Jabra’s new Bluetooth headset, the Jabra Eclipse, launched in Singapore earlier last month. The Jabra Eclipse stands out from the many other Bluetooth headsets in the market by being small and really lightweight. It piqued my interest because the diminutive headset is both sleek and elegant in design, yet functional and delivers impressive call quality.
When I reviewed the Jabra Stealth last year, I thought it was already truly stealthy. The Jabra Eclipse, however, has taken that up a notch, particularly in terms of weight, or the lack thereof. This new featherlight headset weighs just 5.5 grams, or just one-fifth of an ounce. You can hardly feel the weight at all when you wear the Jabra Eclipse. In fact, you might even forget you’re wearing the earpiece. Furthermore, at just 49.95 mm in length, the Jabra Eclipse is also really small.
The Jabra Eclipse is designed with an in-ear wearing style. While other in-ear headsets are often provided with ear hooks or some other accessory to help keep the earpiece securely attached to your ear, because, you know, they might accidentally fall out, the Jabra Eclipse is small and lightweight enough that it needs no such accessories.
Silicon ear gels on the Jabra Eclipse provide a comfortable seal between the earpiece and your ear canal. Four ear gels, including one pre-fitted on the earpiece, of varying sizes are provided, so you can select one to suit your ears. Once you’ve chosen the correct ear gel size for your ears, the Jabra Eclipse will feel great and sound great.
In terms of design, the Jabra Eclipse is really minimalist. I’m not just talking about its size, but also the absence of any buttons, switches, or visible controls on the earpiece itself. The earpiece does support very basic input by tapping on the area with the Jabra logo. Double tap answers an incoming call. Single tap when not on call will get the Jabra Eclipse to read out its connection and battery status. Double tap also ends an active call, and when not on a call, it’ll activate Siri or Google Now.
The Jabra Eclipse also accepts some voice commands, such as “Answer” to accept a call and “Ignore” to reject a call.
Jabra has made possible the absence of physical controls by moving them to a cute oval shape dock. By removing the Jabra Eclipse from the dock, you turn on the headset, or answer in incoming call. By docking the earpiece back into the dock, you can turn off the headset, or end or reject a call. There’s also an unobtrusive button on the button of the dock that functions as a pairing button.
The dock serves a few other purposes too. First, it works as a NFC pairing base. Yes, to pair via NFC, your smartphone should be held against the bottom of the dock, not with the earpiece.
Next, the dock doubles up as a battery. It recharges the Jabra Eclipse when the earpiece is docked. The earpiece on its own has 3 hours of talk time, but including the dock, you get a total of 10 hours of talk time. Standby time is rated for 3 days (10 days with Power Nap).
Finally, the dock can be used as a carry case. It’s a good thing, otherwise the tiny Jabra Eclipse can easily get lost inside a large bag.
Call quality on the Jabra Eclipse is really very good, thanks to HD voice technology. HD voice technology, of course, is also dependent on phone and network. The music-grade speaker can deliver the full dynamic audio range with warmth, depth and clarity. I was particularly impressed with the deep bass that the Jabra Eclipse was capable of producing.
The earpiece includes dual omnidirectional MEMS microphones with excellent noise cancellation capabilities.
The Jabra Eclipse isn’t just used for taking calls, of course. While you might not enjoy your music as much with a mono-earpiece, it works perfectly well for listening to podcasts.
The Jabra Assist companion smartphone app, available on both Android and iOS, allows you to configure the Jabra Eclipse, upgrade firmware, and also provides a function to find/locate your earpiece.
The Jabra Eclipse is selling at S$219.
Conclusion
Jabra Eclipse is so light you might forget you’re wearing it, and while it may be small, the call quality is great.
Pros:
- Stylish, small, and lightweight design
- Comfortable to wear
- Great call clarity and quality both ways
Cons:
- Lack of controls