JLab - JBuds Air Play Gaming TW Earbuds - Black

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The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.

• Rated 3 out of 5 stars

  Some Caveats, but Work Gaming Audio Syncs Great!

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  --- SETUP --- Setting up these earbuds was quick and easy. Taking them out of the case, they turned on automatically and a blue light started blinking. My phone’s bluetooth settings found the earbuds and paired with them. --- FEATURES --- The main feature for these earbuds is that there is a sync in audio and video when playing phone video games in game mode. Other features include easy tap multi-function buttons and preset equalizers. They also come in a case that doubles up as a charger extending their battery life to up to 30 hours. --- PERFORMANCE --- When pairing the earbuds to my phone’s bluetooth, at first it didn’t recognize the left earbud. Putting the left earbud back in the case and back out of the case after 3 seconds fixed that. These headphones sound great and the main feature of syncing audio and video in game mode works flawlessly. I tested the earbuds with my favorite game, Clash Royale. Often, with my other bluetooth headsets, I don’t notice that an enemy troop has been placed until after a second after deployment. That one second can be the difference between winning or losing a match. Having synced audio so close to me made me appreciate sounds I didn’t even know that the game had and I was able to react to enemy deployments as I heard them. Lastly, you can use only one earbud if you want to too while the other one stays in the case. --- EXPECTATIONS --- Unfortunately, these are not perfect for everyone. In my case, the earbuds are too thick for my ear holes. Aside from the installed rubber ear tips, the box includes 2 other rubber tips and 1 blue memory-foam like pair of tips. I tried the smallest tip and the memory foam one, but even with the smallest tip, they were uncomfortable to wear. Because of that, they constantly kept falling off from my ears. The multifunction buttons are meant to help keep the earbuds as small as possible, but they are very sensitive to the touch. While adjusting my earbuds, parts of my finger would grace the buttons causing unwanted results such as restarting my podcasts, raising or lowering the volume, or changing from game mode to the other available modes. Since the earbuds never felt fully secured in my ear and actually fell off 4 times while cooking, an activity that I wouldn’t consider strenuous, I ended up touching those buttons more than I would have liked. One final thing that I didn’t like is that there isn’t a way to turn them off. In the included manual, the suggested way to turn them off is to turn off your bluetooth mode on your mobile device or to put them back into the carrying case. You cannot just hold the button to temporarily turn it off without having to take the case out again. Speaking of the case/charger, it is very attractive and has a gaming theme on it, which is pretty to look at. I also appreciate the magnetic cover and easy to read lights that tell you if the earbuds are charging or not. --- VALUE --- The price for the earbuds is fair for what the buds are capable of doing. These are a unique item for phone gamers and one of the few I can think of that will allow you to have low-latency audio while gaming. --- APPROVAL --- I am hesitant to recommend these earbuds to everyone but they do an excellent job at their main feature. Take my recommendation with the caveats I mentioned above in mind. I recommend the JLab Audio earbuds to gamers who spend a lot of time gaming on their phone and want a deeper immersion without having a thick headset on their heads while traveling. Do test them the same day that you buy them to see if they are comfortable to you.

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  Posted 5 years ago by Trobadour

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Great earbuds for gaming and everyday use

