By its very nature, stereo Bluetooth gear is never going to look quite as cool as its wired equivalent -- but if we
look back on the early days, we're making progress. Jabra's new over-the-ear
HALO should appeal to some with its relatively convenient folding design, and as an added bonus, it kinda looks like you're wearing a futuristic hair beret when you slip it on. How can you argue with that? Following an
announcement earlier this year, the HALO's now available at Best Buy locations for $130 promising 8 hours of music playback, 13 days of standby, seamless transition between calls and tunes, and an innovative corded mode with a 3.5mm jack. It's tough to say whether you'll get odd stares wearing these day in and day out -- but if you're not willing to find out the answer to that the hard way, we certainly are. Selfless, we know.
posted Aug 26th 2009 8:54AM
It's not so much what it looks like, the biggest question is, how does it sound???
Not as good as holding the phone to your ear, which also won't ruin hair with gel in it.
Honestly? They sound fine as long as you hold the speakers to your ears.
These look less goofy?
I think this looks more ridiculous.
They look like a woman's oversized headband.
Either that, or people started sprouting rectangular ears.
Like your head is in a pair of tongs
Looks good, the folding mechanism would have to be strong and durable.
Looks like a hairband.
Building all kinds of technologies into hairbands.
Heck, I just read in the newspaper that they put a pig heart in some guy from Russia. Do you know what that means?....Oh, he didn't live. It's just exciting that we're trying things like that.
Whitesnake?
Poison?
Cinderella?
Oh, not "hair band."
I see what you did there..... that was CLEVER!
I have one of these that I got from a Jabra rep and the sound quality is great, good bass, and its wireless so I love it. I like how they can also be used with non-bluetooth devices as well. Its great to take with you along with your laptop when you go places.
how does the sound compare to wired headphones? I remember the sound distortion when using stereo bluetooth headsets.
Sleek and minimalist, I like.
Looks good....though from d picture it seems like a geeky hair band
The Motorola MOTOROKR S9 looks great. I don't understand the statment that Bluetooth Stereo has to be fugly.
the S9s do look great. Too bad eBay is flooded with shanzhai versions of them.
I have a Motorockr S9. I don't see what everyone's saying about sound quality being bad on them... they sound just fine to me. Good tones and bass and no static or distortion or anything. Maybe I just got a magical pair? And I think they look just fine.
yeah, I love mine, partially because they blend in perfectly with my hair and make it look like my head is blinking blue...
I agree they look a little too hairband...
To me they don't offer more than the Pulsar 590 which in my opinion looks better and are cheaper. Also have the wired option and fold down pretty small.
apart from the ridiculous mic stalk sticking out of the side!
Most casual observers don't notice it. The worst parts of the 590 are the super-bright flashy light, that sh!tty plantronics adapter, a design that pinches your neck when you hang it, and a really-REALLY poor internal design at the charge point that fails after a couple months' use (i had to rip mine out, ditch the plastic filling, and re-solder a longer, sturdier wire).
Oh, they're being released now? :o
I've had these for about 2 months already, won them in a contest run by coca cola sweden.
I like them a lot, though i think my head might be a bit too big for it, the lower part of the headphones don't make contact with my ear so there's quite some leakage, this also affects the sound quality negatively. Sound quality is okay, but not as good as my philips SHB9000. It's around the same level as koss porta pro i guess. Touch control is cool and foldability is really handy, you can just stick them in your pocket when you're not listening to anything.
Voice quality is actually quite excellent, and there's no delay to speak of.
All in all they're really nice, and i'd recommend them to anyone who feels the need for some BT goodness on the go, though if you're not bothered with portability you can get better sounding ones in the same pricerange
you can fit it into your pocket?!
I gave up on Bluetooth heaedset. Great, something else to re-charge.
how on earth is that supposed to fit comfortably in/on the ears?
my kingdom for completely wireless, independent A2DP earbuds, each running on their own tiny rechargeable watch battery.
Obviously the only tenable route for stereo bluetooth is Doctor Who Earpod style sets.
i don't understand why you guys just dont like it , it looks very good for a headphone and it even has a wired option!
im fine with the price . the question is....does it sound as good as it looks
can nobody just bring out a normal looking pair of headband style bluetooth headphones that don't make you look like a f&£king c@#t!!!
Sony DR-BT21G's. Available in graphite, or white. Support the A2DP and AVRCP profiles for full control on the ear. Omni-directional mic for taking calls (HFP) or yelling at minors over the Playstation Network (HSP) and they also incorporate a novel battery meter, and fold for portability.
