JBL Tune 230NC in-ear headphone review: Utterly remarkable for the price

Yeah, we get hyped about products a lot here, I know that – but some times you are just blown away by the performance of something that really shouldn’t be so based on it’s price. The JBL Tune 230NC in-ear headphones are the best example of that for a while.

These headphones are $149. Cheaper if you shop around. So they should be good – because there are plenty cheaper. But most of them don’t cut it for sound and call quality.

But with the Tune 230NC’s from JBL, you get:

• Great design
• Solid app control and configuration
• Touch controls on each ear
• Awesome JBL sound with great Bass
• Noise Cancelling
• Utterly remarkable call quality.

And I’ve tested all that in my video review:

First off, these are a bigger more bulbous kinda earbud when compared to the amazing JBL Live Pro+ headphones I’ve been raving about for some time.

That’s not a deal breaker at all, but it’s important to know they aren’t the smallest earphones.

Sound wise, knocks it out of the park. I can’t think of a set of headphones at this price that would rival them, let alone come close. So tick that box.

They do have Noise cancelling, and while that worked on my flight tests, there’s no doubt there is better noise canceling out there. Can you get it for $149? No – no you can’t. So bang for your buck – these are great.

They have a 10 hour battery life, 8 if you are using noise cancelling and for me, that’s a huge win, that’s an all-day battery, with of course another three full charges available in the case.

But forget all that, have a look at the video above, and listen to my phone call quality test. It’s bloody amazing.

Firstly, the standard call quality – fantastic. Legit, impressive.

Then I threw in the background noise, and I think it handled it better than any other headphones I’ve tried.

Honestly, that’s what sold me on these. For $150 you’re getting utterly remarkable levels of performance in pretty much every area.

Give them a crack, great price, great sound, all round a big win.