Jabra Evolve3 85

MSRP $650.00

“A deceptively stylish and feature-loaded business headset.”

Pros

• Comfy design and premium build
• Excellent voice clarity
• Long-haul battery life
• Wireless charging is a cool perk
• Sufficiently good sound quality
• Replaceable battery

Cons

• Missing desktop app
• Extra cost for wireless pad
• They are pretty pricey
• ANC and tuning could’ve been better

Quick Take

Jabra says the Evolve3 85 is the best headset for modern work, and to a large extent, those claims are functionally justified.  It breaks the mold of dull, utilitarian business headsets with an unbelievably premium look and feel. It’s lighter than its predecessor, pretty comfortable, impresses with foldable hinges, and goes all-in with tactile controls. While the aesthetics and engineering leave a mark, the replaceable batteries and earcups are a thoughtful touch.

Sound quality is solid but not class-leading. The drivers deliver a wide soundstage, clear instrumentals, and decent bass, though vocals lack a touch of sparkle compared to the AirPods Max 2, Sony WH-1000XM6, or Bose QuietComfort Ultra, all of which fall in roughly the same price bracket. 

Where the Evolve3 85 truly shines is its core objective, which is clear calls and smooth connectivity. The six-mic array with AI-driven Jabra ClearVoice tech delivers astonishing voice clarity, even in tuk-tuks on busy roads or noisy cafes. Wireless connectivity is rock-solid up to 80+ feet measured, and the mileage is decent even in modern homes with mazy architecture.

Battery life is phenomenal, lasting a full work week, while 10 minutes of charging delivers 10 hours of use. On-cup wireless charging is the cherry on top, and I wish this perk made its way to more products in the market. At $650, it’s definitely pricey, but for professionals who live on calls, there’s hardly any headset out there that bests this one.

Jabra Evolve3 85 Specs: What’s up for grabs?

Jabra Evolve3 85 Build and comfort: Luxury wrapped in minimalism

Score: 9/10

I avoid “business” or “office” headsets at all costs. Not because they are bad at the job. The real reason behind my disdain is their brutally minimalist, or outright boring design. I’ve tried my fair share, but have never dared to wear them out on a work sesh at a nearby cafe. They just look bad. 

The Evolve3 85 is an aesthetic exception in a sea of boredom. 

The latest headset from Jabra is light, utterly comfy, and versatile. But above all, they look and feel extremely premium. And yes, there’s a beautiful box that comes in the retail package to carry them around. Jabra says the Evolve3 85 is 35% leaner compared to its predecessor, and it’s the lightest audio wearable in its class. 

You can fold them in multiple configurations, depending on whether you want to keep them in your backpack, the carry bag, or placed atop a wireless charging pad. Yeah, more on that later. But what really won me over is the breathable mesh fabric draped around the earcups and the underside of the headband. 

It provides an ample amount of cushion alongside all axes, offering a comfortable wearing experience. Even after using the Jabra headset for hours on end, I never felt any undue pressure building up on my cranium or hurt ears. Moreover, they do a great job at managing sweat build-up. It’s not entirely avoidable, but compared to headsets with faux leather finishes, the Jabra headset doesn’t get sweaty. 

The metallic hinge further raises the bar for premium looks, offering a beautiful contrast against the all-black styling. Another key aspect is the focus on tactile controls. There are no finicky touch controls here. Instead, we get dedicated buttons for volume control, ANC,  mic toggle, and power controls. Oh, there’s a dedicated Microsoft Teams button on the earcup, too.

The buttons are clicky and fairly easy to reach, though it takes some time to build up the muscle memory to find the right one on each earcup. Another underrated engineering aspect is the replaceable battery, and the same convenience applies to the earcups, too.  Overall, the latest business-focused headset from Jabra gets the fundamentals right, and in quite a handsome fashion. 

Jabra Evolve3 85 sound quality: Hits the right notes, but misses the summit

Score: 8/10

The Jabra Evolve3 85 costs a pretty penny. With a listed price of $650, they even eclipse popular audiophile-pleasing premium products such as the AirPods Max 2, Sony WH-1000XM6, and the second-gen Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones. Does the Jabra headset sound better? Not quite so. Are they bad? Once again, the answer is no. 

But then, “how they sound” depends on what you’re listening. Are we talking calls, or music? The output is vastly different for each listening scenario. Armed with 32mm driver units that cover a fairly standard 20-20,000Hz frequency range, the Evolve3 85 does a serviceable job with handling music. 

The soundstage is wide, but not exactly vibrant. You can notice the instrumental clarity pretty well, and the lower frequencies are also handled without any lingering issues. But the vocals feel just a tad crushed, though it doesn’t get jarring by any stretch of the imagination. 