Launched 24 months ago. I bought mine for £17.99 delivered. ($29.16)
Recommended.
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=Sony%20DR-BT21G&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
the Sony DR-BT21G would be perfect if they had a corded option.
neckband rather than headband - no good if you wear glasses...
too big to be comfortable
Cool, Wear them across your eyes and look like giordi leforge.....or across the back of your head and look like lando's helper from empire.
Jaybird!
http://www.jaybirdgear.com/bluetooth-stereo-headphones-features.php
Not fugly, sound awesome, and wont short out like the S9s when you are working out!
specs sound nice, if a bit pricey.
I have the jabra 3030, earbuds and a "dogtag" BT box. Much less dorky than these, and I can tuck in the dogtag. The earbuds it comes with are actually very good. Great low end, no crackle, and no distortion. If you don't like them, you can plug in whatever other phones you want, since it uses a standard 3.5mm jack... FWIW
High tech Bumpits!
http://www.bighappiehair.com/
Looks like the "halo" from Minority Report.
At least you'll have something to listen to for the first few hours of your incarceration....
Picked up a pair of these last night. They do sound better then the iPhone ear buds, but the volume and "next/previous track" function are useless when used with the iPhone. Not very comfortable for me either. They are going back to BestBuy this morning, 15% restocking fee or not.
All stereo bluetooth headphones with track controls will not work with the iphone. I had a set of Motorola s9-HD that I returned because of this. Only the play/pause, volume up/down worked. Next/back track did not :( This is a limitation of the iPhone that will hopefully be fixed with an update soon! wtf Apple?!
I bought these a few days ago and returned them the same day. The sound fails unless you hold them to your ear. I'll stick with my Rocketfish RF-MAB2 behind the neck headphones for now. They rest on the ear with a clip and are as comfortable as it gets. I use them all day every day. Just Google them. Oh the F-MAB2 are $40 CHEAPER!
"kinda looks like you're wearing a futuristic hair beret when you slip it on. How can you argue with that? "
how can i argue with that?
i'm a dude.
For what I have seen out there, these look very nice. I prefer products with a minimalist design. These will work great for my late night TV (via MS MCE) viewing. I like that there is also a wire option for non-BT devices although most of my products are now BT enabled.
Will the 3.5mm wire be a 3-section (stereo headphones only) or 4-section (stereo headphones + mic)?
I have very nice Shure, Etymotic and Sennheiser phones. These seem to be extremely flexible and may be more comfortable for using before falling asleep. The deal breaker for me static. I prefer can/cup design second to in-ear canal. The type that rest on the ears may by ears sore after long listening periods. The Philips mentioned by someone on here just are not attractive. I'd rather have a nice can design by Grado, Shure, or Sennheiser.
The cable is stereo headphones only. I can tell you that I have the same preferences when it comes to headphone design. These don’t pinch down on your head and temples the same way some other headsets do. Unless you have a very wide head? I tried some Sennheiser S110s that had an over ear design but not cupped like my 130s and they were very uncomfortable. I would even go so far as to say these are more comfortable then my TR130s
I just picked these up and so far my first impressions are quite positive. First of all the hair clip anemology is way off. These are much bigger then that comparison would imply. The audio quality is comparable to my Sennheiser TR130s. It took take a little adjusting to get them to completely cover my ears but it’s not impossible.
Right now I am using these with my Palm Pre and all the functions seem to work just fine. Play, pause, next, previous, volume and answer call functions all work as expected. Takes about two hours to achieve a full charge and playback lasts longer then I need in a typical day.
In the few calls I have made with them everyone has reported excellent voice quality. However I can’t use the dual device functionality as I had been hoping. So far there are no Vista drivers that I could find. Connections to OS X were unstable. I could use it with iTunes (I could even use the music controls with iTunes) but I was never able to get it to work with Skype, or Google voice and I don’t use iChat.
Over all they are well worth the price as a stand alone BT headset. If they can be made to work with my laptops I would be even happier
Well I got these working in vista. I just had to install the latest BT drivers from the Lenovo site. Working just as I wanted! I can play music (MP3 or Pandora) on my Pre. If I need to use them for voice recognition (Part ofmy job) or to make a call on my soft-phone (Cisco through work) The music cuts out only when I activate Dragon or place / answer a call on my soft phone. This is Brilliant!
I can still take calls and control music playback as needed (when not being used by my laptop) The audio is still great!
These recent announcements of crappy versions of what I've wanted for a long time give me hope. Hope that Sennheiser will decide to make a worthwhile wireless headset to replace my PC350.