JBL Tune Flex – True Wireless Noise Cancelling Earbuds (Black), Small
$52.81
$89.25
Nice audio but JBL broke something to do with charging These earbuds are the best replacement for my AirPods (RIP) out of the 2 others I’ve tried. The sound quality is really good, they’ve got a good bass response and good clarity so you hear the nuances in music. I’ve tried jazz, classical, post-punk, and R&B music on them and they sound good with those, but I can’t yet say how phone calls sound bc I haven’t tried that yet. Battery life is really long, and the case almost never needs recharging! These are more versatile than the other earbuds I tried. I got them because you can use them with or without the sealing suction cup ear tip thingies. I like them without, because this way (1)they stay in place and don’t work their way loose from my ears every few minutes just like other sealing tip earbuds used to do, they let air through so they don’t make my ears all sweaty and gross, and (2)if something happens that I need to hear, I can pause the music and hear outside of the earbuds without having to fumble with taking the earbuds out. I live in a violent area and I need to be able to hear my surroundings for my own safety. The app is pretty nice, it lets you choose the functions that happen when you tap them, or even disable tapping functions, which I do sometimes so I don’t accidentally skip songs etc. just because I accidentally touched them. It also lets you adjust the EQ with presets or custom settings. It’s the first time I’ve had earbuds with an app and at first I thought it’d be dinky to have an app for my earbuds, but i changed my mind to like it because it works well and you can just set it and forget it. As for reliability, these don’t seem to have the connection issues that people on Reddit reported that they had. Maybe these are an updated model? I’ve had them for about a week and they are behaving just like any normal Bluetooth device. Pretty hassle-free. I’m happy.UPDATE: after just 11 months of light to moderate use, they are doing the thing where one bud’s battery drains from 100% to nothing in 5 minutes, they’re failing to stay disconnected from the phone even when they’re supposed to be charging . Also the case gets stuck charging to only 10%.UPDATE 2: there is a fix for this, after which the earbuds are working well again: you have to stick a few layers of little pieces of tape in the inside of the lid to make it push the buds down harder into the pins when closed, so they both charge (the problem is, the springs for the pins goes bad over time, so they don’t make good contact). Then to clear out the glitches caused by this case fiasco you have to factory reset the buds according to the quick start guide, and then do this: open the JBL app, remove the buds to make them pair to the app, then put them back in the case BUT LEAVE THE LID OPEN, then in the app tap “power off.” I’ve had no more problems since.UPDATE 3: After a few months the same BS started back up again but this time on the other earbud, and this time none of the fixes work. The case absolutely won’t charge at all ever. I’ve given these so many chances. And no, cleaning the contacts makes no difference. Come to find out, people all over the internet have these same problems across many different JBL products. These are too expensive to be this flaky. I’m absolutely done with JBL.
Headphones