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- Good noise cancellation
- Strong battery life
- Comfortable and secure fit
- Pedestrian out-of-the-box audio quality
- No wear detection
- No high-res codec support
Very few affordable true wireless earbuds are as well-specified as the JLab JBuds Pods ANC. With a couple of exceptions, namely support for high-resolution Bluetooth codecs and the surprising omission of wear detection, they offer everything you could reasonably expect for the money.
Temper your expectations on the audio front, and the JBuds Pods ANC are a very solid pair of entry-level earbuds.
What do you get for the money?
The JLab JBuds Pods ANC are available in Black and Mauve and have a list price of £60, although they were available on Amazon for £50 at the time of writing.
They don’t do anything fancy in the design department – these are bog-standard stem-style earbuds with silicone eartips – but their list of features is extensive enough to belie their budget price tag. For starters, there’s active noise cancellation to keep a handle on external distractions and a “Be Aware” transparency mode for when you need to hear what’s going on around you. The American brand’s “Lab” Spatial Audio mode is built in, and there are effective ways to customise how the earbuds sound in the JLab app.
The touch controls are highly customisable, the buds are well-protected against the elements thanks to an IP55 rating, and total battery life clocks in at over 30 hours with ANC engaged. The buds themselves last around seven hours in-ear, which is plenty of time.
Their support for wireless charging is a rarity at this price, and their ability to connect to two devices simultaneously via Bluetooth multipoint is very welcome. However, the JBuds Pods ANC show their budget credentials where Bluetooth codec compatibility is concerned, with your choice limited to either SBC or AAC.
What do they do well?
There’s a reason why stem-style earbuds have been done to death: they typically deliver a comfortable, stable wearing experience, and that’s exactly what I got with the JBuds Pods ANC. Using the largest of the three pairs of eartips, they sat snugly in my ears for hours at a time and never required adjusting, even when running or exercising. The Pods ANC are a very good choice for such activities thanks to their IP55 rating for dust and water resistance. That’s superior to the IPX4-rated Sony WF-C710N, which cost almost twice as much.
The noise cancellation is good for the money, too. Their attenuation of low-end frequencies came as a pleasant surprise: engaging ANC took a hefty chunk of the rumble out of noisy commutes, and reduced the cabin noise on my flights to and from Gamescom. The buds don’t make much of a dent in mid-range frequencies – I could still hear conversations taking place around me with volume set to around 50% – but for the price, I wouldn’t expect them to.
It’s also worth noting that you can granularly control the level of attenuation applied. Most cheap earbuds give you less autonomy over ANC than this, though it’s not especially practical to open up the JLab app and adjust the slider every time you have specific noise-cancelling requirements to meet. Still, I like that it’s an option. You can also adjust the level of external noise piped in when the Be Aware mode is engaged, which proved more useful, particularly when I was in the office.
Switching modes via the touch controls is simple, though I had to put a bit of work into customising them before I was completely happy with things. The default layout isn’t at all intuitive, but fortunately, you can reassign actions to your heart’s content. Set aside a couple of minutes to assign your most used commands to single, double and triple taps and long presses, and you’ve got a system that lets you do everything from pausing audio to engaging the Spatial Audio mode, switching EQs or interacting with the in-app interval timer designed to assist you during workouts.
Battery life and wireless charging functionality also merit a shout-out. With ANC engaged, you’re looking at roughly seven hours in-ear, with the charging case taking the total listening time to 30 hours, which is very competitive. The fact that you can top up the case via a Qi wireless charging pad sets these buds apart from most of their budget rivals.
Another feature that sets the JBuds Pods ANC apart from many of their price-comparable competitors is spatial audio, something that isn’t guaranteed on earbuds costing three times as much. While it doesn’t suddenly inject a new level of detail into proceedings, and very obviously colours the tuning, I found that more often than not the additional impact and wider soundstage elevated what was otherwise slightly pedestrian audio.
DJ Fresh’s The Feeling sounded a lot less flat, and I got far more immersed in blink-182’s What’s My Age Again? thanks to the additional energy given to the guitars and vocals. Were the buds a more accurate, neutral listen by default, I may have been less liberal with my use of the spatial mode. But as it is, it was my preferred listening mode regardless of which EQ preset I had engaged. You’ve got three presets available along with a ten-band graphic equaliser with which you can create a custom EQ. As a tinkerer, I always welcome such personalisation.
What could be improved?
It would be unrealistic to expect a pair of buds costing just £60 to dazzle on the audio front, and, to be fair, the JBuds Pods ANC can be made to sound perfectly acceptable with a bit of user input. But out of the box, I found their preset EQs a little dull and dispassionate.
If you’re prepared to put the effort in, the ten-band graphic equaliser will breathe a bit more life into them, but I’m not sure how many people looking to spend £60 on earbuds are actively going to want to tweak settings. That may be a moot point, however, as there’s a good chance those people will be happy enough with the default tunings anyway.
Tunings aside, JLab would have secured a sizeable advantage over similarly priced true wireless options by including support for a high-resolution codec, as it did with its Epic Open Sport air-conduction headphones. This would likely have pushed the price up, however, and it’s another of those things that may have proved superfluous for the crowd buying budget earbuds. But compatibility with LDAC or aptX Adaptive would have immediately enhanced their audio chops.
Another easy win would have been to equip the earbuds with wear detection. This is such a common true wireless feature nowadays that I was shocked to discover that it’s not supported by the JBuds Pods ANC. Can one live without it? Most certainly. But it’s a convenience that would have been a very welcome inclusion here.
Should you buy the JLab JBuds Pods ANC?
I wasn’t a huge fan of the JLab JBuds Pods ANC’s audio performance, but they don’t sound terrible for how much they cost, and manual adjustments within the JLab make a positive difference to the sonic experience.
And ultimately, the impressive suite of features justifies the outlay, despite any sonic misgivings. The noise cancellation does its job well in most circumstances, battery life is ample (both in-ear and overall), and the buds are comfortable to wear and remain secure in your ears no matter what you’re doing. Wireless charging and spatial audio are premium inclusions at a budget price, making the JBuds Pods ANC an attractive option if you’re entering the true wireless earbuds market for the first time.
