So the iPhone headset came out last Monday, and I'd been given a gift card to the Apple store for my b-day. Thus on Tuesday, after I discovered it was out, I ran over to see if they actually had any. They didn't have them out, so I asked Jack (manager dude, good guy) if they had them and he said they had three, not enough to even put them out yet. So I bought one, of course.
What was compelling to me about the iPhone headset (vs. others) was the integration. The headset comes with a shared charging dock, shared travel charger, and the process of pairing and charging is so integrated, it's beautiful. The other feature for me was the size, the iPhone headset is tiny.
Audio
So now that I've been using it for almost a week, here's what I think. The audio quality is excellent, more enjoyable than being on the actual iPhone, IMO, and no-one thus far has said "are you on a headset?" I've called a couple people specifically to ask how it sounded and all comments were positive. The sound was noticeably better than I remember on my Jabra (BT250V), but it's been a while since I used it, so it's not a fair comparison.
Form Factor
The form factor and weight are great, you can comfortably wear the thing and forget it's there. One consequence of the design is that it may or may not stay precisely put in your ear (i.e. aimed perfectly at your mouth). I was worried about this, if the mic positioning was critical, but so far it hasn't seemed to have mattered at all, in which case as long as the thing is in your ear and not pointed backwards, it's fine. But it can't be long before someone markets an add-on that loops over the back of your ear.
It definitely feels like it's just sitting in your ear, rather than clamped on like most. That's a little disconcerting at first, but I did a fair bit of sideways head wiggling and it didn't budge, so I'm more confident in it now. I wouldn't wear it bungee jumping though.
One nice side effect of the design is that it's trivial to hand to someone else. Last night I was talking to my boys and when I was done I just handed the headset to my wife. No complicated extracting of the thing off your ear.
The one button is nicely placed on rear of the device (i.e. on the end opposite the mic and charging contacts). I always had trouble finding the Jabra button, but you can't miss this one.
Battery and Range
The battery life could definitely be better, but it hasn't been an issue for me because I charge it when I charge my iPhone... since the chargers are so conveniently married, this is a no-brainer.
I was pleasantly surprised with the range... it's far better than with my Jabra (though this could be a property of the phone as much as the headset, so YMMV). It's very easy to sit across the room from the phone (without large obstacles) and have a call. Yesterday, I answered the door to our hotel room while on a call, and the phone was on the far end of the desk at the opposite end of the room. I began to get a few static blips, but it was still usable. I'm guessing it was almost 30ft. So range in the clear seems outstanding. It doesn't like obstacles nearly as much, of course, in particular my head, so it's definitely worth keeping the phone and the headset on roughly the same side of you if you're going to be any distance away.
Features
The headset's primary features are size, weight, integration, and audio (IMO). It is not laden with dialing features, but that's to be expected since neither is the iPhone. For example iPhone doesn't do voice dialing... but the headset would give it a nice platform where that would make sense, so it's unfortunate they didn't do that. Although, in reality, I never ever used voice dialing when I had it. It never worked very well in the moments where it would've been really useful (noisy road, etc.).
The one missing dialing feature is a redial, that would've been very nice to have, and seems like it would've been an easy one given that the headset has a button for which there is little use when you're not on or receiving a call. But I didn't bring the manual with me on our trip (we left the day after I got it), so it's possible I just missed it.
In Closing
All in all, I like it very much. I find it very comfortable to wear and very enjoyable to talk on. I wore it for a long meeting and it was fabulous. I'm not a wear-it-on-my-head-24-hours-a-day kinda guy, so being able to take it on and off trivially is important to me, and the Jabra lacked in that department. In particular, it's a very good match for the iPhone, because of the integration and matching feature sets (or lack thereof). I'm not sure non-iPhone users would be as happy with it because it may not have dialing features they would want. But the size and weight might make it worth looking at anyway.
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