Bluetooth better than geckos

Sunday 18 June 2006 - Filed under Default

My Treo 650 has served me well. I am continually learning to use it’s many features and support it with accessories. For the first few months, I struggled with a couple of different earpieces that I used in the car and elsewhere. Recently, I misplaced my wired Jabra and decided to break down and go bluetooth, Motorola H500 style. That was one of the better tech decisions I’ve made. Here’s the lowdown…

First off, it’s very small and light. I can carry it comfortably in a shirt pocket and at times I forget I’m wearing it on my ear. That’s why you see people wearing them even when they’re not talking on the phone. I can also hear environmental sounds easily while wearing it.

Secondly, the sound quality is as good or better than any wired hands-free that I’ve used. This, I didn’t expect. I’ve heard nary a comment on my sound quality and I can always hear my counterpart quite well, even in noisy environments.

I like that there is one less wire in my life and that keeping it charged isn’t as much of a hassle as I thought it would be. I just bundled together the business ends of my phone and earpiece chargers so I plug them both in every night in the same 6-inch square on my desk.

Now for the tricky part of using bluetooth: When you first get the thing and start using it, you have to adjust to there being another piece to the phone. Numerous times I found myself picking up the phone, saying “Hello? Hello?” without a peep from the other end. This is the short training period where you go: Ok, the phone is ringing, I’m going to answer it, but first I’d better get that earpiece so I don’t sound like an idiot screaming “Where’s that #$#@% earpiece!” from across the room.

One other glitch: the earpiece seems to sleep on me sometimes, like when I charge it. Then when I go to make a call in the morning, I need to double check that indeed the earpiece is connected(either via the Treo’s bluetooth icon or beeps from the earpiece itself).

All-in-all, bluetooth earpieces are great with Treo 650’s. I can’t say how you’ll like using it with your phone but I quite enjoy: less wires and good sound quality. Oh and for the time being, wearing a bluetooth earpiece is cooler than geckos that never saved me a ton of money on my car insurance.

2006-06-18  »  David Sterry