UA Sport Wireless Train by JBL hands-on: sporty headphones with cool amplification
Fitness buffs already have the Under Armour Sport Wireless Flex by JBL – a pair of around-the-neck Bluetooth headphones with an IPX5 water-resistant rating – to help them power through workouts. However, for those wishing for an on-the-ear alternative, the recently launched UA Sport Wireless Train comes into play.
One cursory look at them, it’s instantly undeniable that we’re dealing with a sporty pair of headphones, as they feature a design that’s meant for workouts. The rubbery coating that covers most of the surface of the headphones definitely helps to repel sweat and water, but even better is how our ears are ventilated thanks to the breathable fabric that lines each earcup. On top of that, we appreciate the collapsible design, which helps to condense the headphones even more when there’s not as much room in our bag.
If there’s one complaint we have with the design, it has to be the extremely tight fitting – to the point that our ears feel sore after an extended period of time. Sure, this tight fit does help in ensuring that the headphones don’t come off unexpectedly during workouts and heavy movements, but the compromise made in the process is ear fatigue on our part wearing them. Most of the playback controls are fashioned into the right ear cup, offering us humongous controls for volume increase and decrease, a multi-function button, and a power switch.
The coolest feature with the UA Sport Wireless Train has to be the TalkThru Technology that amplifies ambient sound instantly by pressing on the UA logo on the side of the right ear cup. It’s definitely useful when you have to quickly switch from listening to music to conversing with people – the amplification works rather well, in our opinion. Audio quality is equally favorable as well in our time using it, producing a well-balanced output that’s accompanied with an ample, but not overpowering level of bass. The earphones are rated for up to 16 hours of battery life, but their fast charging technology mentions one hour of workout time with only 5 minutes of charging.
Expanding the brand's line of headphones for active users, the UA Sport Wireless Train comes in with a retail price of $200, which seems reasonable from what we can gather so far.
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