The goal was to wrap excellent sound quality and ANC performance in a durable shell.
It was an ambitious plan that mostly panned out.
It still worked fine after I picked it up.
Jabra has tried to address this insecure issue with what it calls ShakeGrip.
As the name implies, the rubber material is supposed to keep the earbuds from falling out when shaken.
This wasnt my experience.
However, I wouldnt call ShakeGrip false advertising.
I also dont think everyone will have the same insecure experience.
Ears are shaped differently.
Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
Plenty of earbuds have fallen out of my ears while running.
Thats why I tend to useBeats Fit Pro, which have little rubber hooks.
If you know earbuds tend to fall out of your ears, you probably shouldnt expect anything different here.
The Elite 8 Active are Jabra’s latest tough earbuds that are positioned to combat dust, water, drops, and sweat.
If you dont have that issue, however, these should be just fine.
My experience with the earbuds while sitting at my desk or standing in my kitchen was much different.
They sat in my ears fine and rarely felt like they would fall out.
Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
Peoples mileage will vary for fit, obviously, but especially during more intense activities.
In terms of overall comfort, I appreciated the soft-touch rubber material coating the earbuds.
This is mostly for durability, but it felt nice too.
Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
Most Jabra earbuds over the last several years have been comfortable.
They generally have soft edges with nice contours.
The Elite 8 Active were no different.
Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
Like most traditional wireless earbuds with silicone tips, my ears did feel closed off and plugged up.
Those earbuds feature a different semi-open design, which was much more comfortable to my ears.
I havent seen many cases that protect against the elements.
Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
I dropped the earbuds in their case in a shallow pool as well as dropped them in individually.
Afterward, music played just fine from them and sounded like it had pre-soak.
Otherwise, they were impressive.
Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
I felt like all music genres performed well, without any bias towards one style over another.
For those curious, the Elite 8 Active feature 6mm driverscompared to the 10mm ones in the Elite 10.
There are six microphones across the two earbuds to handleactive noise cancelation, HearThrough transparency, and calls.
The ANC blocked plenty of outside noise while HearThrough provided good awareness while running on the street.
While the call quality was decent, the clarity sounded a little lacking for the $200 price point.
Much like recent Jabra earbuds, the Elite 8 Active have clicky buttons to control audio.
They were responsive and easier to use than touch controls.
I hate using touch controls on earbuds while running.
These ones handled pausing audio and skipping track well while on the road.
Theyre available on thecompanys websiteas well as at retail locations like Best Buy and Amazon.
Should You Buy the Jabra Elite 8 Active?
One of my past complaints about Jabras earbuds has been about product differentiation.
A lot of their offerings have overlapped significantly, to the point that even good productsdont stand out.
TheJabra Elite 8 Activeat least have a compelling narrativetheyre meant to be tough and durable.
People who want that should be well served by these earbuds.
If nothing else, the companys longer two-year warranty at least puts some credence to the claim.
