Review: JayBird Sportsband

If your iPhone or iPod touch is running 3.0 software or higher, setting up JayBird’s Sportsband is as easy as you’d hope: charge the Sportsband’s battery via the included USB cable, then a few taps in your bluetooth settings, and you’re listening to your music wirelessly through these very nice, essentially minimalist headphones. As you can determine from the photo, the Sportsband extends to fit larger heads. But what’s not immediately apparent is that the the rectangular padded phones themselves each rotate in space for additional form-fitting.

Considering that wireless audio products nearly always come at a price premium, the Sportsband sounds surprisingly good for $89. Like other JayBird products, this one has a larger-than-usual amount of bass (treble lovers who hate bass should probably look elsewhere). The company’s claim of eight hours of music playback and 2.5 hours for recharging turned out to be about accurate.

Any new bluetooth headphones have to be compared to our Best of 2009 winning iMuffs, a product that’s similar but instead runs its band behind the neck instead of over the head. After listening to both, I pegged the Sportsband to be superior in the lower ranges (not just more bass, but higher fidelity bass), while the iMuffs sounded better in the higher ranges. With the iMuffs now at $79, I’d have to rate it a tie between the two overall, with the differences obvious enough that each of you should be able to figure out which of the two is a better fit for your preferences.

A few more things to be aware of about the Sportsband:

• Yes, you can take phone calls through the Sportsband, thanks to a little built-in mic, and yes, it actually works.

• While “next track” and “previous track” buttons are built into the outer cover of one of the Sportsband’s phones, right alongside the volume buttons, the next and previous buttons don’t do anything. This is the case with every set of bluetooth wireless headphones when used with the iPhone, from every brand and manufacture, for reasons that only Apple knows. Because this is clearly the fault of Apple not the vendor, and because it’s the case with every headphone of this type, we don’t subtract from the overall star rating for it. But you definitely want to be aware of it before making your purchasing decision. And for the record, any vendor who figures out how to work around Apple on this one, without requiring the iPhone to be hacked in any way, gets a free beer from me. But I digress.

• If your iPod doesn’t have stereo bluetooth, you can buy a snap-on adapter.

• This product does not come with a wall charger, so you’re limited to charging via the USB ports on your computer unless you pick up a third party USB wall charger (which can be had for around $10).

Not that my own personal preferences should influence you, but while JayBird’s BlueBuds earbuds are likely to become my new favorite wireless earphone product once they ship (I spent just enough hands-on time with them at CES that I miss them already), the Sportsband just might end up being my favorite for the mean time.