Jabra Elite 4 reviewed: competing for space

Yet another pair of in-ears, the Jabra Elite 4 aims to get the cost of noise cancelling down while keeping the sound just right. Are these ideal entry-level all-rounders?

No stranger to earphones, or really anything ear-related, Jabra has a new pair of earphones on the way to stores, but good luck telling it apart from the rest.

Small and made to be relatively inconspicuous, the Elite 4 is very much like any other pair made by the brand, though with one main difference: they’re made to get active noise cancellation down to a more economical price point.

And these days, that matters.

Keeping prices down is important, especially as the cost of living rises and we’re all out budgeting more, and rival earphone makers are also building devices for less dollar bucks, as well. Inexpensive offerings have arrived in recent times from the likes of Soundcore, Earfun, and others, so Jabra clearly has competition in the cost-effective noise cancellation space.

So what are the Jabra Elite 4, and are they worth the sub-$150 price being pitched?

Design and features

First up, let’s take a look at how the Elite 4 looks, and if you’ve ever seen any pair of Jabra earphones in the past couple of years, these will look very, very similar.

Jabra has had quite a few pairs in recent times, as the boxes near the Pickr Review Desk seems to indicate: there’s the Elite 3, Elite 4 Active, Elite 5, and the Elite 7. Lots of Elite, and all sporting roughly the same look, an evolution from the Elite 65t, Elite 75t, and Elite 85t, which all also had their style evolved from the Elite Sport so many years ago.

Clearly, we’ve reviewed a lot of Jabra earphones in the past decade.

The Elite 4 are very similar to the recent batch of Elite earphones, sporting an in-ear style that sits comfortably in the ears, and really just asks you to twist them slightly at the pinched end to get the comfort matching the holes of your ears. They won’t get attention like the white stems on other earphones, and these are fairly inconspicuous.

In fact, they’re very similar to last year’s Elite 4 Active, minus the extra water proofing of the Elite Active range, so you can expect similar features.

There’s a 6mm driver and 2 microphones on each side, support for active noise cancellation (ANC), and up to 5.5 hours of battery life with ANC switched on, with an extra three charges in the case, resulting in a max of 22-ish hours all up. You can charge that case with a Type C cable, some of a standard lately, though there’s no wireless charging for this model.

You will find some water resistance, maxing out at IP55, a little less than the Elite 4 Active’s IP57.

In-use

Offering only a single button on each earphone, Jabra has tried to make things easy with its options, though you may need to check the app for instructions here and there.

The right earbud will pause and play with one press, while two goes forward a track and three restarts the track, with the left supporting one button press for ANC and hear-through switching, plus the second press for triggering your phone’s voice assistant.

Volume controls can be found on each earphone, too, using the old school method of holding down the right earbud button for a second for the volume to go up by one point, while the left earbud sends it down a point.

These are the controls for the Jabra Elite 4, and there’s no way to customise them, at least based on the version we’re checking out, so you can either memorise them or check the app to give yourself a reminder.

Throwing the earphones in your ear is also easy, with three tip sizes in the box — small, medium, and large — and the earphones needing a slight twist to sit comfortably.

All that’s needed is to really try the earphones.

Performance

Fortunately, that’s what the “Performance” section is all about, and like we do with every other pair, we’re testing the Elite 4 using the Pickr Sound Test, which sees us test a variety of music genres.

Throughout much of what we tested, Jabra delivers a decent soundstage, with a relatively balanced sound and some punch. Whether we listened to the electronic of Daft Punk or the punchy pop of Carly Rae Jepsen, or even the bold sound of Bowie, there was an easy to appreciate sound from the Elite 4.

Granted, it’s not trying to be warm like Sony’s WF-1000XM4 or a decent pair of speakers, but rather more of that balance Jabra is known to go for.

There’s even some strength in the transparency mode, which lets you hear through the Elite 4 rather comfortably without too much volume. That is easily one of the better features being carried over from the Elite 3, which lacked noise cancellation yet included hear-through, and made it a compelling choice when it came out.

