The award-winning Jabra Elite 8 Active headphones only launched a few months ago, but these RW tester-approved running buds are on Amazon’s Black Friday sale, with a massive £70 off. That’s an incredible saving on some of the very best running headphones you can buy right now.
Why do we love them so much? Well, we’ve tested them over many months and many miles and the Jabra Elite 8 Active not only boast unrivalled durability, but the all-round package of sound, fit, battery life and extra features is impressive.
At 5g for each bud, they’re brilliantly light, with a compact wing-tip-free secure fit. That secure fit is helped by a special silicone coating that grips more when it gets wet or sweaty.
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On paper, the buds offer an excellent 14-hour run time battery, with a further 42 hours’ charge in the case. That’s a total of 56 hours' buds-plus-case playback. Those numbers drop if you’re running with the Active Noise Cancellation and the awareness modes on. And in our tests, they came up slightly shorter than billed but not far off.
If you make strategic use of the rapid charge – which adds an hour for just 5 minutes on the plug – you can easily get a month’s daily running with minimal charging.
The customisable sound is great too. It’s not necessarily the very best but there’s good top volume, decent nuance and richness and plenty of butt-kicking bass. If you need full sound for that motivational boost, you’ll get it here. There’s Dolby Spatial sound, too, though it’s not as good as you’ll get on the Apple Airpods Pro 2.
The Active Noise Cancellation and Hearthough awareness modes are much improved over the previous generation Elite 7 Active. The awareness mode now doesn’t suffer from wind interference the way some do.
When it comes to durability, Jabra says these are the toughest it's ever made. The buds are IP68 rated so they can be submerged up to 1.5 metres, be rinsed underwater, get splashed during water sports and soaked on a rainy day. They’re also dust-proof and military tested to MIL-STD-810h.
The running-belt-friendly compact case is also IP54 rated. So that’s dust-protected and splashproof. Good news if you want to carry it with you on a run.
A comprehensive selection of extra smarts is rounded out with Find My Buds geolocation, Spotify Tap (plays your last Spotify track in one tap) and Bluetooth 5.3 multipoint so you can connect to two devices simultaneously. And switch from laptop to phone without having to reconnect. Great for when you’re back from running and need to jump on a Zoom call.