In my most recent test, I mixed my listening jumping genres between Trent Reznor and Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and despite the stark difference, neither artist sounded unnatural or contrived. There’s only a tiny sliver of spark missing, something that Bose, Sony, and Apple offer in a bigger dose. 

But despite their slightly subdued presence on the “audio excellence” scale, the Jabra headset doesn’t degrade the experience. Listening to Zimmer’s “Lost But Won,” I could easily feel the thumping percussion, its weeping strings at the start, the slow build-up on the drums, the persistent bassline, and the engine-inspired revving masterfully mixed into the track. 

The Evolve3 85 can definitely set the mood to set the heartbeat racing, and that’s no mean feat. Switching to crooners like Tamer Hosny and the late Morteza Pashaei, I didn’t run into hiccups with immersing myself into the soulful vocals of these artists. There’s just a bit of sparkle missing, primarily due to the vocal separation. 

There are five equalizer presets available in the companion Jabra Plus app. But if you want more granular control, there’s a 5-stop equalizer system available to adjust the frequency output and save it as a custom EQ preset. It’s not as fleshed out as the one Sony has to offer, but still a neat perk worth digging into. 

With the equalizer set to “Bass Boost” preset, “Boom Boom Pow” by Black Eyed Peas proved to be a fun listening experience. The thumping bass is reproduced pretty well, without muddying the synths or Fergie’s sharp vocals. Doja Cat’s biting verses in “Get Into It” also maintained their moody vocal shifts with impressive instrumental clarity tagging along.

But are they sufficient for an audience that takes its audio nirvana seriously? Not quite. Among all the performance hiccups, the deepest cut is the lack of support for hi-res audio streaming codecs. But even without them, the Jabra offering doesn’t feel hobbled. Overall, if you’re concerned about the audiophile creds of the Jabra Evolve3 85, the headset won’t leave you with a bad taste. 

Jabra Evolve3 85 vocals and connectivity: Acing, and exceeding the resume

Score: 9/10

If you’re plonking serious cash on a headset that can get office work done, you deserve the best. The Jabra Evolve3 85 delivers on that “business” promise with fantastic connection stability and mic performance. I experienced the best call quality on this headset, and by a far margin. 

During the spell I was testing them, I don’t recall an instance where the person on the other end complained about any muffled voice, random static noise, or a broken audio stream. Whether it was cellular calls, or internet calls made over WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, the Jabra headset fared flawlessly. 

The six-mic array on the headset covers a frequency range of 10Hz to 20,000Hz, and it leverages the AI-based Jabra ClearVoice tech to perform background noise suppression as well as voice isolation. The result is a crystal clear calling experience with minimal interference and high clarity. 

Jabra says the tech has been trained on audio samples covering 60 million sentences, and that it can even suppress the loud noises from a coffee grinding machine. I couldn’t quite quantify it, but I never heard any complaints from callers, despite sitting in a coffee shop with loud music playing in the background and buzzing with human chatter on all sides. 

To test the vocal clarity, I switched to languages with more letters and distinctly pronounced syllables than English. In Urdu, there are at least four ways you can pronounce “S.” Likewise, there are multiple unique ways to pronounce pristine variations of “K,” “H,” and “T.” 

The accuracy rate was close to 70%. The person on the other end was able to discern what I wanted to convey, owing to their native awareness of the language, but they highlighted a few misses, particularly with the different weights of the “H” analogue in Urdu and Arabic. 

But the real gem is the voice clarity tech. It works pretty well. While riding in a tuk-tuk on a busy road with the horns of vehicles and engines blaring on all sides, the caller never complained about the noise. In fact, when I told them that I was actually on a buzzing road with plenty of traffic, they couldn’t believe it.

“I can’t hear any of it, except your voice,” they told me. Even the uneasy humming of the aging engine in the vehicle I was sitting in couldn’t make it past the noise filter. I have rarely experienced such vocal clarity in a noisy environment on any headphone so far, and especially when engaged in internet calls. 

Another huge draw is the solid wireless connectivity. Jabra touts a range of 100 feet, and goes pretty close to it in tests. When testing it in my workspace compound, I was able to get clear audio back-and-forth up to an 80-85 feet line-of-sight range. 

Realistically, you aren’t always looking at a straight line distance between the headset and the connected device. Plus, it would also depend on the structural interferences around. In my case, I was able to take calls while cooking in my kitchen, which has two walls and a staircase separating the connected MacBook. I never ran into any issues with broken signals or stuttering audio streams. I loved it, and it’s the kind of stability you are willing to pay top dollars for. 

Jabra Evolve3 85 battery life and charging: A champ with a hidden thunderbolt

Score: 9/10

Jabra is promising 120 hours of battery life on the Evolve3 85 headset without active noise cancellation, and roughly half that number with noise cancellation enabled. The company is touting 21 hours of calling with noise isolation, reaching up to 25 hours if you don’t need ANC in action. 

