ZivioBoom
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Engadget's recession antidote: win a Zivio Boom Wireless headset!
This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs (like 1,100 from Seagate just today) got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn't want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back -- so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We'll be handing out a new gadget every day (except for weekends) to lucky readers until we run out of stuff or companies stop sending things. Today we've got a Zivio Boom Bluetooth headset on offer. Read the rules below (no skimming -- we're omniscient and can tell when you've skimmed) and get commenting! Huge thanks to Joby for providing the gear!The rules: Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for "fixing" the world economy, that'd be sweet too. You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you'll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you'll be fine. Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don't make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad. Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one (1) Zivio Boom Bluetooth headset. If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Entries can be submitted until Wednesday, May, 13th, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck! Full rules can be found here.
Zivio Boom given the once-over on Engadget
We're always game for a fresh, curious new Bluetooth headset design, but does Zivio's Boom go just a little too far with its wacky telescoping mic, magnetic ear clip, and high-end sticker price? Only one way to find out -- and that's by clicking on over to our quick look on Engadget!
Zivio Boom hands (and ears) on
At first glance, the Zivio Boom seems like a novel approach to the Bluetooth headset problem, but as we experienced, it's actually a little less pleasure and a touch more pain. The design and packaging of the product are highly stylized and sufficiently handsome to be sure, but once you get down to the meat, this peripheral leaves quite a bit to be desired. In our tests, not only was the sound quality of the earpiece far below the standards you'd expect from a product in this price range ($129.95), but the general design of the Boom is lacking in many regards. Firstly, the ear-clip is held onto the device by a magnet -- and not a very powerful one at that -- which renders the component largely useless. The headset does an okay job of staying on with the varying size bud attachments, but it still felt a bit heavy without hanging it off of something. All of that might be surmountable were it not for the abysmal sound quality we experienced. The thin, telescoping microphone seemed like it would do a better job at picking up audio than a standard Bluetooth headset, but it didn't hold up next to Jawbone's offerings, and the fragility of the metal makes it seem like we're only a day or two away from cashing in the warranty. The reception quality wasn't any better -- we literally had to ask a friend of ours if they were speaking through a towel. Both on the receiving and transmitting ends, we found the Boom to be a disappointment. There's no question that this is a good looking device -- just not one that we can really recommend.%Gallery-32042%
Zivio Boom offers 10-hours of talk... before it breaks
Announced at the turn of the year, Joby's 13-gram Zivio Boom Bluetooth 2.1+EDR headset with 10-hours of talk time (300 hours standby) is now shipping. The obvious feature here is that extending boom, which grows from a base of 53.5-mm to a delicate 137-mm. That little trick puts the mic directly in front of your hot, steaming chat box which supposedly results in better audio pickup (no yelling!) to the benefit of those on the receiving side of the call (and around you). $130, that's how much.
