Earlier, I shared my view on the Jabra Rox Wireless which is a music in-ear handsfree. Now it is time for me to share my view on both Jabra Storm and Jabra Stealth.
I have decided to do a combined review for these two devices simply because I believe many of you will have a question on which one is better. As the price of both Jabra Storm and Jabra Stealth is the same @ RM279, you definitely want to know which device is more suitable for you, right?
Before I proceed, let me say that it is not so easy to say which one is better. Both are unique and great in their own way. So end of the day, it depends on your preference. I will still share the differences between these two devices, hoping that it might help you a little to make your decision. So now, let’s start with the review.
Jabra Storm
Before I explain further about the Jabra Storm, let’s take a look at the key features of this device :
- Wind Noise Blackout reduces wind noise from your calls in windy conditions.
- Noise blackout dual microphone technology reduces background noise.
- HD Voice* for high definition sound quality.
- NFC for easy pairing.
- Voice control for taking or rejecting calls with your voice.
- Up to 10 hours talk time for all day conversations.
The Jabra Storm has a great quality and well crafted design. It is very light and fits your ear without being a burden. Yes, you almost don’t feel this device when you wear it. It is very comfortable and light. This device can be used either on your left ear or right. You just need to rotate the earpiece accordingly.
Another thing that you don’t need to worry about is on how to fit this Jabra Storm to your ear. To hook this device to your ear is pretty simple. The curved area of the Jabra Storm is made of a rubberized material and it is flexible. So instead of bending your ear and getting it hurt, you just bend the Jabra Storm instead.
Pairing – Pairing is very straight forward. You just need to turn on the switch and then press and hold the call / end button until you only see the bluetooth indicator blinking in blue. There is also a voice guided pairing instruction which assists you on how to connect your device.
NFC – The Jabra Storm has a NFC function where you can pair it by just tapping it to another NFC compatible device e.g. smartphone. The NFC chip is right behind the earpiece area. Just turn on your Jabra Storm to start pairing via NFC. Also make sure that the NFC on your smartphone is turned on. Once you tap them together, there will be a notification on your phone’s screen, asking whether you want to connect to the Jabra Storm. On some devices, you need to turn on the pairing mode on the Jabra Storm before you can pair it via NFC.
LED indicators – the moment you turn on your device, both the battery and bluetooth indicator will blink. The battery indicator will blink in green if the battery level is not critically low yet. Otherwise, the battery indicator will blink in red. While charging the Jabra Storm, the battery indicator will be in red (without blinking) but the bluetooth indicator will be off.
When you turn off your device, both the bluetooth and battery indicator will blink few times before they totally go off and this time, the battery indicator will blink in red. Once you have connected the Jabra Storm to your smartphone, the indicators will go off. This is a battery saving feature. In fact, even if you don’t connect it to any device, the indicators will only blink for a while until they go off. I also see this when you do an activity on your device e.g. send a message or watch a video etc.
Voice assistance and voice control - there will be a voice assistance when you try pairing your smartphone to your Jabra Storm. You will also hear a voice which says ‘connected’ or ‘disconnected’ when your smartphone is connected to or disconnected from your handsfree. As for voice command, you can use it for voice assistant on your phone e.g. Google Now or iOS Siri. Even when you receive a call, you can just say ‘yes’ to answer the call or ‘no’ to cancel it. If you find this feature to be annoying (because there will be a voice saying, “if you would like to answer the call….etc etc), you can even turn it off by pressing and holding the volume down key and call / end key at the same time until you hear a tone.
Battery life – the battery life of the Jabra Storm was very good. Jabra said that the Storm can last up to 10 hours with continuous calls. Of course, I don’t get a chance to make any continuous calls but with on and off calls, the device went up to nearly 6 days for me. Well, I am a person who don’t make that much of calls so if you are more on calls, then you might experience a shorter battery life. But still, I think the battery life of this device is very good, thanks to microPOWER battery technology. It takes about 2 hours to charge your device from empty to full.
Call quality – I like the Jabra Storm very much when it comes to call quality. I don’t have any complaint. I can hear the other party extremely well. In fact I didn’t even need to put the volume to full. It was already good without full volume. The other party also heard me very well. The person couldn’t differentiate between a normal call and a call using Jabra Storm. Both were the same. I think the HD Voice technology does a great job.
The Jabra Storm uses Noise Blackout technology and although my friend can still hear the background noise, it was very minimal and not annoying. Jabra has also given a wind sock in case you need to make calls outdoor in a windy area. The fact is, I didn’t even need that because when I called my friend, I stood in front of a blowing fan and he still hears my voice clearly without any problem. I did with and without the wind sock. However, I was told that there is no difference in call quality because the wind filtration was already good without wind sock.
