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Jabra Evolve3 85 review: The king of conferencing headsets

2 hours ago

12 minutes read

If you’re a hybrid worker or spend a lot of your work day on team calls, you need one of the best headsets and headphones for working from home — and the Jabra Evolve3 85 is just that. This is the perfect headset if you want to sound professional in online meetings as it boasts excellent vocal clarity. Its boomless mic with AI noise cancellation makes you sound loud and clear on the other end, while a range of productivity features keep you locked in.

The cherry on top of the cake is the headset’s long battery life. If you enjoy listening to music while working or between tasks, then the Evolve3 85 is sure to impress you with its wide and dynamic soundstage… as long as you can stomach the price.

Jabra Evolve3 85 review: Specs

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Specs	Jabra Evolve3 85
Price	$720 / £539
Colors	Black
Platforms	Windows, macOS, Android, iOS
Connectivity	Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C/USB-A dongle, USB-C wired
Compatibility	Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, Apple MFi, Apple Find My, Google Find Hub
Battery	Rechargeable
Battery life (Calls)	25 hours
Battery life (Music)	120 hours
Frequency response	20Hz-20KHz
Drivers	32mm
Multipoint connectivity	Yes
Paired devices max	2
Microphone	Boomless
Microphone frequency response	10Hz-20KHz
Dimensions	7.64 x 5.91 x 3.27 inches
Weight	7.76oz

$720 / £539
What do we like? So many things! The comfortable design, productivity features, clear mic, excellent vocal clarity, long battery life, and more
What don’t we like? The premium price tag

Jabra Evolve3 85 review: The ups

From its exceptionally comfortable design and plethora of productivity features, to its outstanding vocal clarity and boomless mic, there’s a lot to love about the Jabra Evolve3 85.

The Jabra Evolve3 85 is a work-first headset as Jabra claims it’s designed for the “modern worker.” If, like me, you spend a lot of time on team calls and meetings, and need a headset that will let you work comfortably all day long, this is it. Firstly, the Evolve3 85 is very lightweight, weighing just 7.76oz. It’s 35% slimmer and 23% lighter than the Evolve2 line, and lighter than other work-oriented headsets, like the Microsoft Surface Headphones 2 (10.2oz, $250), the HP Poly Voyager Surround 80 UC (9.7oz, $349), and the Cleer Enduro ANC (10.6oz, $149).

Aiding the Evolve3 85’s comfort factor is the lovely breathable cushion padding on its headband. This relieves the pressure you’d otherwise feel on top of your head, enabling you to wear it for hours on end. This same padding has been used for the ear cushions, and they feel excellent to me. I also like the cavities on the inside of the earcups, which are there to nestle your ear lobes and ensure that your ears don’t get squished.

Black Jabra Evolve3 85 conferencing headset — (Image credit: Digitpatrox)

If on-ear headphones are more your speed, you might prefer the Jabra Evolve3 75 ($463) instead — these are very well padded. However, in our testing, Tom’s Guide’s Senior reviews editor Pete Wolinski found them a little uncomfortable after five or six hours due to the on-ear design, with the earcups pushing his ear helixes into the side of his head.

Having worn the Evolve3 85 for eight straight hours, I can confirm that it’s exceptionally comfortable. My ears never felt hot, and my head didn’t feel like it was being weighed down either. I also appreciate that foldable design and included pouch that you can store the headset in when you’re traveling.

Build quality is sublime too, with matte finish on the headband and earcups, and I didn’t think the headset sounded hollow or underbaked when I tapped its different parts with my fingernails.

A plethora of productivity features

There’s no dearth of productivity features on the Jabra Evolve3 85. You can buy the headset with either Microsoft Teams or Unified Communication optimization. If you get the former, a Microsoft Teams logo graces the right earcup, and it doubles as a button that lets you answer/reject incoming Teams calls. The Unified Communication model, on the other hand, offers plug-and-play functionality across multiple platforms, such as Google Meet and Zoom. The UC model is the better choice if, like me, you work across platforms and don’t want to be locked into just Teams.

Whenever you’re on a call, the integrated 360° Busylight located on the left earcup lights up in bright red to let those around you know that you’re busy and shouldn’t be disturbed. This is a great feature to have, especially if you’re on an important call and don’t want to be interrupted by anyone else. I do, however, wish you could turn this light on outside of calls, as I like to be left alone when I’m in the zone and writing away.