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  The JLAB Jbuds Air Play Gaming Earbuds are a great compact set of headphones meant for being compact, but still getting great audio for gaming and general usage. Right out of the box these headphones were able to bluetooth pair up with my Apple iPhone XR. The earbuds have a lot of little creative touch features built into them and it takes some time to learn and get used to. The box and instruction booklet included are very helpful to learn this, so be sure to read it over. Right off the bat you will notice that this is a competitor to the ever so popular Apple Airpods. The thing with these is that they offer a much more affordable price point for a similar product. I like the form and function of them, but I'm not 100% sold on the fit for my ear shape. The main purpose of these headphones is to provide a gaming capable headphone without the bulk of the headset style. These are great for having a "gaming mode" and a "music mode" which can easily be alternated between the tap on a headphone. Gaming allows for that precision audio to hear the opponent's footsteps or nearby explosions for instance. Low latency means that you don't get that delay and can still be competitive in your game no matter what it may be. I also like using these for more than just the gaming aspect of their design. Making phone calls on these has been nice as they have the built in microphone to pair with my phone clearly and for a good range of distance. I can use the headphones together or independently which is nice when I want to be lowkey with my headphone usage. There are various Equalizer sounds built into these and you can cycle through them easily with taps on the headphones. Offered EQ options are JLAB Signature, Balanced, and Bass Boost. None of these will blow you away with sound quality, but you can try out the best one for your particular needs. There is also the BeAware feature that allows you to not be so isolated that you miss out on surrounding sounds. Great to offer this safety feature for those that need to be alert, and this can be turned on/off as you desire. If you have a bluetooth device these headphones will work perfectly. I've paired them with my iPad, Windows laptop, and iPhone so far and have not been disappointed so far. The battery life is stated at 30+ hours and I can vouch for the longevity since I carry my JLAB charging case along with me in my car/bag/jacket/pants. The case is nice and compact and includes a USB attached cable to be able to charge the case up on the go. The earbuds fit into the case snug and charge for the next usage. The case is designed well and helps to stand apart from competitor cases. There are designs and fun logos meant for a gamer lifestyle. The earbuds themselves are a great compact fit and include 4 styles of eartips to fit accordingly into your ear. I have tried them all so far, and haven't been completely content with the design/fit. The blue ear tips seem to be the best for my needs as they are a cloud foam memory foam type material to fit. Even so, I have these earbuds fall out of my ears repeatedly. Sometimes I'll be doing a phone call and have to continually adjust them and jam them into my ears. Other times I'll be walking around the house and feel one earbud coming loose in the ear and pop out and fall to the ground. I wish they offered a better ear hook design to cradle into my ear a little better. PRO: Similar to Airpods for a lesser cost Great Bluetooth connectivity and range Good options to use touch to control the earbuds Nice upscale look for form and finish CON: Lacking the right fit for my ear

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  Posted 5 years ago by JKinSYR

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Good gaming earbuds

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  The JLab Audio - JBuds Air Play Gaming TW Earbuds is latest earbuds from this company. And though this is touted as a gaming headset due to reduced latency, it is really a Bluetooth 5 pair of earbuds so latency is expected to be reduced. Marketing tactics? Maybe so. But then again is it really good for gaming? First the JBuds Air Play Gaming TW earbuds are stored in a charging case which looks like a combination of a gaming and jewelry box. Like other JLab TW earbuds (I have two others), the charging cable is integrated in the case so you don’t need to bring a cable. You do need to find a charger or an outlet that has USB to charge the case. The most notable improvement with this pair of earbuds is that battery life is comparable now with other brands. Each charge of the earbuds has around six hours and an additional 24 hours from the charging case. Compared to other JLab BT earbuds (I have three not TW buds on top of the two I also have), the sound signature is significantly different. Quite often Jlab buds have this boxy overall sound. Bass is pretty decent but somehow the mids and highs are muffled. It’s fine if you’re into heavy bass like hip hop, but if you want clarity look elsewhere. The JBuds Air Playing Gaming buds have better bass and highs thereby offering better clarity but lacks in bass. Also, I am a bit disappointed that the codec is AAC and not the better AptX. Now for gaming, I have downloaded Call of Duty and Asphalt 9 on my Pixel 4 XL. And given that this is a fast phone, I expected some latency like my other BT headsets (most likely 4/4.2). And eventually the JBuds did offer reduced latency and can keep up with the action. Of course, I wasn’t expecting 7.1 like sounds like I was playing in a PC with a high end headset. But then again, we’re talking about TW earbuds here. The JBuds Air Play Gaming headset performs as promised. But for me the lack of bass is somewhat of a downer though battery life is greatly improved. Call quality I must add is greatly improved as it has binaural sound unlike the older JBuds Air which is monoaural. I’d still recommend this for everyone.

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  Posted 5 years ago by msumulong