Jabra Stealth
The Jabra Stealth is a more simplified version of Jabra Storm. It is as capable as Jabra Storm but built smaller and simpler. It fits your ear very well, thanks to the eargel which has a hook to keep the Stealth attached to your ear. If you find that to be not sufficient, you can then make use of the plastic ear hooks which are available in 2 different sizes – small and large. Make use of which ever that fits your ear comfortably. I am having a bit of discomfort using the plastic ear hook because as I said, it is made of plastic. I am just a bit afraid that I am going to break it when I try to hook it behind my ears. It is not like the rubberized ear hook on Jabra Storm. Well, I think you can still live without using the plastic hooks on Jabra Stealth because the eargel is already doing a great job. Before I go further, let’s take a quick look at the key features of this device :
- Smartphone voice control button for remote activation of Siri/Google Now
- Noise blackout dual microphone reduces background noise
- HD Voice* for high definition sound quality
- NFC** for easy pairing
- Stream music, podcasts or GPS directions
- Up to 6 hours talk time
Pairing – Pairing is straight forward. Just press and hold the call / end button (the one where the word ‘Jabra’ is written). Unfortunately there is no proper indication whether the pairing mode is turned on. The blue light starts blinking when I turn on the device. When I turn on the pairing mode, the device is still blinking in blue (probably a slower blink). There will be a voice guide once pairing mode is activated. It will explain on how to pair your device.
This device supports phone book access profile where it can tell you the phone number when you receive a call. This will be useful because you don’t need to take out your phone to know who is calling you. To activate this feature, you need to select ‘yes’ when your phone asks for permission at the time you first pair up your Stealth to your phone.
NFC – There is nothing different in NFC pairing for Jabra Stealth. It is exactly the same as how you do it for Jabra Storm. The NFC chip is at the microphone area (the two rows of ‘dots’). So you need to tap your phone at that area to get it connected.
LED indicators – the moment you turn on your Jabra Stealth, you will see it blinking in green for a few seconds and then turning into blue. As I’ve said earlier, it still blinks in blue on pairing mode but on a slower pace. The light will blink in red when you turn it off. While charging the Stealth, you will see a red non-blinking light.
Voice assistance and voice control – There is a special voice button at the bottom of the device which you can use for voice assisted features (phone dependent). On some phone, it will activate voice calling where you can say ‘call John’ and it will start calling.
As I’ve mentioned above, the Jabra Stealth supports phone book access profile where it can mentions the name when someone calls you. If the person is not in your phone book, it will then mention the number instead. I realised that on some devices, it only mentions the number eventhough youu have saved the number into your phone book. So if you have that problem, take note that it is purely device dependent and nothing got to do with your Jabra Stealth.
There is also an option to answer calls using your voice. You can either say ‘answer’ to answer the call or ‘ignore’ to cancel the call. During pairing mode, the is a voice guide to assist you on how to pair your device.
Battery life – Jabra said that the Stealth can last for up to 6 hours of continuous calls. During my test (of course, not on continuous calls), the device lasted for nearly 4 days. Again, this is very subjective because it depends on how long your are on call. Charging takes nearly 2 hours.
Call quality – The Jabra Stealth has proven to be a tough competitor to its sibling, the Jabra Storm when it comes to call quality. The quality was equally good. In fact my friend said that the call quality via the handsfree was much more louder compared to call via my mobile. Overall it is very good.
There is no volume adjusting option on the Jabra Stealth. So you have to adjust the volume via your phone which is a disadvantage because if your phone is inside your pocket, you have to take it out to adjust the volume. The purpose of using a handsfree is so that you use your phone less during a call but looks like Jabra has not taken that into account when making the Stealth.
Jabra Storm vs Jabra Stealth
The similarities :
1) Great call quality.
2) lightweight and friendly to your ears. Usable on both side of your ears.
3) Easy to pair, NFC pairing, voice command to answer / reject call.
The differences :
1) Jabra Storm has a volume adjust key which the Jabra Stealth does not have.
2) Jabra Storm has a slightly longer battery life compared to Jabra Stealth.
3) Jabra Stealth’s package comes with a car charger which you will not get in Jabra Storm’s package. (please refer to my unboxing post).
4) Jabra Stealth mentions the caller’s name (or number). The Jabra Storm doesn’t.
5) The Jabra Stealth’s USB cover seems to be more flexible compared Jabra Storm’s USB cover. I have a feel that Jabra Storm’s USB cover is very fragile and can easily spoil if you try to expand it a little more when inserting USB cable.
Jabra Assist app
This is an useful app from Jabra. I highly recommend you to use it. You can download the Jabra Assist from Google Play or iOS App Store. To run this app, you also need to install another app – Jabra Services. Once the Jabra Assist is installed, you can use it for the following :
- Check the remaining battery percentage of your device. You can also set the app to notify you if your device’s battery life drops to 50%, 25% and / or 10%.
- Find My Jabra – If your bluetooth device is not connected, it will show the last connected location on a map. If your device is connected, you can remotely make the device to make a high pitch sound. Although it is not very loud (because the sound is coming from the earpiece), it will still be a bit helpful because it is a high pitch tone.
- Find My Car – This is related to bluetooth handsfree for your car. Based on the same concept mentioned above, it will show the last location where the handsfree got disconnected. I don’t think this will be very useful because let’s say you park your car in a big mall and you are not sure where exactly did you park, you cannot refer to the map because it will show the mall but not exactly where it is. But it can still be useful as the saying goes something is better than nothing.