Jabra’s Elite Sport looks like Samsung’s IconX but costs nearly 2X more

If you’ve been looking for a pair of truly wireless in-ear headphones for fitness and are not impressed with Samsung’s Gear IconX, there’s good news. Jabra just released their Elite Sport in-ear fitness headphones in Malaysia. They say that the Elite Sport is the “most technically advanced true wireless sports earbuds”.

The only catch is, they’re almost twice the price of the Samsung Gear IconX.

Still, for that money, you are getting a nice suite of features. On the fitness side of things, it’s got a heart rate monitor and an accelerometer built in which can be used to track your VO2max levels via the Sport Life app.

Besides that, the Elite Sport is also IP67 water resistant and can survive submersion in up to 1m of water for 30 minutes. This, Jabra says, allows the device to be sweat proof so you don’t have to worry about damaging your precious in-ear headphones while working out. In fact, they’re putting their money where their mouth is and will be giving users a 3-year extended warranty against sweat damage.

Much like the Gear IconX, Jabra’s Elite Sport also comes with a carrying case that doubles as a dock for the in-ear headphones to charge. The case itself can also act like a mini battery bank and it can fully recharge the Elite Sport twice. By themselves, though, Jabra says that the Elite Sport will last up to 3 hours on a single charge. The biggest problem with these is that the earbuds take 2 hours to fully charge.

On the audio side of things, Jabra is leveraging their 145 years of hearing innovation and fit (from ReSound, specialists in smart hearing aids) to provide users with the best fit and sound yet. As a result, you get three wing tips, three ear gels and three foam tips to make sure you can get the best fit possible.

Jabra’s Elite Sport also comes with audio passthrough tech called HearThrough. On each Elite Sport earbud, there are two microphones — one to pick up voice and the other to pick up external sounds — which work together to not only isolate your voice during calls and voice commands but also to allow audio passthrough when enabled.

Not only is this convenient when you want to have conversations without taking your buds out of your ears, it’s also crucial for safety when you exercise outdoors because it lets you keep an ear on your surroundings.

The Elite Sport connects to pretty much any device with Bluetooth. The right earbud will connect to your phone while the left one connects to the right via near-field magnetic induction, automatically pairing up when they’re within 25cm of each other. This also means that users can opt to use only the main earbud when they want to leave their left ear free.

Jabra’s Elite Sport will go on sale in Malaysia for RM1,259 and will be sold through physical stores (All IT Hypermart, ViewNet Computer, Thundermatch Technologies, Mobile Arena, NOP Cellular, HLK Superstore) as well as online at Lazada. Those who purchase from Lazada during their Riang Ria Raya campaign (19 May – 30 June) will receive a Pineng PN-920 20,000 mAh powerbank worth RM79.

Besides the Elite Sport, Jabra also released the special edition versions of the Sport Coach and Sport Pulse, priced at RM779 and RM589 respectively.