So right now in early 2022, Jabra is in the middle of revamping their whole ear buds lineup. A few months ago they released their Elite 7 Pro’s which are in ear earbuds that have active noise cancelation and their case has wireless charging… and they also introduced their entry level Elite 3’s. But now… there are the Jabra elite 4 active… which are slotted between the 7 Pro’s and Elite 3’s… so lets see what the difference. 

Now regarding pricing… the Jabra Elite 4 Active has a retail price of $120… not bad at all and we certainly have to see how they stack up to the likes of the Galaxy Buds 2 and Beats Studio buds… but that’s a video for another day. Today we’re going to see how the stack up to the entry level elite 3’s which have a retail price of $80, the elite 7 pro’s which have a retail price of $200… and the Jabra Elite 85T’s which have a retail price of $220. Nonetheless, if you want to pick any of these earbuds up, they’ll be linked down below. 

Now first lets talk about the case… the elite 4’s have the same case as the Jabra Elite 85T’s… its a touch shorter… but nonetheless, these cases are very similar. Now over all, the elite 4’s case is decent enough for every day… cause you don’t notice this case too much when its in your pocket… but the Elite 4’s case is a little larger than the elite 3’s case… and its also larger than the Elite 7 Pro’s case. And personally… I do find it very odd that the Elite 4’s don’t have a similar case design to the elite 7 pro’s… But overall… the elite 4’s case is noticeably larger than your Airpods case, Airpods 3, and Airpods Pro’s case… Its in the same wheel house as the Galaxy Buds 2’s case, Sennheiser CX Plus case, or Sony WF-1000XM4’s case… But it is noticeably smaller than the Beats Studio buds case. But overall… this is a decent case… the case itself has a slightly slate finish to it… which helps you get a grip… the lid is easy to open and close… and the magnets inside this case has a decent enough pull. 

However… one major differentiating factor between the Jabra Elite 4’s and the Elite 7 Pro’s is that the Elite 4’s don’t have wireless charging. Now personally I do think that it is a shame that the Elite 4’s don’t have wireless charging…  because there are plenty of similarly priced earbuds that do… like lets say the Galaxy Buds 2. Nonetheless… if you’re someone that has a phone that supports powering sharing… or if you’ve already invested in a few wireless chargers… then you will want to keep this in mind. 

Now when it comes to battery life… the Jabra Elite 4’s have a combined advertised battery life of 28 hours… the earbuds themselves can go for up to 7 hours and the case can supply an additional 3 charges… however, this combined battery life of 28 hours is with active noise cancelation turned off. If you were to use these earbuds with their active noise cancelation turned on, you’re going to have a combined battery life of around 22 hours… the earbuds themselves can go for about 5 and half hours plus those 3 additional charges. 

But for comparison sake, the Elite 3’s have a combined battery of 28 hours… just like the Elite 4’s except these earbuds don’t have active noise cancelation. Then there’s the Elite 85T’s which have a combined battery life of 31 hours with their active noise cancelation turned off… and an advertised combined battery life of 25 with their active noise cancelation turned on. 

And finally there’s the Elite 7 Pro’s which have an advertised combined battery life of 30 hours… the earbuds themselves can go for up to 8 hours… and the case supply 3 additional charges. And if you were to use these earbuds with their active noise cancelation turned off… then you will be able to extend their battery life even more. 

But now lets talk about the earbuds themselves… the sculpt of the Elite 4’s is basically identical to the sculpt of the Elite 3’s… but nonetheless the Elite 4’s fit like your standard pair of in ear earbuds like both the Elite 3’s and Elite 7 Pro’s… and like the the Galaxy buds 2 and Sennheiser CX Plus.  As in they go into your ear canal a decent amount. So they can feel a little more intrusive than your shallow fitting earbuds like lets say the Jabra Elite 85T’s, AirPods Pro, or Galaxy Buds Pro. Nonetheless you can definitely wear these earbuds for a good long while without much discomfort, and these earbuds offer a decent amount of lock down as well. Now even though these earbuds are marketed as a pair of workout earbuds… and they do a decent job of staying in place… and they do have some additional soft touch surfaces on them to help make them more water resistant, durable, and manageable… personally I would still recommend that you get something like lets say the Beats Fit Pro or something with wingtips or ear tips cause the elite 4’s can still tend to wiggle out especially if you plan on running a lot with these earbuds. 

But now lets talk about connectivity, cause there are some major changes here and nuances. Thankfully with the Elite 3’s Elite 4’s and Elite 7 Pro’s… all of these earbuds each establish a connection with your phone. So if you just want to use one earbud at a time… you can use either one it doesn’t matter… and this is the connection set up that we expect to see from our earbuds nowadays… cause admittedly… Jabra has been slow to add this to their earbuds. 

