Hi everyone,

I was wondering if I could hear your opinions about using Jabra Evolve2 85 headsets - are you happy not happy with it? Especially if you used Evolve 75 before them to compare.

I searched this subreddit and I see a fair amount of posts where people are complaining about them, but I am unsure if this is a widespread issue with this model or single cases.

Thank you in advance.

Hi All,

I currently own the Bose 700 with the USB-A Dongle. I have owned the Headphone for over 5 years, and the Headset itself is still pretty good, but the Dongle, which is Teams Certified, died( Which has happened every year since, but has been replaced by Bose every time). Now, I use my headphones mainly for work commutes and Teams calls. I'm sick and tired of replacing the Dongle every time it dies. I know I could just use the Bluetooth and connect it to my Laptop, but the experience is so much better with that little dongle.

I came across the Envolve2 85, and it looks great. It is also over-ear and has a better Microphone. I just wonder if, as the Headphones came out more than five years ago in December 2020, they are still the best Wireless over-ear Teams Certified Headset.?

Cheers,

I bought an open box pair of the Evolve2 75 roughly a year ago. Absolutely loved them until the mic stopped working. After researching (and I'm sure has been on here for a long time) it seems like there's a major design flaw in the boom mic and wiring. I got enough use out of this with the price I paid that if I knew the current manufacture of the 75s fixed the problem I'd get one in a heartbeat but it's sounding like that's not the case.

I'm looking at getting another solid headset. Need ANC for when I'm working in louder areas. Was thinking about the Evolve2 85s but there's a fairly large price increase from the 75s. Did they resolve the boom mic flaw from the 75s or are people still seeing that problem? And are the features of the 85s worth the price jump? I'd love to get something along the 75s features and price range, but without the major hardware design flaw.

I got mines today (after weeks of research, I found a reseller with some in stock) and was so happy and excited, that I directly tested them in a 2hrs meeting (Google Meet) and some short calls (Slack). After the meeting and the slack calls I asked my colleagues to give me some feedback about the quality and what should I say ... the result is really disappointing.

I've got the UC USB-A variant in black and tested it on both OSX and Windows 10 with Jabra Direct installed.

First - the good parts

• Unpack, plug in Jabra Link, Switch headphones on (they were medium charged) -> got instant connection and usable in under 2 minutes

• Microphone noise canceling -> There was so much noise while I was calling (2 kids playing loud in the room next to me and nothing was transferred into my calls. Awesome job!

• Fits great and is comfortable

• Build quality is good, but the boom arm ...

• Good packaging and a stable looking case, but with an awful chemistry smell

"Where there is light, there must be shadow ..."

― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

Microphone quality

Each of my colleagues said that my voice quality was poor. I couldn't believe that so I tested it by myself and what should I say ... they all are totally right. The microphone quality is garbage. Compared to my 30€ Superlux Headset, it's a total waste of money. First I thought it was a OSX issue. Then I switched to my Win10 system and the same annoying quality. This is not what I hoped to receive for 320€.

Edit 2020-06-25:

Today I gave it another try and first I made some test recordings with Quicktime Player on OSX. The sound had some little crackling noise but wasn't as bad as yesterday and sounds okay to me.
Later the day in a 1hr meeting, it was even worse than yesterday. I had to change the headset during the meeting, because of disturbing noises, robot voice and some voice interruptions/dropouts.

Jabra, please ... never ever, you tested this in a real environment before you threw it on the market.

Sound quality with enabled mic

Without the mic enabled the sound quality is great. I would say it can compare with any high class consumer ANC headphones like JBL, Bose or maybe Sony. With mic enabled it's ... yeah, just bad! I won't get too much in detail, because there are already some threads about it, so check it out!

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Jabra/comments/hc442i/sound_quality_becomes_extremely_bad_whenever/

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Jabra/comments/hatn17/jabra_evolve2_85_mac_audio_quality_bad_when_both/

Boom arm ...

At first, it's a really great idea to have a microphone arm on this headset which can be folded or hidden while just listening to music or watching a movie. Great idea to combine business and private use-cases. But then this construction ... that can't be your answer Jabra!

• It's small, thin and feels really fragile. It gives the impression as if it already breaks down from just looking at it. I would prefer a better microphone which is longer and can be adjusted to my needs even if it doesn't win a design award. (e.g. Gaming Headsets like Beyerdynamic MMX300, Steelseries Arctis Pro Wireless, Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless SE, etc.)

