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Cut The Noise And Chat Away With Jabra's Evolve 80 Flagship Headset

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Jabra

Using a headset at work is a fact of life for many people these days – especially if you work in one of those open-plan ‘cube farm’ offices. If you’re on the phone all day making lots of calls, or contributing to podcasts, you’ll understand the benefits of using a decent headset, especially in a noisy environment.

This week I’m looking at Jabra’s Evolve 80 headset, a top-of-the-range device aimed at the power user and incorporating large audio drivers that mean the Evolve 80 is designed as much for listening to music as it is for chatting. The vinyl-covered ear cushions form part of a large conventional headphone frame that incorporates a boom microphone that can be pushed upwards and out of the way when you’re not using it. The Evolve 80 isn’t quite as comfy as the Bose QC35, but it does have a few rather clever tricks up its sleeve.

Like the Bose QC35, the Jabra Evolve 80 includes active noise-cancellation; by using microphones to monitor the ambient noise in a room, the noise-cancelling circuitry subtracts the ambient noise and virtually eliminates all the low-end and rumbling frequencies that usually make listening to headphones in offices, on airplanes or trains so problematic. The efficiency of the noise cancellation is definitely on a similar level to that offered by Bose, which is state of the art at the moment.

Jabra

The boom microphone provides some of the clearest and best speech performance I’ve heard on a headset. This is comes as no surprise as Jabra – along with Plantronics – are masters at this sort of technology. Being able to hear, and make oneself heard, is really important for voice calls with impact. Anyone whose job requires them to talk online or even dictate documents for long periods of time needs a headset like this.

The Evolve 80 is fitted with a 3.5mm jack that means it will work with all smartphones, tablets and laptops. This makes it simple for using when you’re out on the road. There’s a soft carrying case provided but the headset is quite large, even with the earcups folded flat; possibly a bit too large for putting in small work bag.

As well as being compatible with smartphones and tablets, the Evolve 80 also comes with a puck-style USB controller that connects it to a PC or Mac and can sit on your desk. The puck has buttons for volume control, muting, call acceptance etc. There’s also a clever feature called Intelligent Call Transfer that enables you to shift your conversation seamlessly between devices. If you’ve ever found yourself holding an important conversation at the end of the working day, this feature will delight you. It enables you to unplug the headset from your laptop and plug it into your smartphone and the call will transfer seamlessly, enabling you to head home while carrying on your conversation. You need to use Jabra’s software but it’s a handy feature that’s bound to find favour with anyone who’s sick of never seeing daylight while heading home.

Jabra

In addition to Intelligent Call Transfer, the Evolve 80 has red illuminated circles on each earcup that you can activate to warn colleagues that you’re busy or on a call and don’t want to be interrupted. You can also mute the microphone and cut the noise-cancelling circuitry to hear colleagues. It’s great if someone’s trying to pass you a message or if you simply want to eavesdrop on a juicy bit of office gossip.

Obviously, the active noise-cancellation feature requires power to work and the built-in rechargeable battery provides that with up to 24 hours of use. That’s a really generous amount of time and more than enough for a long flight. If you’re using the USB controller with your computer, this will not only power the headset, it will recharge the battery too so that it’s all juiced up and ready to work when you want to go mobile.

When it comes to audio, the music performance of the Evolve 80 is extremely good. It’s perfect for listening to some tunes between phone calls or if you’re watching a movie. For phone and VoIP use the audio drivers are more than adequate and provide superb clarity when making phone calls.

A perennial problem when using a headset is the absence of something called ‘sidetone’. This is the term for when there’s a small amount of voice being fed back to your earpiece so that you don’t end up shouting at your caller. The Jabra Evolve 80 offers a sidetone feature when you use the headset in conjunction with Jabra’s free Mac and PC software. It certainly makes chatting with a headset much more natural. The software works very well and you can set up whichever softphone you’d like to use as a default and then call away to your heart’s content.

Verdict

This slightly bulky headset is superb for cancelling extraneous noises and it provides really clear speech thanks to its excellent microphone. If you spend a lot of your time talking over Skype, Facetime or listening to conference calls using any of the voice apps that Jabra supports, you can’t do better than the Jabra Evolve 80. Whether you use it with a smartphone or a laptop, this headset sets the standard for managing voice calls and listening to music virtually anywhere.

Prices: £189 / $250 / €220

More info: Jabra.com

Jabra

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