Jabra Tour Review

Jabra has made a name for itself by delivering high quality Bluetooth peripherals for smartphones and tablets for years. Its Bluetooth headsets have set the bar in the market as they deliver sublime audio quality, comfort of use and they are built like tanks. Unlike the Bluetooth headsets, the Tour is a speakerphone, which Jabra believes can be handy in both the car while driving and be a companion in the conference room. Additionally, it claims that it can also double as a speaker for listening to music. We put it through the paces, read on to find out if it’s any good.

DESIGN AND BUILD

Like any Jabra product, the Tour is built like a tank. Jabra uses a metallic frame for the Tour, on which there is a circular speaker covered by a speaker grill.

Design-wise it is quite futuristic and, the Tour definitely looks quite unique. We’d rather say that it reminds us of Captain Kirk’s communicator a bit, though it is a wee bit larger than Kirk’s trusty comm, it is not meant to be a portable device. It supposed to be stationary.

On top of the circular grill, we have a large call button that is used to receive or cancel calls. The speaker assembly is flanked by twin volume keys on the bottom.  Jabra has also incorporated a motion sensor, which also sits just above the speaker.

On the right hand side, there is a microUSB charging port and a mute button. On the left, there is the power ON/OFF toggle.

Below the main speakerphone assembly, Jabra has conjured a kickstand, which can be clipped on to a desk or on the cars sunscreen visor.

SETUP

Jabra claims that the Tour can connect up to two devices via Bluetooth. In our testing the device worked as advertised and the setup process was quite hassle free, all that one needed to do was pair up the speaker with one’s device and we were good to go. We did not face any issue while trying to pair it with a wide variety of devices. Our testing included, our Windows 8 desktop, a MacBook Pro, a Nokia Lumia smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the iPhone 5 and the iPad 2.

PERFORMANCE

As far the call quality went, the Jabra Tour was really fantastic. It was a handy tool. That said, when it was connected to multiple devices, it showed the propensity to get confused between the two and at times when we wanted to revert to the phone while taking a call, it would refuse to switch off the loudspeaker. But when only a single device was connected it performed like a charm.

It has voice controls as well, and one can receive calls and dial in contacts using this feature. It works pretty well, but funny enough it also allows the user to cut the call using this feature. We had a few weird moments, while trying to cut the call using this feature. Imagine having a conversation with your mother and then telling the speaker to cancel the call, which is by the way audible to the listener.

The good bit about the voice control is that it works for setting up the device, and it even works for caller ID. For Indians though, this feature is a bit redundant, considering the device makes a mockery of Indian names. But that’s true for most voice enabled features; even Google Maps faces the same problem.

Using the Tour as a speaker to play music was an underwhelming experience. Jabra makes a big deal of a 40mm 3-watt speaker in the Tour, but the performance isn’t anything worth writing home about. The sound is garbled, muddy and distorted. It cannot be used for anything that has bass in it because, well, one cannot expect anything this small to reproduce any low-end, and when a song has some guitar parts, the speakers cannot resolve the complexity of the sound. Add to that compressed audio via Bluetooth, we get something that sounds close to music, but still is not music.

In terms of battery life, the Jabra Tour was really impressive. It lasted around 26-28 hours consistently on a single charge which is surprisingly close to the advertised time. This means that it delivered around 16 hours of talk time and some standby time which is impressive indeed.

VERDICT

At Rs 6,500 the Jabra Tour is an impressive yet slightly expensive loudspeaker. Jabra will say it has other features that make it worth the price, but at the end of the day one should realize it is a brilliantly engineered speakerphone that lasts more than most and delivers wonderful call quality.