Jaybird Vista True Wireless Earbuds Review

While Jaybird isn’t necessarily a household name in Australia, for runs, hitting the gym, plus the outdoors and sports in general, the Jaybird Vista True Wireless is as close as it gets to a perfect pair of sports earbuds.

As an ex-AirPod fan, the Jaybird Vistas have been a breath of fresh air carrying me through early morning transits and evening workouts without any major issues. While I'm not one to sacrifice sound quality over comfort, I haven't had to make that hard call with these wireless earbuds.

At least from Jaybird's own marketing, you can see they're trying hard to build up some serious hype around how "earth-proof" the Vistas are. Does it sound (and look) too good to be true? We'll give you the highs and lows in our review.

Let's get down to the details.

1. Great for sports
2. Sleek and slim design
3. Customisable EQ

As a regular runner and gym-goer used to the struggle of earphones that constantly fall out of my ears (try 20 burpees and see if your AirPods aren’t flying out and skidding across the floor), I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Jaybird Vistas stayed put. Instead of coming with the over-ear hooks common for sports earphones, the Jaybirds are completely in-ear, utilising a simple band that seamlessly connects to the eargels.

Another nod goes to the Jaybird Vista’s IPX7 water-proof and sweat-proof design. It’s no secret that you’ll be dripping after a solid workout, and without being sweat-proof, if not entirely water-proof, your earbuds will gradually suffer from water damage and eventually break. This was definitely the case for my AirPods, which got so sweat-damaged that they started having problems connecting to my phone till my left AirPod just refused to work entirely.

What’s seriously impressed me though is how light and portable the earbuds and its accompanying charging case are. Clocking in at just 6g for the medium-sized eargel and 32g for the charging case (in comparison, an AirPod is just slightly lighter at 4g per piece but 38g in total for the case), the Jaybird Vistas feel barely there when they’re plugged into my ears.

When not hitting the gym, the Jaybirds remain stylish yet minimalist enough that I have no hesitations about wearing them out on the street, while on my morning coffee pit stop or at the office. As a converted ex-AirPod user, it’s actually satisfying not having every second person sporting the same earbuds as me wherever I go. The Jaybirds definitely score some extra points for pure style (particularly the “nimble grey” colour in my opinion).

Jaybird offers its own app, available for both Android and Apple users, so you can make your own EQ profile that’s fine tuned to your listening preferences. These will be synced to your buds so you won’t have to again after saving your presets. Alternatively, you can choose to use one of the pre-loaded EQ profiles on the Jaybird app or browse popular and trending user-made presets for a wide range of genres and occasions including everything from classical to hi-res.

1. Learning curve to get used to
2. Average (but not hopeless) battery life
3. Button controls can't do everything

When I first took out my Jaybird Vistas from the box and tried them on for the first time, it was a strange experience. Having previously stuck with AirPods which simply slip into your ear holes without any fuss, it took me a solid couple of attempts to work out the best technique for fitting the Vistas in well: I recommend you line up the ‘hook’ part of the ear gels so they’re facing inwards (the left and right ear gels should be positioned so they’re mirroring each other). Then again, my mate didn’t have any issues fitting them in on the first go, so maybe it’s just me that struggles when trying on new things.

There are three ear gel sizes to choose from, size 1 being the smallest. Your Jaybirds come pre-fitted with the size 2 medium-sized earbuds, but that doesn’t mean they’ll fit you best (and your two ears might even work best with two different ear gel sizes). It took me a good 10 minutes playing around with the different ear gel sizes and using the Find Your Fit function on the Jaybird App. Although I have small ears, I was surprised that the size 3 buds were the most comfortable for me.

The Jaybird Vistas last for roughly 16 hours including the charging case, or about 6 hours standalone. To give you an idea of how good this is, the wireless earbuds we’ve reviewed had an average bud battery life of 6.3 hours or 20.8 hours overall when you include the case.

For me, a 16-hour battery life is more than enough to get me through a day or two of use while in transit, at work and at the gym, and I don’t mind charging them every second day. However, if you want earbuds that only require a weekly charge, the Jaybird Vistas won’t fit the bill.

You can customise which functions you want activated when you tap once, double-tap and long-press the left and right earbuds. The downside is that the current interface doesn’t allow you to access all these features in one go — you can only pick 3 to have configured. Another thing that irked me was that while I disliked the voice prompts, it was hard for me to correctly identify “powering on” instead of “powering off” with the pure tonal sounds.

While Jaybird isn’t as familiar as big tech giants such as Sony, Bose and Sennheiser, if you’re looking for wireless earbuds to take you through many sweaty workouts and long runs outdoors, the Jaybird Vistas are more than up to the task. If that’s not enough, the Jaybirds are lightweight and small enough to easily slip into your pocket. In my opinion, they look and sound great too.

The deal breaker for some might be that the Jaybird Vistas lack active noise cancellation. This isn’t a big issue for me personally, since I often listen to music when I’m on the go and I prefer to retain some awareness of my surroundings by still being able to hear minimal background noise. In the office, while complete immersiveness in the tunes is fantastic, realistically it’s a pain when someone tries to talk to you and you can’t hear anything, but that’s just my opinion.

If you’re seriously after the best bass at all costs and you don’t care about getting anything waterproof, you’ll want to check out the Audio-Technica ATH-CKS5TW wireless earbuds.