Digital Trends

Jabra JX10

July 16th, 2006 | by Brandon King

Performance

The noise canceling microphone uses digital signal processing to remove background noise and hone in on the speaker's voice. The microphone itself is a tiny pinhole in the plastic, keeping water and debris out, and avoiding the discoloration that can occur with a fabric cover. Because there is no boom, no screening material is needed to eliminate pops and hisses from voice. Initially, during our testing, we had a few issues pairing the JX10 with our SonyEricsson 910a. After a few quick reboots of the phone and reentering of the profile, we were off and running without any further issues. The audio quality in quiet environments is simply excellent. Loud indoor environments suffered from some slight noise, but sound clarity was overall very satisfactory. Outdoor settings, the bane of many headsets, contained an average amount of wind noise. The wind rushing against the microphone is interpreted by the software as loud noise, boosting the unit's gain. Essentially, the wind sounds loud to the headset so it adjusts the volume cut off. As a result, the user's voice is reduced in volume to imperceptible levels. Through some fancy programming, Jabra was able to detect wind noise in some cases, but when wind gusts began or ended, the mic would cut out. Sustained winds actually fared better in our tests, as the DSP would normalize after a second, canceling out much of the wind noise. What should be put in perspective is that all headsets have similar weak points across these tests, but the JX10 handled them all in a more than satisfactory manner.

The back of the JX10

The JX10

Conclusion

You will be paying a premium price for this piece, but the two year warranty and quality design can almost make you forget! At $179, the JX10 doesn't come cheap, but if you want a quality headset with an excellent minimalist design, look no further. Design, sound clarity, simplicity, and functionality all balance elegantly in the JX10 package from Jabra.

Pros:

• Tiny
• Good sound clarity
• Comes with a charging dock

Cons:

• Ear clip easily loosened
• Expensive