Black Jabra Evolve3 85 conferencing headset

(Image credit: Digitpatrox)

In addition to this, you also get AI integration, so you can prompt Gemini, ChatGPT or another assistant of your choice by simply using your voice and not having to use your hands. Jabra says that the Evolve3 85 “accurately captures over 9 out of 10 words in AI voice prompts.” While I personally don’t use AI assistants and chatbots, it’s good to know that this feature exists for users who love using AI. I tested it with Gemini on my Google Pixel 10 Pro XL and it worked well. Gemini understood me clearly and promptly, and instantly made me a to-do list and set a reminder as I asked for.

For those who work across multiple devices, multipoint connectivity is at play so you can connect up to two devices at the same time using Bluetooth 5.3. The box also includes a USB-C dongle (or USB-A, depending on what you choose when you buy the headset) which increases the number of simultaneous connections from two to three. Google Fast Pair also means that you can connect the headset to your phone in mere seconds, as I did, and Apple Find My and Google Find Hub let you keep a track of where your headphones are.

There’s also wear detection which pauses playback if you lift an earcup or remove the headset entirely, and it worked like a charm in my testing. This is perhaps the best wear detection I’ve seen on a pair of over-ear headphones, as it’s something I’ve always disabled on the likes of the HP Poly Voyager Surround 80 UC and even my trusty Marshall Monitor III ($349) as I found the wear detection on them finicky, and it never worked as intended.

Exceptional vocal clarity

Any work headset needs one thing for certain to be considered excellent, and that’s exceptional vocal clarity. You should be able to hear your on-call colleagues or clients with so much clarity that they feel like they’re in the room with you — and the Jabra Evolve3 85 does just that. It’s fitted with 32mm drivers which cover a frequency response range of 20Hz-20KHz which is fairly standard for most headphones and even gaming headsets, as that’s the spectrum of human hearing.

Having attended five meetings with the Evolve3 85 nestling my ears, I can confidently say that this headset will please anyone who works from home or gives online presentations. These calls took place over Google Meet and Slack (huddles). I could hear my colleagues on the line loudly and clearly, and even when multiple people were speaking at once, I could still understand them. Voices and words never blended together.

I appreciated the Evolve3 85’s adaptive/dynamic noise cancellation here too, as it automatically adjusted itself when there was a loud noise in the background. It kept me focused on the call I was on. In my testing, this worked well both indoors and outdoors. Aside from Google Meet and Slack, I also spoke with my partner on the phone, and I could hear her well even while walking and making my way through crowds.

Voice clarity is further bolstered by active noise cancellation (ANC) which works superbly, isolating you to the point that you can’t hear anything else when you’re outdoors and you feel like you’re the only person in the world. I couldn’t hear people chatting in the office or the sound of my loud keyboard, or cars whizzing past me outdoors. I listened to a podcast and I could hear the host and guest speaking to each other and laughing clearly, like I was in the room with them.

The Evolve3 85 features a boomless mic (an array of six in total) so there’s no mic arm sitting in front of your mouth, and this helps its sleek, inconspicuous appearance. The mic covers a frequency response range of 10Hz-20KHz, so it covers the full spectrum of human hearing and ensures natural sound reproduction. The headset utilizes Jabra ClearVoice which uses AI-powered deep learning to isolate your voice from background noise, and it works extremely well.

The first thing I did to test the headset was call my partner when leaving work. She said I sounded perfect and crystal clear, and didn’t think my words were bleeding into one another either. She also couldn’t hear the birds chirping right overhead, or the sound of lots of people chatting and shuffling around in a busy parking lot — all she could hear was my voice. In fact, she said I sounded like I was in a quiet room indoors.

I had to hear it for myself, so I recorded myself speaking with the TV playing in the background. In the clip above, you can’t hear the characters from Schitt’s Creek speaking, and my voice is the only one that can be heard, which is amazing.

I then recorded myself speaking a few sentences with popping sounds, such as words starting with ‘P,’ ‘B,’ ‘T,’ ‘D,’ ‘K’ and ‘G,’ known as plosives. As you can hear in the clip above (and laugh with me at my goof-up while saying one of the tongue twisters), the ‘P’ sounds don’t sound overly harsh or unpleasant.

Next up, I tested the Evolve3 85’s ability to handle sibilance. These are your ‘s’ and ‘sh’ sounds which are prone to whistling (and can be unpleasant to listen to), so the best way to do this was by trying a famous tongue twister. As you can hear in the clip above, the mic handled the hissing sounds quite well, and again, the sounds don’t bleed into one another.

I also appreciate the Evolve3 85’s sidetone as it enables you to hear yourself speaking when you’re on a call, so you can check that you aren’t speaking too softly or loudly. This is a feature we see on most of the best gaming headsets and is very handy to have. The sidetone’s volume can be adjusted via the companion app (more on that shortly).

