Review of JBL Reflect Mini NC: Sporty and Secure!

JBL Reflect Mini NC: Design and Build

Starting with its physical features and build, these buds are incredibly sturdy.

You can definitely tell they're designed with exercise in mind.

They're made of a single type of tough, smooth plastic with a slight ribbed feel on the inside of the buds. And that JBL logo? It's reflective to enhance visibility at night.

The indicator light is also located inside the earbuds, so there's no unnecessary flashing.

The buds are a bit on the chunky side, but with that wingtip design, they're extremely secure, providing you with three sizes of wingtips and ear tips.

Both the in-ear and over-ear configurations work best for me, and this specific styling trick feels incredibly snug in my ears.

So, no matter what you're doing—lifting weights, working out, running, CrossFit—you're covered. There's no chance of them falling out or even budging from your ears. The ergonomics aren't the best although I find them slightly uncomfortable. This might vary for others, and it also occurs after trying all the ear tips and additional earpieces.

Although the case is a bit bulky, it still feels really sturdy. Like the earbuds, it's made of the same material with a bit of a grip to it, and the hinge here is also nice and solid.

If you like using your buds while training, you'll get an IPX7 waterproof rating, great for sweat, splashes of water during rainy use, and you can even dunk the buds in water.

JBL Reflect Mini NC: Features

Here, you're getting Bluetooth 5.1, along with SBC and AAC codecs. Unsure about Apt-X, you won't get multipoint pairing. However, you can use either the left or right earbud individually, and this works in mono mode.

So, you can hear both audio channels in a single earbud.

Connection

Now, when you open the case, the earbuds will start connecting to your phone, and they do so really quickly in about four seconds. Taking the earbuds in and out of the case is very smooth and seamless, and the magnets here are also really nicely built and strong.

JBL Reflect Mini NC: Controls

Activate touch controls, and you have full control here, but you need to make some sacrifices within the app.

So, if you want volume control, you have to sacrifice the ability to control ambient noise. When you have pairs like Sennheiser Momentum Twos, Soundpeats T2, where you can control noise cancellation and volume simultaneously. They might have done that better.

Aside from that sensitivity, this is good. It's not the best, but you also get some automatic pause and play actions when you take the earbuds out of your ears, this operation works seamlessly, and you can also toggle this feature on and off in the app.

Additionally, when you take one ear tip out, the transparency mode will work on the opposite ear tip of yours, so you don't have noise-canceling feature in one ear tip and it sounds a bit odd. You get subtle, smooth feedback in the earbuds when adjusting all controls.

JBL Reflect Mini NC: App

Now I quickly tap into the features the app offers on the main screen.

You have the headphone and case battery life, which is quite convenient. You have some options for controlling ambient noise, noise cancellation, and smart sound shifting tab there, so you have a normal mode for best connectivity and a sound mode for best sound quality.

I found it didn't make a huge difference, but it just tweaks everything a bit and you also have a video mode acting as a low-latency mode.

But I found with other modes on YouTube and Netflix tested on iPhone 11, there were no latency issues.

So, the only reason you'd want to use that video mode is for gaming.

It's actually somewhat helpful, and especially, if you're into first-person shooter games, you also have an eq down there, which is really impressive.

you also have the auto power on and off feature, really great when you have auto pause and play feature, voice assistant settings, and adjustments,

So, overall, the app is really nice. I like the user interface, it's also beautiful and flexible.

JBL Reflect Mini NC: Sound

Now let's talk about the sound, but starting with the volume here, because at 100% volume, these bad boys will blast, you really don't need any more volume there.

If you're looking to listen at low levels, you don't really get it here, but if you enjoy listening to podcasts or music at low volumes, there's hardly any white noise, which is great when you have sound coming from a signature sound that's crafted for training.

I feel like JBL has totally nailed it because you're getting bass that's extremely deep, uh, but it still has some incredible punch to it.

This is the best bass response out of any headphones I've tested and because the mids and highs are also pushed forward really nicely, I feel that adds to that powerful bass as well as instrumentals and vocals in the mix.

You only get remarkable clarity, no matter what genre you're listening to, you won't get the sharpest or sparkliest trebles like Sony or Sennheiser's top-tier models, but you just get enough to provide truly enjoyable clarity.

this also isn't overly harsh at those high volumes and this midrange and bass allows for some serious instrument separation in a soundstage, considering the amount of bass you're getting

These buds really deliver sound quite akin to Soundpeats H1, that's big, hefty bass but still retains a crisp, smooth tone.

But on the H1, you'd get slightly sharper trebles, but it's the midrange and JBL being pushed forward more and that bass being much smaller.

This still isn't the deepest bass, but you have quite a lot of unlimited customization when you dive into that.

I found the presets didn't suit me. They don't really do anything just creating your own presets and when you can bump up the bass a bit, those sounds.

JBL has done really well and if you want clearer sound, just dial down the bass and bring up the mids in the mix, if you like, or if you don't want that bass too overpowering at those high volumes, dial it down a bit.

And it all works really nicely. Just because of that bass response it gives you that hefty feel.

But it gives you a punch that I've never really heard of in any other TWS. And it does so while still maintaining some remarkable clarity with all the instruments and vocals.

You'll get great instrument separation, great bass depth. All the horns and keys work really well with that fantastic bass response. That low end works really well, along with the Clarity providing excellent full sound.

These are the best for use with hard-hitting content, great direct sound along with that fantastic bass.

I really didn't expect the amount of Clarity you can get with low energy.

JBL Reflect Mini NC: Noise Cancellation

Noise cancellation at the price you're paying here. I really expected some better noise-canceling performance. Sometimes,

when I turn on the noise-canceling feature and even don't really notice much of a difference, this is mostly due to the passive noise isolation ability on these buds being better than usual. All in all, the earbud part is quite long and the earpiece is a bit wider than usual.

This provides really good passive noise isolation ability, So, combine this with the noise-canceling feature, and you'll get quite decent noise-canceling capability.

And when you can get pairs like professional efforts or Soundpeats T2 at half the price with superior noise-canceling ability, I feel JBL needs to step up the game a bit.

A few upsides, though there's almost no pressure in the cabin, as well as that hissing sound.

This is evident with the noise-canceling feature, which is nice and all, but of course, with noise-canceling feature accompanied with your ambient mode, this isn't the best mode out there.

You can hear your voice fairly clearly, but I feel it could be amplified a bit more, but if you just like running outdoors and observing traffic and such, you'll be fine, alright.

So, I forgot to mention about adjusting ANC, but I found this doesn't change anything with the actual noise-canceling when playing around with it.

JBL Reflect Mini NC: Battery

Now onto battery life, you get 7 hours from the earbuds and an additional two charges from the case, bringing the total up to 21 hours.

Even with the advertised battery life considering the size of the case, I actually expected a bit more. You're getting fast charging, 10 minutes of charging will give you an hour of playback on the earbuds, no wireless charging but they charge via USB type-c with the included cable.

On the front of the charging case, you have an eye-catching LED strip. It adds a bit of uniqueness there.

It will let you know if you need to charge your case and it will also light up when your earbuds are charging inside the case.

JBL Reflect Mini NC: Call Quality

Alright, for mic test, not outstanding, but decent will get the job done for most phone calls.

The microphones here pick up my voice quite well.

Conclusion Section

The only major downside is the noise cancellation capability isn't the best and the fit isn't amazingly comfortable.

At least for my right ear it may differ for you.

Additionally, these buds can be downright killer, especially if you're into digging, buds, and they're definitely worth checking out.