• It must be turned/rotated by 90 degrees every time you pull it out or put it back. This also feels very fragile and isn't good user experience imho. In everyday use, I'm sure it will break sooner or later.

• The arm doesn't stay in the lowest position ... it just moves a little bit upwards, what results in a slightly reduced quality.

• The mute button ... the positioning is a joke. Every time you want to mute your mic you have to push the small button on the boom arm with two fingers, like you want to pick something up. This results in a crackling noise, because you have to touch the mic. The second way to mute the mic is to push up the boom arm, which works good.

My expectations and final thoughts

I'm not really familiar with the technical/hardware part, but what I would expect for a premium business/consumer headset in 2020 is, that it will come with a 2.4GHz connection, like some of the gaming headsets I mentioned above and a bluetooth connection for devices where the 2.4GHz won't work. A fallback connection with attached usb cable would be also a great thing. Currently it's just for charging ... so for what we should buy this desktop stand?

IMHO, that all doesn't make sense and in total, for me it looks like an unfinished design, which was thrown on the market as quickly as possible due to the current situation (COVID-19) and the acute need due to home-office.

For me it's not worth the 320€ and certainly not the 540€ suggested retail price. I would keep and like it if the microphone quality and the boom arm would be way way better, but this is a no-go for a premium business headset in this price range. The problem with the bluetooth protocol ... meh, you didn't made your homework Jabra.

Let's say, you create an upgraded version, maybe the Evolve2+ where all those issues are fixed, I would definitely try it again.

Edits

Edit 2020-06-24:

Here is a review I found after a bit of "googling". Maybe it will help if you looking for another opinion. https://www.eliostruyf.com/my-review-of-the-jabra-evolve2-85-headset/

hi,

I am user of Jabra Evolve 75, I am now thinking about upgrading to Jabra Evolve2 85 for office use (this one: https://www.jabra.com/business/office-headsets/jabra-evolve/jabra-evolve2-85).

I read a lot of bad review that mic quality is bad, that it 'disconnects' when a bit of silence is detected on call, etc. But most of reviews are 2 Years old.

Have anything changed regarding this headset ? (maybe some software update solved them)

Hi all, I have normal Jabra 85H, but they become unreliable, i think the ear detection is faulty and now they do not power off, and stop music..

Are the evolve2 85 still worth it, or are there better headphones on the market for that price (400€ on amazon.es).
I value ANC and i love the comfort of 85H.

I bought momentum4 but ANC is very bad!! So i will send them back.

Thanks all!

PS: are there any evolve3 comming?

Edit: More context: So I am a software engineer, and mostly work from home, but my wife also works from home.

I mainly need headphones to concentrate, so the most important stuff is the ANC to cancel her voice, I also do one call per day of 30m/1h I listen to music a lot.

I love that I can use my elite 85h all day without problems.. and I use glasses.

from my searches I am now between evolve2 85 (273€ used) or Sony xm4 (200€) or Sony xm4 (280€)

I appreciate I’m in the Jabra forum but I’m hoping for an honest opinion 😅.

So I am in the market for a new headset for work. I’ve been using my Sennheiser over-the-ear headphones and haven’t had an issue. However my company are giving me some money towards some office equipment and since I already have most the things I need, I thought I’d get a dedicated work headset.

I’ve been looking in the market and I have to say that the Evolve2 85 looks awesome. The flip down mic boom and the wireless charging stand make it look super cool! However, after reading some reviews, it appears that it doesn’t really live up to its huge price tag and many people suggest going with the Bose 700UC instead.

So for my use case I am in a couple of meetings a day on MS Teams. But for the most part, I tend to just play some music and zone out to write some code. So I’m looking for a headset that has good call quality but also has good sound quality when it comers to music.

Which one out of the two would you guys recommend?

TIA

Hello everyone,

I'm currently running a Jabra Evolve2 75 that everyone in my company seems to hate because they claim they can't hear me good. My voice will fade away randomly.

I'm changing jobs and in the new one they don't seem to offer an ANC headset as part of the IT equipment package. I work from home and it's noisy so I need to focus "in my bubble" if I want to be productive and I don't want to bother my colleagues with background noise.

I'm looking for a headset that, in no particular order, meets this requirements:

- Excellent microphone quality.