Those numbers are absurdly good. 

But that’s not the end of the good news. Thanks to fast charging support, the Jabra headset needs only ten minutes of plugged-in time to offer enough juice for ten hours of usage. These perks take a huge headache out of the daily work routine, one where you need to keep a vigilant eye (and mental note) of which accessories are running low on juice.

As far as mileage goes, they lasted me a full week of usage. My average work day involves roughly an hour of combined calling over 5G cellular networks, WhatsApp, and Microsoft Teams. I also piled on with nearly 4-5 hours of music listening per day, with noise cancellation enabled.

Starting the Mondays with a full tank, it took me until late Thursday or early Friday before I got the first low-battery warnings. I have never experienced such good battery endurance on any headset I’ve tested so far in the past half a decade. 

Your mileage, of course, will vary, depending on your daily calling and music streaming habits. But even if you’re pushing these headsets all day, even a brief 10-minute break where you simply plug them in would ensure that you don’t have to worry about charging routines anymore. 

In my case, I simply used the same USB-C cable that tops off my phone, MacBook Neo, and other gear on my desk. But if you prefer some aesthetic zen on your workstation, away from the mess of wires and dongles, the Jabra Evolve3 85 also supports wireless charging. 

Jabra bundles a wireless charging pad in the box. It’s a neat little puck with a built-in LED to show the charging status. Thanks to clean folding joints, you won’t have to worry about stable wireless power transfer contact or the headset tumbling over. You just fold the earcups inward and place them on the pad.

There’s a lightning logo on the left earcup, indicating the position of the wireless charging coil inside. You don’t necessarily have to stick with the supplied wired charging pad. I often used my tiny Baseus PicoGo AM31 Qi2 power bank to juice up the Jabra headset.

I absolutely love the wireless charging convenience on Jabra’s headset, and I wish more companies would embrace this design choice. And in case you’re wondering, no, the earcups don’t get toasty after wireless charging. There’s a bit of warmth, but you can comfortably prop them atop your skull, straight after picking the headset from the charging pad. 

Should you buy the Jabra Evolve3 85?

The Jabra Evolve3 85 is a whole new beginning for the brand, and it also breaks the mold for business audio gear. The build is luxurious, and the looks are fittingly attention-grabbing. The busy lights are a neat touch, by the way. With a breathable mesh, foldable design, and tactile controls, they were clearly designed for professionals who spend hours on calls and need something comfy and reliable. 

Talking about reliability, the Jabra Evolve3 85 delivers an utterly pristine voice calling experience, and its AI-powered voice clarity tech is in a league of its own. The audio output is pleasant, and you can enjoy your music library without complaining about any gnarly audio shortcomings. 

The noise cancellation performance is also fairly good, but it’s just a notch low for the asking price. I have experienced slightly better for a lower premium. The lack of hi-res audio codecs also stings a little bit at this asking price, but it’s not a deal-breaker for the intended audience, either way. 

Coming back to the wins, the battery life is terrific, and depending on how heavily you push them, the headset can go anywhere between three days of heavy calling to a week of moderate usage. Overall, at $650, the Jabra Evolve3 85 is a justifiable pick if comfort, reliability, and a no-fuss calling experience are your top priorities. For the right audience (read: enterprise and business folks), the Jabra offering is a reliable choice.

Why not try

AirPods Max 2: At $549, the Apple headphones deliver excellent audio quality, noise cancellation, and transparency, paired with plenty of Apple ecosystem perks. They are a little heavy, and that charging case is just bad.

Sony WH-1000XM6: For $450, Sony’s flagship headphones will surround you in audio bliss and excellent noise cancellation. They are comfortable, well-designed, and work well for calls, too. Spatial music and lack of USB audio are the key hiccups.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Priced at $450, they offer the best noise-cancellation experience in the segment, paired with excellent audio quality and lossless USB-C output. They miss out on Auracast, and volume controls are also iffy.

How we tested

I used the Jabra Evolve3 85 as my primary headset for a spell of nearly two months. In that spell, they were heavily pushed for calling over Microsoft Teams with my teammates, as well as, Slack, Zoom, and Google Meet. I also used them for cellular calls, and via mobile apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram for personal communication.

To test the accuracy of the mics, I had conversations in a total of five languages. As far as the test scenarios go, the headset was tested in a busy cafe, an underground metro rail line, at home, and while sitting in open autorickshaws and bikes on busy public roads. For testing the Bluetooth connectivity, we used a clear line of sight measurement in an open area, and real-world scenarios such as residential flats and office spaces.

To get a clear overview of how the sound quality and noise cancellation stack up, we pitted the Jabra product against similar headphones from Apple, Sony, and B&W. To get a neutral quality assessment, the headset was also tested with a pool of at least six strangers who listened to music, and were also involved in testing the quality of audio output during voice calls and video calls.