JBL Tour Pro 2
Innovative charging case makes JBL’s latest earbuds ideal for travelling
The charging case has a 1.45in touch sensitive screen
£249.99 FROM uk.jbl.com FEATURES Bluetooth 5.3, AAC, charging case with 1.45in touch display; 10 hours battery (8 hours with noise cancellation)
JBL’s Tour Pro 2 earbuds look like just another AirPods clone, with small oval earpieces that sit inside your ear and a ‘stem’ that provides access to touch-sensitive controls. However, a quick look at the charging case tells you that JBL has brought some of its own ideas to the table too.
Available in black or silver, the little earbuds are light and comfortable, and rated IPX5 for water-resistance, so they’re tough enough for outdoor use or exercise. They also provide impressive battery life, lasting for 10 hours on a single charge, or eight hours when using noise-cancellation. The charging case can then recharge the earbuds three more times.
The charging case has a 1.45-inch touchsensitive screen, which you can activate by swiping your finger right, and then again to view a series of additional controls. This allows you to quickly adjust all the main settings without having to reach for your iPhone or iPad. A single swipe shows you the main playback controls – Play/Pause and Forward/Back – while a second swipe lets you adjust the volume. Keep swiping and you can adjust the noisecancellation settings, select equaliser presets, or adjust the volume of your voice when making phone calls. The case also has a ‘Find My Buds’ feature that helps you find the earbuds if you forget where they are, and you can even turn up the screen brightness and use it as a small torch.
Good sound range
Importantly, the headphones also deliver the audio goods, supporting Apple’s AAC codec and providing a taut, sinuous sound for the electronic bass on Prime Evil by The Orb. The bass isn’t overwhelming though, and the earbuds also pick out the sharp ticking of the percussion that gives the track its nervous, manic energy. They can handle delicate classical sounds too, with a light, wistful tone on the melancholy piano and violin duet on Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel Im Spiegel. The noise-cancellation features aren’t quite as noise-crushingly effective as Apple’s AirPods Pro, but they should still help you to relax on a noisy train or plane, and there’s even a ‘silent’ mode that turns off the music but leaves noisecancellation on for a set amount of time so that you can have a nice quiet nap. Cliff Joseph