This weekend I received one of the coolest headsets I have played with in a while. I am sure many of you have a Bluetooth wireless headset that you use with your mobile phone, the one I have for my mobile phone is less than optimal but hey it works. Well what arrived in my mailbox was a HiFi Bluetooth headset, I knew it was coming as the folks at Wireless Cable Inc had asked me to review it.
It came with a USB Bluetooth adapter, headset, charger and a accessory cable. I let the headset charge most of the day and when I plugged in the USB Bluetooth adapter the adapter was recognized and it installed plug and play on Windows XP. As soon as I turned on the headset it paired up with the adapter. I loaded iTunes and played some music through the device. Total setup time couple of minutes, so in a sense the setup was as easy as 1,2, 3.
Having had Bluetooth devices with extremely limited range (4-5 feet) in the past, I wanted to test this headsets range. I went on a stroll from my office into my kids rooms (25+ft) and downstairs into the kitchen (35+ft) and I still had connectivity. I was able to go a significant distance away from the laptop and the headset only cut out when I did a extreme range test and walked away from the house to see how far I could go I estimate I was about 45 feet line of site away before it cut out..
Much of the music I have is 80’s Rock, and I cranked up some tunes to see what the base response was, I was very pleased as the base response is good overall the audio quality was excellent.
After wearing the device for a couple of hours I realized that for the first time in a long time that this headset had not given me a headache, the headset is light enough to wear on extended play, but sturdy enough that I threw it in my laptop bag on the way to work with no concern of it being broken.
I’m kinda funny when it comes to electronic stuff, the engineer in me comes out, and I like to give products what I call the pull and twist test. This is my way of seeing if the manufacture has taken the time to build some ruggedness into a product insuring that when my 2 year old gets hold of it, that it wont end up broken. It passed the pull and twist test.
Pairing with my mobile device was easy and I even did a voice call using it, the caller on the other end of the conversation said it sounded as good as my regular wireless device. I don’t have a Xbox 360 but the documentation says it is even compatible with this new gaming console. I made several Skype calls, and did some switching between a high end wired gaming headset and the wireless. The wired headset had a small edge in microphone sound quality but the sheer fact that I don’t have to deal with cables anymore is worth the minor differences.
Retail price on this unit is normally $199.00 they have them on sale for $99.00 the price is a bit on the high side so I hope they keep the $99.00 pricing. Being able to go wireless and not sacrifice quality is worth a great deal and multi functionality is a bonus! [www.aircable.net]
Disclaimer: Geek News Central was given this device to review, the hardware device was run and tested on a average PC, and was evaluated with no expectation from the vendor of a positive review.