Jaybird Run hands-on
Jaybird is the latest big-name player to enter the truly wireless Bluetooth headphones market with its upcoming Jaybird Run true wireless sport headphones. Slapped with a $179.99 price point, the Jaybird Run takes everything you love about Jaybird's recent Bluetooth headphones, like the Freedom 2 and X3, but they're cut the cord entirely to deliver untethered music listening with independent earbuds. And in the short time we've been using them, we've been impressed!
Additionally, they're constructed to be water and sweat resistant – indicating yet again their focus on fitness-centric users more than anything else. Due to its slightly larger size, the Jaybird Run delivers long battery life in comparison to the experience we got using the original Samsung Gear IconX. Those headphones peaked at an hour tops, whereas with the Jaybird Run, the battery levels of the headphones plummeted to only 70% after an hour of usage. And as Jaybird claims, it can potentially achieve up to 12 hours of battery life using the included battery charging case.
Unlike most other headphones, the Jaybird Run is able to offer customizable equalizer settings to deliver tuned audio to your specifications. Therefore, if you're the kind of person that favors the lows and more-bass heavy tunes, you can set them for that. Or in contrast, if you prefer a wider, more neutral tone over all audio ranges, you can customize them for that as well. Whatever you prefer, you'll be able to achieve with the Jaybird Run.
Getting them set up is a breeze! Although, we did run into just one minor issue during the initial connection process. When you power up one of the earbuds first, the other would automatically turn on as well out of the case. During the first 10 seconds or so getting them to connect and sync, audio would go in-and-out between the two earbuds, but that would eventually clear up on its own after a few seconds. In fact, we didn't experience any other connection issues in the full hour we tested them out at the gym.
Considering the growing players in this market right now, the Jaybird Run is in a good position with its price point of $179.99 – more so when its battery life is impressive so far, as well as its ability to customize its audio profiles. For fitness junkies, this should be something up for consideration!
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