Cause for comparison sake… the Elite 85T’s are still using a hero and sidekick set up. Meaning that one earbud, in this case the right earbud, the hero earbud actually connects to your phone… and then relays that connection to the other earbud. So if you just want to use one earbud at a time, you gotta use the correct earbud. Or in this case the right earbud, the hero earbud. 

Now earbuds that are still using a hero and sidekick set up are considered last gen now in 2022… however, the thing that really made Jabra stand out is that their earbuds can be simultaneously connected to and 2 devices at the same time regardless of operating system. And this is great for any power user that has multiple devices from different eco systems. 

So with the 85T’s you can be connected to any two devices at the same time… you can hot sea between them without any problems. Where as with both the elite 3’s and elite 4’s… they can only be connected to one device at a time… however… with the Elite 7 Pro’s thanks to a software update… they can also be connected to any two devices at the same time. But it doesn’t seem like either the Elite 3’s or Elite 4’s will be getting this software update. 

But when it comes to overall performance, these earbuds have zero latency across the board when watching movies or videos on your phone whether your using an iPhone or an android device and when it comes to audio codecs, these earbuds have support for SBC and APTX. The same stack as the Elite 3’s. And I do find it odd that the Elite 3’s and elite 4’s have APTX support… cause both the Elite 7 Pro’s and Elute 85T’s only have support for SBC and AAC. 

But now lets talk about actually listening to music with these earbuds. Now in general I have always recommended Jabra’s earbuds to people who like a warmer sound signature cause these earbuds do like to put and emphasis on the bass, and they aren’t the most spacious sounding earbuds out there. And that definitely applies to the Elite 3’s Elite 4’s and Elite 85T’s. Now the elite 3’s and Elite 4’s sound identical to one another. They both do lean towards a bass heavy sound signature… so they do sound the shallowest here… and unfortunately they don’t have the cleanest bass and their treble can get tinny at times.  Where as with the Elite 85T’s I noticed that their bass resonates and hits a little harder and their treble doesn’t get as tinny as the Elite 3’s and 4’s. So the elite 85T’s and Elite 3’s and 4’s have the same characteristics… But the 85T’s have the overall better performance cause their bass is richer and the treble is much cleaner. Now all of these earbuds have a few preset EQ settings that you can choose from… And you can also make your own EQ on any of these earbuds… which wasn’t the case a few months ago with the elite 3. But overall, yes. The Elite 85T’s sound better than the Elite 3’s and Elite 4’s. 

But then there are the Jabra elite 7 Pro’s, which I can’t help sound a little different. Unlike the elite 85T’s and Elite 3’s and 4’s, the elite 7 pro’s don’t sound as shallow, which is good. And these earbuds are putting more of an emphasis on the mids so vocals are more pronounced. Now these earbuds have a decent amount of bass and they should satiate most people, but these earbuds don’t have as much bass as the Elite 85T’s elite 3’s or Elite 4’s. But I also can’t help but noticed that the bass on the elite 7 pro is better controlled because it doesn’t roll off and interfere with the rest of your music like with the 85T’s or elite 3’s and 4’s. But also the treble on the Elite 7 Pro’s has better clarity to it as well. So overall I would say the Elite 7 Pro’s sound better than the Elite 85T’s, Elite 3’s and Elite 4’s because they don’t sound as shallow… but I would recommend the Elite 7 Pro’s to someone who like a more neutral or vocal’s heavy EQ. 

Now when it come to controlling your media, all of these earbuds have physical buttons. And this could actually be a deciding factor for someone people. Some people just don’t want to have to deal with touch pads on their earbuds. And like I mentioned earlier, the Elite 4’s have a bit of extra soft touch on them which makes them a little easier to handle than all of these other earbuds. Now you can do all of your basic things like play or pause your music, skip through your music, raise or lower the volume and active your voice assistant of choose. However with the elite 3’s and Elite 4’s you can’t customize the layout of your buttons like you can with these other two earbuds. 

And I also gotta point out that both the Elite 3’s and elite 4’s don’t have proximity sensors… like these other two earbuds. So the Elite 3’s and Elite 4’s aren’t going to automatically play or pause if you take them out of your ears or put them back on. And personally I really feel that this is a major inconviance. Now with the Elite 3’s I can let them slide cause of their very competitive price… but I do think this is a major let down for the Elite 4’s. Especially since these are marketed as a pair of workout earbuds.

But now lets talk about the active noise cancelation on these earbuds. Now the Elite 3’s are the only earbuds here that don’t have active noise cancelation… but all of these other earbuds do. Now Jabra does active noise cancelation on their earbuds very well and both the Elite 85T’s and Elite 7 Pro’s rank very well. But don’t go expecting these earbuds to block out as much noise as a proper pair of over ear ANC headphones like either the Bose NC 700’s, Sony 1000XM4’s and especially the AirPods Max. 