But while the soundstage is surprisingly spacious and the audio rendition detailed, the noise cancellation is very much pitched to an entry-level crowd.

That shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise: the Elite 4 are inexpensive earphones, priced at $139, so not really focused on high-end noise cancellation in the same way as other models.

Even so, repeatable noise from the train engines could be heard despite the earphones securely held, and other sounds, too. While ANC is the name of the game, this is entry-level ANC, quietening and quelling, rather outright active cancellation that the big boys deliver on.

For many, it won’t be too big a deal, and the little bit of active noise cancellation on offer in the Jabra Elite 4 is a whole lot better than the none this price point normally focuses on. But make no mistake, there is better ANC out there, and this is more just a starting point.

Battery

The battery does fare better than “just a starting point”, delivering a little more than some advanced ANC earphones, even if the ANC in this pair isn’t anything amazing to speak of.

You should find a good five hours of battery life using the Elite 4, which isn’t bad and better than the four some earphones are still touting.

There’s a little more if you decide to switch noise cancelling off, maxing out at 7, but noise cancellation at a more wallet-friendly price may well be why you’re considering this pair in the first place.

Value

The price isn’t bad either, managing a cost of $139 in Australia for something that is very close to its Elite 4 Active sibling and the nearby Elite 5.

However, there is a price problem worth talking about, because the Elite 5 does appear to be a much better value overall. In fact, at the time of publishing this review, the Elite 5 could be found for roughly the same price, targeting between $119 and $139 in Australia.

Until the Elite 5 price shifts, they may well be Jabra’s best economical pair of noise cancelling earphones. But when it does, the Elite 4 will be as close to inexpensive as ANC gets.

What needs work?

Almost as cheap as chips, Jabra wins points for truly compact sound at a wallet-friendly price. These are the spitting image of their siblings in the Elite 3, Elite 5, and even the Elite 7. It’s more of the same aesthetically, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

The noise cancellation is a little on the entry-level side, but given where the Elite 4 is pitched — and that it will replace the Elite 3 — none of this comes as a shock.

But the dropouts totally surprised us.

It’s been years since we donned a pair of truly wireless earphones and walked through a crowded location to find the earphones struggled to stay connected. And yet that’s precisely what happened with the Elite 4. While they were clear and transmitting beautifully in the office and home with only a handful of people, the moment traffic picked up and more people were out and about with their own devices, the Elite 4 put up its hands and said “nup, no way”.

The transmission of our music playback broke up then sped up, and then when we’d found our way to somewhere quieter, the sound continued at its regular pace and speed.

We tried the old tricks of moving the phone and earphones closer to the iPhone 14 Plus we were reviewing at the same time, but that didn’t cut it; the Jabra Elite 4 seemed dependent on having fewer transmissions to compete with. Switching to an Android phone didn’t change that, and allows us to determine it was the earphones, not the phone.

Granted, dropouts seemed to occur in only the busiest of places, such as Sydney’s Wynyard station, but it was a stark reminder that inexpensive earphones can still have issues in places with the Bluetooth transmission that you mightn’t expect. By comparison, testing against the Bose QC Earbuds II revealed the extent of issues was limited to Jabra’s pair.

It’s worth noting that most of the time, the Elite 4 delivered the reliability we’ve all come to expect from every pair of earphones, and the dropouts of headsets from the early days aren’t there in all situations. But in busy areas, just be warned, because this surprised even this seasoned reviewer.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

It might sound crazy, but in a way, the problems of an otherwise decent pair of earphones competing for transmission space is the perfect analogy for the Jabra Elite 4.

These are perfectly acceptable inexpensive noise cancelling earphones, but they’re also competing for space in a market crowded with other budget players. And strangely, some of those are actually made by Jabra, too.

By themselves, the Elite 4 are perfectly fine inexpensive ANC earphones, but there are better options if you look, and some of those might even include a pair from Jabra going at a better price.