In this video we are checking out the new JayBird Freedom 2 wireless sport headphones. These are of course a slight refresh from the original JayBird Freedoms that launched last year. I’ll go over the couple differences and new features that these guys have, although I will say it isn’t much so if you have the original Freedoms, these aren’t any kind of major upgrade or anything. But if you’re looking for a pair of excellent Bluetooth sport earphones, JayBirds Freedom earphones have been pretty highly rated, and even at $149 you do get some great value overall. The freedom 2s come in either gold or black, and if you’re interested in learning more about them or picking up a pair for yourself, I’ll leave links to the cheapest prices along with links to some other JayBird products down below in the video description so be sure to check there. But without further ado let’s go ahead and see what these are all about.
JayBird Freedom in Gold (Amazon Link)
JayBird Freedom in Black (Amazon Link)
JayBird X3’s (Amazon Link)
JayBird Run (Amazon Link)
As far as the unboxing experience and what all is included with these, when you flip open the box you’re greeted by the freedom 2’s right away, and underneath that you do get the usual JayBird carrying pouch which holds all of the extras and accessories that are included. The first is a super short micro USB cable for charging, and to actually charge the freedoms you use this charging cradle slash battery pack. I’ll talk more about how this works in a minute, but not only is the essentially a charging dock for the headphones, it’s also an extra battery to extend the life of your headphones a few extra hours. Also included is a plastic clip to secure the headphones to your shirt, and you also get some various sized replacement rubber eartips.
Now these are all the single piece combination ear tip and fin which is different from the original freedoms which came with separate rubber and foam tips and add on ear fins too. With the freedom 2’s, this setup is all that’s included so you should kind of have an idea of these tips with the fins will work for you, or if you might need to be different tips separately.
As far as the headphones themselves, they do look and feel very almost identical to the original freedoms. They have a very slim and sleek design and are made up of a combination of metal and plastic. The online controls are there with volume up and down buttons as well as a play pause button with an small hole for the microphone there as well and around back you can see the 5 gold pin connectors that are used with the charging cradle slash extra battery that gets attached.
One of the other changes to the Freedom 2s was the addition of what JayBird calls their SpeedFit release cable. There’s 2 connects on the headphone cable and just by pulling on the cable in different directions you can shorten and lengthen the cable quickly and easily to however you like it. You can remove the little cable connectors if you want but I actually found this to be a really handy feature and a nice addition to the headphones.
Now like I mentioned earlier, the freedoms come with this sort of charging cradle or dock that has 2 purposes. You can snap the headphones in place with the USB cable connected and this is how the freedoms will charge. But the dock itself also holds an additional 4 hours of battery life, so you can leave the clip connected to the headphones, take it with you and now get up to 8 hours of playback time. Its a little tricky to get on and off, but besides that I think this was also a really decent feature on the freedoms.
As far as fit and comfort, if you guys saw my JayBird Run review, you know that for whatever reason I just had a lot of trouble with those fitting and staying in my ears. With these Freedoms however, they fit very comfortably, they stay in and they just generally work very well for me. I’m usually not the type of person to wear earphones with the ear fins, but with these I don’t really mind. I don’t find them entirely necessary, the Freedoms would stay in with just a normal tip on them, but all in all the included eartips with the fins worked out really well. And the addition of that adjustable cable also let me keep these nice and tight around the back of my neck too which helped keep the cable from moving too much also.
Sounds quality on the Freedom 2s is once again excellent, the standard sound profile is very flat which honestly is ok, it still sounds good, but the whole point of getting JayBird earphones in my opinion is use them with the JayBird app. With the app, you can customize the actual noice profile of the headphones to exactly the way you like. You can add some bass, adjust the midd and highs, and just generally achieve the perfect sound profile for your preference. And you if you want to explore some other options, there’s also a ton of preset ones too. And really it’s those features on the app that make any of JayBird earphones an excellent listening experience because no matter your sound preference, you can pretty much make them sound however you like. The app also has a couple additional tools included a find my buds feature to locate them if you do lose them.
I think the only limitation with the JayBird freedom 2s is battery life, but more specifically on the long term. I was getting just about 4 hours of playback time with these at 75% volume. And that’s fine, you can get through a workout no problem, but using these every day means that you’ll need to charge them at least once during the week, and maybe more. You can clip on that extra battery for another 4 hours which is fine, I just wish the standard battery life was maybe a little better.
So all in all, while these are obviously not necessarily a major upgrade to the original Freedoms from last year, a refresh is never a bad thing and I think being pretty high quality and sounding very good with the ability to customize the sound, they are a good value and even at $149 you’re getting some really nice earphones. Although, this now means that the equality as good original Freedoms are even cheaper so you can also go that route instead.