- Excellent ANC

- Powerful enough speakers so it can be used in public places or while travelling

Nice extras:

- Excellent sound quality for music (not a must since it isn't going to be my main unit)

- Microsoft Teams Integration

Would the Jabra Evolve2 85 meet all those requirements? I've watched tons of reviews and they are all very dull and look like paid reviews.

Thanks!

our IT team consists out of 17 people and 7 are using this model and are annoyed as hell. i myself also own this model and when it has to wake up from sleep or when it switches between handsfree and stereo, the headset sometimes just crashes. i then have to switch the headset off and on and after 10 seconds you hear a click and then it reboots from itself. this can happen multiple times in a row, this is giga annoying i know its a software bug and that never got fixed. i contacted jabra multiple times and told them about this issue and how it accours. guess what they completly ignored that a IT team with 7 people using this model having this problem, they only said to me "yeah we can send you a replacement device if you send yours to us" i did that and well it still happens. i told them the same again and they also said the exact same things in additon that they havent found any issues..... after 4 months i gave up. i also dont understand why they made a sofware switch out of a hardware switch....

I am looking for a new headset and having trouble deciding between these 2 options in the title.

I currently have the wired Jabra Evolve 80 and looking for a wireless variant. I am looking to use it for, among others:

• Office work in a shared (noisy) space

• Airplane traveling (ANC)

• Bicycle commute / light workouts (rain, sweat)

• Gaming & discord

I really like the Jabra for the mic boom, which imho is much better than any omnidirectional mics on the Sony and other mainstream headsets for taking calls in a noisy office.

I'll be using it mostly for Google Meet and Zoom calls, but likely wont be using any of the fancy Jabra software ecosystem to integrate with business software. Not sure if going for Jabra might then be overkill or even interfere with the other use cases if it changes the sound quality to optimize for office calls.

I also might be able to get the Jabra with significant discount through my work ;)

Any pro's and cons for people with experience with either of these headsets?

Hi all, after some advice,

I've just started a new job - travelling across US and South America, teams calls internally and with customers and contractors. Switched from a full Mac setup in my previous role to Windows laptop/iPhone in this one. My Airpod Pros where great on a Mac but struggling with them bluetooth'ed to the windows laptop (dropping connection back to the phone and poor audio pick up).

So I've decided to treat myself to a headset. I'm thinking noise cancelling (it's a noisy hot-desk style office and useful when travelling on planes), over-ear, but where mic pickup is good.

Looking around the Jabra Evolve2 85 seemed to tick the boxes. But the reviews on Amazon and another post on here (links below) seem to knock them badly - surely they should be amazing for the price ?

So I'm after opinions - are they good/only the disgruntled comment and I should push the button or look for something else ?

Also - will headsets always annoy me in glasses ? I tend to do meetings without them anyway because I'm not totally blind yet but thinking for the future - guess I'll have to go in-ear in 5-10 years time? God, I sold old already !

Thanks for any help or advice in advance.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftTeams/comments/1c810vw/noise_canceling_headset_recommendations/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jabra-Evolve2-Wireless-Headset-Charging-Black/dp/B086DXJCWK/ref=sr_1_3?crid=23RHHSEB2KU14&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GqkQoxQJqSQaVMDT_0IIcFBcOkjVFtg5A_ofVlZANekStlcLh8LdlY-STUNTAF-URePmWXOyZ-24NG7uY8VoSWTs1B6f2GOd5lGoqB-OZkmKXsdCarNpimD0OikI-KbjPmkeyuffOEwCGQ_8KC3-oF9625nQFTRNVQHbMoOclrIZGA_OP_UVSKAPUJi9ZtE4XqbRGDAJU52ldSEq8M4QYzXEdEwcCmsDCNLLvPfcsZM.6Ao9kyhw9D9CVae4IwYS_cuev5MY65NKzk9IEWazou4&dib_tag=se&keywords=jabra%2Bevolve2%2B85&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1728120829&sprefix=jabra%2Bevolve2%2B85%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-3&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.23648568-4ba5-49f2-9aa6-31ae75f1e9cd&th=1

Hi all,

just wanted to share my experience with the excessively expensive Jabra Evolve2 85 headphones to warn people NOT TO BUY THESE. Terrible quality. Stay away from Jabra.

