JBL Tune 230NC ANC Earbuds (Grade A Refurbished)

There are several things I like about the JBL 230. The sound quality is pretty good and the noise cancelling is excellent for this price range. So, if you're in a noisy office or work environment, these may work for you. The battery life is great, and the JBL app provides a good equalizer for customizing your sound. I love the blue color, and the touch controls work, even if finding that "sweet" spot takes a bit of practice. What I don't like is that every time you put the earbuds in, they start in the "Ambient Aware" mode (sounds around you are amplified). It's great, if you want to hear what Margret down in accounting thinks about Bob's new haircut from across the room, but I hate it. I'm typically putting in earbuds to block out the sound around me, not to make it louder. Plus, the Ambient Aware function uses battery life. I'd much rather have the ability to start in a "normal" (non-amplified) setting, but that's not available. You have to start with them active and either open up the app to turn it off or set the buds to use a touch feature to turn it off (meaning you can't use the touch feature to control your music, change volume or anything else). My second gripe is around the microphones and wind. Any slight breeze makes it impossible for you to be heard at the other end of a phone call. I'm often outside and I simply can't make phone calls if there's a breeze. Likewise, driving with the windows down while on the phone is a no-go. The wind drowns out everything else. If you happen to have Ambient Aware turned on (remember, it's the default?), it amplifies that wind noise in your ears, as well, even if you're not on the phone. This is a real deal breaker, and everyone from Apple to Samsung and Sony do a much better job of limiting wind noise on phone calls with their buds. There are other minor things. The buds are very lightweight, which is good, but they stick a little too far out of my ear, so they're always getting knocked loose. They sit in the case with the speakers facing outward, so you always have to turn them around when taking them out or putting them away, since most people are designed with their ear canals going *in* to their heads (this design makes zero sense). The app is slow to load. You can't do anything in the app until it finds and connects to your buds, so you have to have at least one bud in to use the app for anything, which is weird (I can't even view the app right now to tell you about it because my buds are at home, so the app won't open), and many app features aren't accessible unless you have both buds in. I really wanted to like these, but the inability to use them in 90% of the cases I want them just makes them worthless to me.