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The good news is, though, that the battery life is extremely good. So even if you do accidentally leave them on in your bag, they’ll probably be fine.
All that is forgiven when you listen to them. With active noise cancelling (ANC) on, the sound is liquid. Both the lows and the highs get their due, and the music has that indescribable quality you only hear with good headphones.
The black model is a smarter call if you're worried about staining the beige fabric.
With ANC off, it does take on an ever so slightly tinny quality, and it sounds like it’s missing a layer. That’s weird, because normally headphones sound better without ANC. However, since most people are going to be buying these for their noise cancelling properties, it probably won't be an issue.
Unfortunately, the ANC isn’t that strong. On an international flight, they didn’t block out nearly as much as the Bose QC35 II or even the Plantronics BackBeat Pro 2, which would be the main competitors for these $500 headphones, along with Sony’s WH1000 series.
One of the big selling points of these headphones is its “SmartSound” feature, where the headphones listen to the world around you and adjust the modes depending on where it thinks you are. At my desk, alone in my home office, it kept changing between “In Public” and “In Private” modes, perhaps because my mechanical keyboard is loud enough to trigger the changes. The announcements and changes became somewhat jarring and reduced my enjoyment of the music, tempting me to just throw them across the room. This is a function you’ll likely use once for the novelty, and then keep off.
On the comfort front, I found the 85h to be quite tight on my head, which caused a headache after a few hours of wear. I much prefer Bose’s less constrictive grip, which allows for comfortable wear for full days at a time if needed. However, those with smaller heads may enjoy the extra grip. It’s something worth trying in the store.
After having the “gold beige” colour for two weeks, the fabric covering on one of the ear cups started to stain a little darker. They impressively didn’t take on the pink of my hair on the band, like a lot of other pale headphones do. But because of the texture of the fabric on the outside of the ear cups, they’re prone to staining. The black pair had no such issue, so consider sticking to the darker colours.
Overall, the Jabra 85hs are fine. They sound good, yet are bogged down with unhelpful features. For $499.95 you could do worse, but you could also do much better.