I mainly work from home and my employer offered to get me brand new Jabra's as I started with the company and I went with the Evolve2 85's. First they worked great but the initial feeling of the boom mic was terrible and still is. It is just awful and awkward in any way you can think.

Well, after a good week's use of this headset I am running into huge problems in Teams meetings. Sometimes when I unmute my mic people in the meeting say that it my voice sounds like I am speaking from the bottom of the ocean or from somewhere very far and I'm inaudible. This is infuriating as it seems to do this randomly and the funniest thing is that I have already RMA'd the first pair because of this very issue and the issue persist as this seems to be a "feature" of these headphones. THese are not a worthy, reliable pair of headphones for anyone using them professionally in Teams-environment. I don't know what I am doing with these as far as I am concerned the headphones cannot be returned for hygienic reasons. But should I RMA these still or what would be the best course of action?

Just terrible, terrible quality. I plan to purchase new Plantronics 8200 UC:s because they worked like charm. Or EPOS although I have no experience from those. Never going Jabra again.

I bought a pair of Jabra Evolve2 85 a few months ago and I wish I didn't. I personally loved the boom mic design. It's brilliant and I'm sorry for the industrial designer that came up with it because it ended up being attached to the worst pair of headphones I ever used.

Let me go over the problems.

Every time there's some silence, they disconnect (or something like that) and the re-connection is very slow, and on top of that there's a fade in effect. This means I always lose the 1 second of content: the first second of every youtube video, the first second of the first song, the first second after seeking to another part in a video.

What's worse is that they don't go off when there's no audio playback, but when there's silence. I'm watching a youtube tutorial in which there's silence for a couple of seconds and only video and it disconnects. I keep having to go back because I keep missing content.

Sometimes, before the fade in, it plays a few milliseconds of audio at very high volume. This is very annoying and startling. About 1 in 10.

Sometimes, it just crashes: silence, no noise cancelling. Even turning it off doesn't play the melody. I have to wait for 10 seconds for them to start working again. About 1 in 20 times.

On top of that, the housing creaks whenever I take a step or turn my head, which sounds very loud in the headphones.

Lastly... this headphones were advertise as being able to connect to 8 devices. I bought them specific for that because my Bose QC35 could only do 2 devices at a time and since I'm working from home I have 3 devices, 2 computers and 1 phone. This is now gone from their marketing material for obvious reasons:

It can record 8 devices but only connect to 2 at a time. So that was a bit deceiving. On top of that, there's no way to select which of the 8 to connect to. It does it automatically and if you don't like the 2 it picked, tough luck. Lastly, when I contacted Jabra support about it, they were very rude and told me they didn't support more than 1 computer and recommended me to not use 2 computers.

I'm a developer, I identified some of the problems and I was happy to help them reproduce them so they could develop updates to the firmware. I was patient hoping a firmware update would fix issues, but nothing improved and Jabra kept being rude. Because of my patience, I missed the 30 day return window from Amazon, which is super annoying.

I wish I have never bought this product and because of the support experience around a flagship product, I will not purchase another Jabra product. Even using the other Jabra headphones I have now gives me a bad taste in the mouth.

**Update**: here's a video that drove me crazy. Every other sentence is after a pause that causes a disconnect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvrHuaHhqHI

I purchased the Evolve2 85 headset just yesterday, and I'm already experiencing regular voice cracking issues that prevent me from hearing crucial details. Additionally, the audio starts to crack if I move more than 8 meters away from the source, forcing me to stay within a limited range.

It's both disappointing and frustrating to invest in what you expect to be a high-quality, expensive headset only to discover it performs worse than models costing less than $50. This includes some of the cheaper Jabra headsets and other brands. Previously, I used the Jabra Evolve 75 SE, which was excellent and never gave me any trouble.

A quick search confirmed I'm not alone in experiencing these issues. It seems Jabra has abandoned the Evolve2 85, with the last firmware update released back in 2020. Since then, complaints have been continuous, yet unresolved. It's clear that this model does not live up to the expectations set by its price tag or its predecessors.

Coming from Engage75, Evolve75 and also had the Elite 85h for test.

Main purpose: Calls

I first have to say, that the Elite 85h is just unusable for calls. Mainly because it doesnt have a boom mic and microphone noise cancellation were worlds worse compared to Engage/Evolve. Also Call Quality isnt as good as Engage/Evolve.

