Jabra takes a Step towards our wireless audio future
A few months ago, I covered the Jabra Rox headphones and was suitably impressed. However, at more than £100 a pop, these weren't the cheapest means of getting audio through a Bluetooth connection.
Jabra clearly considered that a cheaper option might be very popular and designed the Step Wireless to fill that gap for under £60.
Having been close-lined and tangled by wired headphones on a number of occasions, a headset that isn't limited in this fashion is a godsend, and no longer does removing my backpack involve a phone/ headphone decoupling exercise.
The style that Jabra went with is a combination of earbud and ear-loop, where the loops stop the inserted part of the device from coming loose while you exercise or move.
Personally this reviewer doesn't like earbuds, but these initially appeared comfortable for short periods, and the sound production through them is impressive. However, the back of the hooks has a sprung tensioning strip that applied pressure to the back of my ear, and after an hour's use caused discomfort. This was only on one ear, curiously, so it might be something I could overcome.
As with most earbud designs, they come with three sizes of ear gels (S,M and L), covering the majority of human ear canal sizes, if not exactly mine.
What's good about the Step Wireless is that Jabra designed a small control element into the cable that connects both earpieces, and using it you can adjust volume, pause, play, track jump and even answer your phone. This is intuitive and works well once you get used to blindly locating the control.
The biggest problem with these wasn't the four-hour battery life or the mildly uncomfortable 'Gelhooks', but the generally poor Bluetooth connection. With my phone in my breast pocket the distance between it and the Step Wireless was less than 30cm, but it still dropped out on a regular basis. This is a 'through body problem', where the signals don't travel well through the mostly water content of our own physiques.
Placing the phone in the top of my backpack improved things, but Jabra needs to do some serious work on improving the reception or buffering the data flow -possibly both.
As the Jabra Rox headset wasn't so obviously impacted by this problem, I'm not sure why these would be so affected. That it has these flaws is annoying, because in many other respects these are well made, and when they're working, the sound reproduction, especially the bass, is good.
But Jabra needs to sort out the connectivity and comfort sides of the Step to make it something I'd unreservedly recommend. David Hayward
Bluetooth headphones that have some connectivity problems.
Specifications:
• Wireless Technology: Bluetooth version: 4.0 with AVRCP.
• Battery & Power: Talk time up to four hours, standby time up to 144 hours.
• Charging: Charged via a USB cable, no charger included, takes 2.5 hours for full charge.
• Wearing Style: In the ear.
• Ear Cushions: Three ear gel sizes included.
• Dimensions: H 2cm x W 2cm x D 1.6cm.
• Weight: 16.4g.
• Wireless Technology: Bluetooth version: 4.0 with AVRCP.
• Battery & Power: Talk time up to four hours, standby time up to 144 hours.
• Charging: Charged via a USB cable, no charger included, takes 2.5 hours for full charge.
• Wearing Style: In the ear.
• Ear Cushions: Three ear gel sizes included.
• Dimensions: H 2cm x W 2cm x D 1.6cm.
• Weight: 16.4g.