30 Aug 2006 0947H

I have a new toy

Nokia BH-900It’s the Nokia Bluetooth headset BH-900, which I picked up for a rather outrageous $120 at the local Best Buy. It’s $80 through Amazon, so I’m going to bring the receipt and the print out of the page and get my money back. [edit: apparently, the bricks-and-mortar Best Buy stores price match ONLY at the local level and NOT online. So, buy online whenever you can.]

I like it because it is rather stylin’, something with clean lines that wouldn’t look out of place with a suit and doesn’t look like you have a bug attached to the side of your head as do the Motorola ones. This begs the question that, given how elegant the Razr is, why can’t the Razr headsets be just as elegant? Even the one custom-matched to the Razr looks clunky and ugly. This Nokia one matches much better to the Razr’s unique, clean, modernist vernacular. Also I don’t like the way that the loops on the Motorola earpieces fit on my ear, they feel a bit loose and unsecured. The Nokia on the other hand is a bit cumbersome cos of the prongs, but, once it’s on it stays on. The voice quality is good-ish, but it’s not great for listening to music.

The usability of the thing is pretty good, although the buttons are very small and it’s easy to mistake, but for the position, the on button with the receive button. One particular heuristic I like about the headset is that as you shift the volume lever up or down, the headset provides audio feedback in the form of higher or lower pitch beeps (and appropriate volume, of course). There are three LEDs in the indicator lamp that show red if charging, green when charged and operating, and blue when linked to your transmitter. This does bring up a small issue about blue-green colorblindness with the usability, but I am not one of those people.

Other annoyances include: the battery life seems unusually short for some reason, and in addition, I’m a bit concerned about walking a dozen feet around the corner and having the connection drop, as it did in my home the other day. However, form trumps function in this case and generally I’ll be using it within 2-3 feet of the phone or computer, so this is a minor annoyance at best. All in all, aside from the price, which as I’ve mentioned, you can overcome, I’m satisfied with the headset. It’s too bad Nokia doesn’t implement this design across the board with its phone design. Everyone loves stylin’ (as Nokia must have learned, the hard way).

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