Yahoo Finance Don’t sweat it: The Jaybird vista sport earbuds hold their own during the toughest of workouts
When Jaybird released the original Vista earbuds back in 2019, they were very well received by the running community and they soon became a firm forum favourite with plenty of glowing reviews.
Recently, there’s been some more buzz, as Jaybird have updated the Vista, looking to improve on audio quality as well as adding noise cancellation.
However, this feature bump has resulted in a price bump to £189.99.
Meanwhile, the price of the originals has moved downwards from £159.99 to £139.99, so could this be a good time to buy?
We put them through their paces again on a 5K and also during a very energetic HIIT session at the gym to see how they compared with all the other sport buds out there competing for your attention.
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Jaybird Vista sport earbuds
Buy now £139.99, Jaybirdsport.com
Type: In-ear
Noise cancellation: Passive
Weight: 6g (per bud with medium eargel)
Battery life: Up to 6 hours, 16 hours with charging case
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0
Water resistance: IPX7
The fit
Ask any runner what is the first thing they look for in their buds and they will tell you a nice, secure fit. After all, what’s the point of having great audio if you have to keep retrieving it from the pavement and interrupting your training; and similarly, at the gym, you can’t have buds that are shaken loose after a few reps.
There’s nothing funnier than watching someone deal with an in-ear that has made a break for freedom and we’ve suffered a lot at the hands of buds that simply won’t stay put. However, within just a few minutes of setting off on our run, the Vista had banished our usual pavement paranoia because they just felt rock solid in the ear and yet still managed to feel very comfortable.
We didn’t have to jam them in or twist them in various directions to get them to stay. Instead the combination of silicone gel tips and a shark fin protuberance that fits in the recesses of the outer ear, made us totally confident that we weren’t going to be separated from our playlist any time soon.
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Obviously, not every ear is equal and there are three different sizes of tips and fins to tailor the fit, so you should be able to find the best combination for you.
Features
On the subject of your soundtrack, the only other thing that can cause a frustrating drop in playback is when the bluetooth connection that wireless buds rely on, drops out. Thankfully, we didn’t experience any connection problems even when we were running through more built-up areas where cutouts are more common because the air is crammed with other people’s connections.
As with most true sports buds, they are waterproofed and sweat-proof to an IPX7 rating (what Jabra calls “Earth Proof”) and we had no reasons to doubt this, particularly after our HIIT class when we were suitably drenched.
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They are covered in a brushed, rubberised plastic too, which means they are easy to get in and out and the rubber means there’s less chance of you throwing them across the street because you’ve lost your grip on them when you’ve been sweating.
Audio
Our training playlist is a pretty eclectic mix of rock, hip-hop and various guilty pleasures in between and the Jaybird buds coped with them all superbly.
We experienced lots of bass, as well as lots of separation for some of the tracks that had layered sound. In fact, the combination of a very secure seal between the bud and the ear and the excellent audio means that the sound was very immersive and it was easy to get totally lost in the music. However, because there is no ambient mode that would allow the sounds of the real world to leak in, you need to be very careful with your volume levels to ensure that you’re fully aware of your surroundings including, cars, bike and other potential hazards.
The tap-enabled controls made on-the-go DJing very easy because the buds were sensitive enough to allow us to skip around the playlist with ease, but not so sensitive that we ended up chasing a particular track around, which is another in-run annoyance that we have found with some other products.
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Using the app, you can set the buds up so that the leftie skips back a track and ups the volume, while the right skips forward and quietens things down, which is really handy.
The app also allows you to fine-tune the music quality using some personal EQ presets, playing six sonic tones and then optimising the playback according to how soon you’ve heard the tone. This was simple to do and definitely added to the playback experience, so we would definitely recommend taking a few minutes after the initial pairing and set-up to give the Vista the best shot of presenting your tunes in an audio form that’s unique to you.
Battery life
It took us just over two hours to fully charge the buds via USB-C, which gave us a shade under six hours of playback, although there is a “super charge” option that came in very handy. For example, if we were off for a run and realised that we’d forgotten to charge the Vistas, we could just plug them in and they were boosted with an hour’s playback in the time that it took us to tie our trainers. Well, five minutes, which isn’t long to wait.
Buy now £139.99, Jaybirdsport.com
The verdict: Jaybird Vista sport earbuds
From the fit to the fast charge option it seems like everything about the Vista buds is designed with exercise in mind. If you spend your training time thinking more about how to stop your earbuds falling out than your performance then they will banish those doubts, so you can just concentrate on the music to motivate you.
The audio quality can easily compete with more expensive in-ears and with the current £20 saving this could be a great time to pick an in-ear player that’s still got plenty to offer.
Voucher codes
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Still deciding? Read our round-up of the best wireless earbuds for quality sound and noise cancellationto help narrow down your choices
