Review Verdict: The JBL Tour Pro 3 packs enough features into its buds to impress even jaded tech reviewers. Some of the features feel superfluous and merely drive the price up, especially in the Philippines. That doesn’t take away from the fact that they’re the best-sounding wireless buds we’ve tested.

Pros

• Incredible ANC performance
• Excellent sound quality
• Good battery life considering the features

Cons

• Expensive
• Lots of features that are not as useful as they seem

JBL’s “stick-a-display-onto-a-TWS-case” strategy might seem odd to some, but the brand’s been successful enough with its Tour Pro line of TWS buds that they’ve launched a third iteration. This year’s offering is more of the same–more battery, more features, bigger display, and coincidentally, higher price. The JBL Tour Pro 3 offers a dizzying array of extra features beyond just ANC and audio quality, but unless you’re the type that flies a lot or cares about sharing your tunes, they’re not why you’ll buy a pair.

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JBL Tour Pro 3 Review Philippines: Design and Fit

There’s no getting around the fact that the JBL Tour Pro 3’s case is massive. It’s thicker than your typical affordable buds and is a pain to carry around with you when you stuff them down your pant pocket. You’ll probably be better served if you put this in your bag or purse, but if you’re like me who regularly misplaces stuff if they’re not immediately on your person, you’re going to have a bad time.

The size of the JBL Tour Pro 3’s case is mostly because of the fact that there’s a display on it. The display allows you to access all of the features on the JBL Tour Pro 3 without having to go through the app on your phone. I like the fact that I can change volume settings directly on the case without having to find the sweet-spot on the touch-sensitive areas on other buds, though there is that too.

As far as the buds go, the amount of features JBL had to stuff in them and the physical size of the drivers make them a little bigger than your standard pair. The buds themselves are more of the deeper fit “concha” design to maximize ANC performance. They fit my ears just fine, but we’ve heard a few of the team members who default to smaller silicone tips have fitting problems with them, so take that into account.

JBL Tour Pro 3 Review Philippines: User Interface and Features

As we mentioned earlier, you can control almost all of the features of the JBL Tour Pro 3 on the display of the case, though we still recommend installing JBL’s app on your phone for more granular control. The display is big and bright enough for casual use, though I did find that it’s not as responsive as a phone’s display.

One thing that I really like with the JBL Tour Pro 3s is the fact that you can plug the case into any 3.5mm jack or USB Type-C connector that outputs audio, like seats on airplanes or PCs, and the audio starts playing through the buds. That’s something that’s fairly unique to the JBL Tour Pro 3, and doing so eliminates the usual audio lag that you typically experience when connecting Bluetooth devices to PCs, tablets, and game consoles.

There are also a ton of other features that improve audio. JBL’s Personi-Fi 3.0 essentially personalizes the sound using the best possible sound curve based on your hearing capabilities. There is Adaptive Noise Cancellation 2.0, Spatial audio, Hi-Res certified audio with LDAC, Bluetooth 5.3 LE audio, as well as being able to run Auracast, so anyone with Bluetooth 5.2 and higher can join in the audio you’re serving. There are so many features thrown in here that you’re probably not going to use all of them, but the upside here is that this pair is the most future-proofed TWS that you can get currently.

JBL Tour Pro 3 Review Philippines: performance and battery life

What does the JBL Tour Pro 3 sound like? Heaven–the bass on these buds is deep and bone-shaking, and the soundstage is wide and varied. You can hear the nuance of Sabrina Carpenter’s cover of Chappel Roan’s Good Luck Babe as she switches from her head-to-chest voice. I love how much texture you can get from typically mundane tracks like LE SSERAFIM’s Easy.

Turn on spatial audio, and it’s a treat for the ears. Spatial audio also comes in handy if you’re using the JBL Tour Pro 3 for gaming, as it helps you locate enemies pretty accurately, provided you’re plugged in as we mentioned earlier.

As for the ANC part of the buds, they’re really good, considering their size. You’re not getting something akin to a cone of silence that other over-ear headphones can produce, but it’s damn close, enough that these buds are the perfect pair to bring with you if you travel frequently.

Going to battery life, you’re getting up to 44 hours total without ANC on–11 hours from the buds plus three additional full charges once they go dry. Turn on ANC, and you’re getting around eight hours plus three additional full charges, which brings up battery life totaling up to 32 hours. Charging is done via Type-C and via Wireless charging, which comes in handy if you’re using your phone’s reverse wireless charging in a pinch, if needed.

JBL Tour Pro 3 Review Philippines: Wrap-up and Conclusions

The JBL Tour Pro 3 is jam-packed with features that make it as future-proof as humanly possible. The external display gives you another avenue to control the volume, ANC, and other features on the buds without having to fiddle with your phone or the touch-sensitive areas of the buds.

Ultimately the biggest barrier to you buying this is its price–at Php 16,999, it’s fairly expensive, but if you want the very best sound quality with all of the features that are going to be standard in the next few years, then the JBL Tour Pro 3 is for you.

JBL Tour Pro 3 Review Philippines: Price

The JBL Tour Pro 3 has a price of Php 16,999 in the Philippines.