Dynamic music performance, too

Look, if I’m spending over $700 on a work-first headset — yes, that’s how much it costs — you’d best believe that I will be using it to listen to music in my downtime too. The Jabra Evolve3 85 is, in fact, excellent at making your favorite songs sound better than ever. I listened to a few tracks from my roster of testing songs on Qobuz with the Evolve3 85 plugged into my MacBook Air M2 via the included 3.5mm aux.

I started things off by listening to ‘Carnival of Rust’ by Poets of the Fall, and each note plucked on the acoustic guitar sounded loud and clear but not so harsh that it overpowered the vocals at the beginning of the song. When the rock instruments kicked in during the first chorus, they created a wonderful melody that sounded thoroughly enjoyable through the Evolve3 85.

To test the Evolve3 85’s bass, I listened to ‘Little Dark Age’ by MGMT and once again, the bassline sounded clear and every note plucked on the bass was discernible but it also worked in harmony with the other instruments to create an immersive soundscape. The bass never sounded booming or overpowering.

Vocals sounded just as beautiful in tracks like ‘White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter’ by Lana Del Rey. Lana’s sibilance, the ‘tss’ and ‘sh,’ in the first verse sounded detailed and clean, and I would expect nothing less from a headset that boasts vocal clarity for work calls. My colleagues tried the Evolve3 85 briefly as well, and all of them complimented the headset’s wide and dynamic soundstage.

Listen along to my review with the Jabra Evolve3 85 testing playlist:

Long battery life

The Jabra Evolve3 85 boasts long battery life, and according to Jabra, the headset can last up to 120 hours for music and 25 hours when used exclusively for calls. While I wasn’t able to drain the entire battery, I noticed that after approximately 16 hours of use, the battery percentage had dropped to 75%. Keep in mind that I had ANC on at all times, and used the headset for work calls as well as listening to music.

The Evolve3 85’s battery life is better than the competition’s. The Microsoft Surface Headphones 2 last for just 20 hours, while the HP Poly Voyager Surround 80 UC lasts for 21 hours and the Cleer Enduro ANC lasts for 60 hours between charges. Also, charging the Evolve3 85 for five minutes provides five hours of runtime. Oh, and they come with a sleek wireless charging pad too!

Jabra Plus app on either iOS or Android. The app is extremely intuitive thanks to its user-friendly interface, and it gives you lots of control over the headset’s settings. Via the app, you can adjust the sidetone volume, enhance treble or bass in calls, swap between EQ presets and customize your own, toggle hearing protection as well as spatial audio in media.

You can also enable a setting which allows you to automatically answer calls if your headset is charging on the included pad and you remove it. I tested this out and it worked as intended, and it’s quite a handy feature to have as you can keep charging the headset between calls without plugging it in.

A desktop version of the app can also be downloaded on Windows machines and it gives you the same level of customization as the mobile version. On macOS, you’ll need to download Jabra Direct instead which, again, gives you the same personalization options.

$720 / £539 at Amazon, making it one of the most expensive headsets I’ve tested. When I told everyone in the office just how expensive the Evolve3 85 was, everyone collectively gasped — and that doesn’t happen very often.

It’s nearly as expensive (or more than) as flagship headphones from heavy hitters in the audio world, like the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 ($699), the Sonos Ace ($449) and the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2 ($449). Is the Evolve3 85 worth the premium? It depends. Can you afford it? Then sure. You get fantastic audio quality and detailed vocal clarity, along with a boomless mic that makes you sound amazing.

But regardless of the things it does exceptionally well, the Evolve3 85 won’t be for everyone, primarily because of the price. If you want cheaper, work-first headsets, there are plenty to choose from. Jabra’s own Evolve3 75 is a little cheaper at around $460, but it’s less comfortable. The $250 Microsoft Surface Headphones 2 is an excellent alternative but its battery life isn’t as long as the Evolve3 85’s, and its app feels underbaked. Or you could go for the $149 Cleer Enduro ANC which is much, much cheaper, but doesn’t feature the best mic.

Jabra Evolve3 85 review: Verdict

What does spending $700 on the Jabra Evolve3 85 get you? A boomless mic with AI noise cancellation that ensures the person on the other end of the phone (or laptop) can hear only you. Crystal clear vocals that make your colleagues sound just like they do in person. A wide soundstage for when you want to listen to your favorite tunes. Up to 120 hours of battery life and a sleek charging pad.

The Evolve3 85 is an exceptional headset, and one I didn’t expect to love as much as I do now. While its premium price tag is a little hard to stomach, it’s worth paying the price if you want refined and rich sound quality as well as monster battery life, all packed into a comfortable design. I’m almost tempted to make the Evolve3 85 my daily driver at work!

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Jabra Evolve3 85 review: The king of conferencing headsets

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