If i look at the Evolve2 85 now, there are quite some differences. When the boom mic is down, the call quality is great. When directly compared to the Engage75 i noticed a jump in microphone quality right away, using the same connection type, other person confirmed clearly.

Microhpone noise cancellation is also great with the mic boom down, just like Evolve75/Engage75. So if you have other voices near you, the other side wont hear a thing. If you turn the music loud in your room, the other side will hear the music in the background, but without disturbing the conversation in any way. This is different compared to Engage75/Evolve75 where the other side will hear crackling with some music in between instead of quiet music in the background. Either way, it is good for louder environments and i guess they will also improve this further.

The ANC is okay. Compared to Evolve75, which is onEar, its quite a jump because of more passive isolation. Also this ANC is quite ear friendly. Some cheap ANC headsets give much pressure on the ears with ANC on, even the Evolve75 gives a bit more pressure, but not much.

Comfort is pretty good. But i can say that for all Jabra headsets i own, but not the ones under 100USD :D.

Negatives so far:

-BOOM MIC is not adjustable which is a HUGE con - it literally ends in my beard, almost touching my skin with rubbing my beard on it while speaking. For my wife its perfect in terms of the microphone. But for her small headsize the headset isnt adjustable enough. She would need it a little smaller and needs to add something to the upper cushion.

-Sidetone AND ANC at the same time isnt possible

- Sidetone seems to be the same as Hearthrough, so no real sidetone

It is absolutely possible that the Evolve2 85 will become our daily driver from now on. The next days will tell. Especially the bad adjustable microphone is a bit annoying for me, not so for my wife.

Btw.: We tested the Evolve2 85 with both normal phone and pc connection and the pc connection (over jabra link 380) was far superior. It almost sounds near hd voice apart from it being connected through bluetooth. That was a big surprise. For us the normal phone connection is sufficient

So if we compare directly, Jabra made their homework in many directions and made a bad decision in making the microphone not adjustable enough. I also would like to see REAL sidetone (like Engage or Evolve) with ANC on possible (like Evolve 75).

See the latest release notes for Jabra Evolve2 85

Looks promising :) Let's see, i have updated mine already today morning, so far works well

I just got this thing for work but I switched back to my Logitech G933 from 2017 after a whole 2 hours because I've had better feedback in calls using that mic (and that mic isn't good to begin with). Also, if I use the dongle on the Logitech device, it doesn't use limited Bluetooth bandwidth and my sound isn't suddenly complete garbage because Bluetooth would switch to hands free mode. ANC doesn't even remotely make up for the absolutely terrible sound quality I get during calls and the worse microphone.

I kind of refuse to believe it is so bad because of the amount of money spent on these headsets, so what am I doing wrong? What is the point in having a dongle when I could do a native Bluetooth connection with my laptop? Why not offer a better sound experience when using the dongle that works better for two way connections? Why stick with Bluetooth there as well?

I plan to get this headset (2nd hand), mainly for work and calls (MS Teams 99%, phone 1% of the time).

However, the more I read about the headset, the more doubtful I am. Here are my main questions/concerns:

1. How has it improved over the last 2 years? I see many not-so-positive reviews from 2 years ago

2. What is the difference between using them with the dongle or with Bluetooth? I would use it with BT to connect to both my computer and my phone

3. Does it work with MS Teams browser version (I assume it does with desktop app)

4. I could get it for about 200€, do you think it's a good purchase?

I want to get these because I'd be using them for some occasional music listening, but the main function I need is wireless (to be able to walk to the kitchen while in a call) and mic muting (to cook while in a call if I don't have to speak). Are there any better options?

Thanks in advance!

I'm a low-mid fan of headphones. Honestly I just need simple pleasures, great voice clarity, and good audio quality. I'm not talking Sennheiser 660 open ear audiologist stuff. I'm just talking about something that makes me feel like I don't have a broken headphone speaker. Something that doesn't make me question everything in my setup - being so confident the headphones can't be this bad.

But they are... they are. Wired? Crap. Blutooth? Crap. Wanna connect to PC via USB-C? nope. ANC? Oof. Maybe a new firmware is en route? NOPE. Last time that happened was 2+ years ago.

This might be the first time I write a review on Amazon saying "wear these if you like to listen to hot garbage" "These headphones will guarantee to make even the best music suck."

End Rant.