Now when it comes to overall ranking the Sony WF-1000XM4’s block out the most amount of noise here. Albeit they do have a slight advantage because of their itchy foam ear tips. The Jabra Elite 85T’s also block out a ton of noise all while being more comfortable, so personally I do prefer them. Below them are the AirPods Pro and Sennheiser Momentum 2’s which I feel are neck and neck… below them are the Jabra Elite 7 Pro’s, below them are the Beats Fit Pro, and below them are the Galaxy Buds Pro.

Now below the Galaxy Buds Pro are the jabra elite 4’s, below them are the beats studio buds, below them are the Galaxy Buds 2, and below them are the Sennheiser CX plus. So like I said, Jabra’s active noise cancelation ranks very well… and personally the 85T’s are my favorite earbuds to recommend if active noise cancelation is very important to you. They block out a ton of noise without getting super itchy like the WF-1000XM4’s, and they have a reasonably sized case unlike Bose’s earbuds.

And in general, the Jabra elite 4’s block out a decent amount of noise for their price…. And they block out a little more noise than what I feel is their direct competitors… the Galaxy Buds 2 and Beats Studio buds. And this could be a reason for some people to go with the Jabra’s over these more main stream options. 

But like I have mentioned in the past… I only use the active noise cancelation on my earbuds when I have to. And what’s really important to is the quality of their ambient mode. Now the ambient mode on both the Elite 3’s and Elite 7 Pro’s have really improved from the last time that I featured them in a video. They sound much more natural and there’s significantly less hissing in the background. Now the ambient mode on the elite 3’s is good… but unlike all of these other earbuds, you can’t adjust the amount of sound that they let in.

Where as with all of these other earbuds… you can choose how much noise they let in. Now besides being able to adjust how much noise the Elite 4’s let in… their ambient mode does sound cleaner than the ambient mode on the Elite 3’s. And the Ambient mode on the Elite 7 Pro’s sound cleaner than the ambient mode on the Elite 4’s cause there is less hissing in the background and it does a better job of focusing on people’s voices. 

And finally there’s the Elite 85T’s which also have a decent sounding ambient mode… but I do have to point out that their ambient mode just doesn’t get as loud as the ambient mode on all of these other earbuds. So personally I do prefer the ambient mode on both the Elite 4’s and Elite 7 pro’s over the 85T’s now.

But finally here’s the microphone test. Now in general Jabra has never had the strongest microphone performance. And overall, the 85T’s do have the worst sounding microphone here. This microphone sounds very shallow and I sound very far away. 

Now the microphone on the 7 Pro’s does a much better job of focusing on my voice and it is usable while in a quiet room. 

But over all, I do feel the elite 3’s and elite 4’s have the best performing microphone here. Now just to save some time… the microphone on the elite 3’s and elite 4’s sound and perform identical… and even though this microphone doesn’t do as good of a job of focusing on just your voice like the 7 Pro’s…

This microphone does a much better job of dealing with ambient noise. Cause even though the microphone on both the Elite 3’s and Elite 4’s let in a noticeable amount of road noise… you can still clearly hear me and understand me. 

Where as the Elite 7 Pro’s these earbuds try to block out this road noise… but it is over done… so your voice ends up sounding super choppy. 

And then there’s the 85T’s which don’t try to block out any road noise… but since this microphone doesn’t do the best job of picking up your voice… its still very hard to hear you. 

Now when its comes to blocking out chatter, even though my voice is the main focus here… I still sound very shallow. 

And again with the Elite 7 Pro’s even though these earbuds are trying to block out this chatter… I still end up sounding very choppy. And my voice is a little shallow as well. 

But finally there’s the Elite 4’s which aren’t trying to block out as much noise as the Elite 7 Pro’s… but the quality of my voice is better. So I gotta say that both the Elite 3 and Elite 4 have better sounding and better preforming microphones than both the Elite 7 Pro and Elite 85T. 

But with all of that being said… the Jabra elite 4 active are just a slightly upgraded version of the jabra elite 3’s. Really, the only thing the Elite 4 Active have over the Elite 3’s is active noise and a slightly better sound ambient mode. However, one area where both the Elite 3’s and Elite 4’s really surprised me was their microphone. The Microphone on both the Elite 3 and Elite 4 sounds and preforms much better than the microphone on both the Elite 7 Pro and Elite 85T.  

But besides the better sounding microphone for phone calls… the elite 7 Pro’s still have the better performing active noise cancelation, they have a slightly better sounding ambient mode, they can be connected to 2 devices at same time, they have wireless charging… and they also sound better. However, if active noise cancelation is super important to you… then I would still recommend the Elite 85T’s… although I would not be surprised if a successor is right around the corner.