Jabra’s Elite 7 Active earbuds might struggle to stand out but they’re easy to like

With a fitness-friendly build and a few-compromises approach to noise-cancelling, the Jabra Elite 7 Active are a solid contender for the brand's best set of true wireless earbuds.

Although slightly cheaper than the Jabra Elite 7 Pro, the Elite 7 Active don't miss a beat when it comes to sound quality. Throw in a gym-friendly design and you've got a solid set of earbuds that are well-suited to those who are after a single but solid set of portable audio gear for on-the-go listening.

The Jabra Elite 7 Active can't outmatch the category's finest for fidelity, but Jabra's can-do hustle makes for a solid sweetener to the hardware on offer here.

In Australia, the Jabra Elite 7 Active are priced at $279.

That price puts the Jabra Elite 7 Active right in the middle of the field when it comes to true wireless earbuds. It's easy to find something cheaper or more expensive, but it's hard to hold the price against Jabra's premium economy earbuds. They come in at an RRP slightly higher than that of the Jabra Elite 4 Active, but they're not quite as pricey as something like the Apple AirPods Pro.

Depending on the retailer, you might be able to find the Jabra Elite 7 Active for even less. Check out the table below for a round-up

As the name might suggest, the Jabra Elite 7 Active are something of a hybrid between the comparably high-end Jabra Elite 7 Pro and the sports-friendly Jabra Elite 4 Active.

Jabra hasn't tried to reinvent the wheel here. These are ergonomic earplugs rather than AirPod-inspired stem-style earbuds. The inner-facing side of the earbuds themselves is made of a hard plastic while the external half is made of something more rubberised. If you've used true wireless earbuds of this style before, you might find the choice in material design here to be noteworthy, but the overall form factor is more familiar than anything else.

The carry-case for the Jabra Elite 7 Active is similarly samey. It's a little leaner than the carry-case for the Jabra Elite 4 Active, but it's not the slimmest storage solution out there when it comes to true wireless. As with Jabra's other Bluetooth buds, there's a single USB Type-C port used for charging but no physical pairing prompt.

Setup is simple, handled entirely by the triggers on the buds themselves. Like the Jabra Elite 4 Active, the Jabra Elite 7 Active pair the appearance of touch controls with the practicality of physical triggers. These are surprisingly responsive in action and seamlessly integrated enough into each bud that you can miss them if you aren't looking for them.

In any case, most of Jabra's true wireless earbuds have a lot more in common than they do apart these days. All four models (the Elite 7 Pro, Elite 7 Active, Elite 4 Active and Elite 3) boast 6mm drivers, a compact wing-free form factor and support for customisation via the Jabra Sound app (available on both iOS and Android).

The runner-up of the roster, the Jabra Elite 7 Active up the ante by incorporating a larger battery life and two more microphones. These aren't massive inclusion, but they're well worth noting for potential buyers alongside inclusions like adjustable ANC and multi-point Bluetooth connectivity.

If the Jabra Elite 4 Active have just enough to get by, the Jabra Elite 7 Active have what it takes to swing above their weight. Sticklers for sound fidelity may find them lacking in some respects, those seeking an extension of the formula found with the Elite 4 Active will have that demand met here.

The big upgrade offered here (relative to the cheaper Jabra earbuds) is the jump to active noise cancelling. However, in practice, it feels better to say that the hardware here fights to reduce or suppress ambient noise rather than cancel or eliminate it entirely. Even at their best, I never felt quite as isolated from the world around me with these earbuds as I did something like the Sony WF-1000XM3s or the Apple AirPods Pro. There's a similar sort of dynamic at work when it comes to the sound signature of the earbuds.

Like the Jabra Elite 4 Active, the Elite 7 Active did a decent job of keeping up with the acoustic chaos of my local gym. The soundscape here was noticeably wider than the one offered by the former, and the bass benefited from a similar uplift in bounciness. 

As part of our earbud testing process, we put the Jabra Elite 7 Active to the test with a playlist designed to tease out the limits and strengths of the 6mm drivers inside each earbud.

This process found that the Jabra Elite 7 couldn't quite deliver on the details of Opeth's "The Funeral Portrait" and "Swerve City" by Deftones. Fortunately, Jabra's better-sounding fitness buds fared better when it came to the guitar riffs in "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by The Beatles and the genre-bending bedlam of Radiohead's "The National Anthem".

The quality of the microphones built into the Jabra Elite 7 Active true wireless earbuds were sometimes a little coarse in terms of quality but, if you're buying your next set of earbuds based on their hands-free utility, you can do a lot worse.

In action, the microphones found on the Jabra Elite 7 Active sounded good enough to get by even if they weren't quite studio quality. While the microphone itself was a little on the sensitive side, the noise reduction involved was surprisingly decent.

Still, if call quality matters to you, it's worth noting that there's a big difference between what's on offer here and what you'll get out of something with a stem-based design. As with the rest of the package, the microphone on the Jabra Elite 7 Active is better than most but not quite the best.

When it comes to battery life, the Jabra Elite 7 Active earn the appropriate amount of acclaim. The earbuds boast 8 hours of playback per charge, with another 22 hours supplied via the charging case. In total, you're looking at 30 hours of listening time total. This sum total is fairly competitive in the current in-ear headphone landscape.

With the features of the brand's most expensive true wireless earbuds and the durability of its most gym-friendly offering, the Jabra Elite 7 Active are likely to thrill those looking for a versatile alternative to the likes of Apple's AirPods Pro. The not-quite-premium price tag makes the inherited hardware here easy to like and its limits easier to live with.

Jabra's Elite 7 Active provide plentiful battery life, adept sound quality and a design that's a little less eye-catching but no less comfortable to wear from day to day.