buy