Back to the design, and we feel it’s important to mention something that really deserves a credit, and that’s the inclusion of the magnet in the earphone casing design. Indeed, this makes the Rox earphones more intriguing than your regular old wireless in-earphones, especially for anyone who’s ever had their earphones go AWOL while they’re walking around.
You see, the Jabra Rox uses a magnet in each earphone section as both a power switch and, well, a magnet.
As a power switch, you’ll find that when you clip the two earpieces together, the Jabra Rox switches off, going into standby mode because they’re not needed.
But this comes with an added bonus, because if you’re wearing them and you switch them off, the Jabra Rox also become like a little audio necklace that’s harder to lose than your regular set of wireless buds, clinging to each other around your neck and saving you power in the interim.
Using a magnet as both a clip and power switch is such an intelligent solution that we’re surprised no one has thought of it prior to this, and credit has to be given to Jabra accordingly.
Outside of the neat magnet, the battery manages to hold its own, with around five to six (5-6) hours of life possible, while microUSB is the charge port of choice, hidden just behind a plastic flap on the left earphone piece.
But the earphone design is a little too bulbous for us, protruding out so far to make the left and right ears not interchangeable at all.
Audio purists won’t be bothered by this at all, because in stereo the left earpiece should be on the left and the right earpiece should be on the right, but anyone who wants to move that remote from the other side of their head to the side they prefer will be a little annoyed, because while other headphones can accommodate this, the Jabra Rox cannot.
That’s one of the unfortunate aspects of the earphone design, as these pieces can only fit in the ears they’ve been set to. The left piece will only sit comfortably in the left aural cavity because of the size and angle of the piece, and it’s the same story for the right.
When the piece does sit there, you might also find that the comfort levels will vary. Jabra is relying on pretty much the same style of silicone tips as everyone else, and the comfort of these can be hit and miss. There is a bi-flange tip also included, but you’ll likely have one ear that regardless of the tip chosen, refuses to keep the massive pieces in, with a slight tightening on the earphone required every few minutes.
For us, that was the left ear, which even with the biggest tip available really refused to take the form-factor for too long.
Next time, it might be useful for Jabra to include some foam based tips to keep the comfort up, though we’ll leave it to Jabra to decide.
One other thing scores a big miss for us, and that’s Jabra’s included app, Jabra Sound, which comes with a code in the box to let you to grab the app for free and listen to your music with Dolby Digital Plus support.
Unfortunately, the app is the only way to make the Jabra Rox play your tracks with Dolby Digital Plus, and your tracks have to be included on the handset in a file format that Jabra can recognise, meaning you can’t play Google Play Music, Spotify, Pandora, or any other service through the app.
If you have your tracks on an iPhone or Android using the stock music player, that’s great, though the Jabra player doesn’t appear as well designed as it probably could, so we’d be surprised to see if people use this over their regular players.
Perhaps next time, Jabra should engineer the Jabra Sound as more of a driver, so that anyone — no matter what app or playback service they’re using — can get Dolby Digital sound out of their earphones.
Conclusion
Jabra’s entry into the wireless in-earphones category is certainly an intriguing one, bundling a very creative use of magnets with some decent sound. There’s obviously a preference for bass here, and that should make some people smile, though not all.
That said, if you can get around the remote being on the right side and large earphones, there’s plenty to admire about the Rox.
