Life in Review: Plantronics Voyager 510
I mentioned this in my holiday wish list back a couple of months. I ended up getting it as a gift. Go figure.
The good:
- Sound quality is good. Definitely better than my old Nextlink Bluespoon AX. I had one friend comment that it sounded better than the normal mic on my phone (the HTC Wizard/QTek 9100).
- It is more comfortable than the AX. I can pretty much where it all the time without any annoyances (besides not being able to hear the out of that ear as well). Not that I would.
- No problems with Windows Mobile 5, Mac OSX, Windows XP. I use it regularly with my PowerBook and my Wizard. You can be paired with multiple devices and switch back and forth without issues.
- No problems when I wear my glasses.
- Reception range doesn’t seem to suck.
The not-so-good:
- Has some sort of funky button type plug. Too bad it didn’t use a USB plug. Then I wouldn’t have to carry around yet another charger.
- Kinda related, it doesn’t come with a charger that you can plug into the USB port. I think Plantronics may sell one, but I don’t want to spend more money on it.
- Battery life isn’t as good as the AX. I need to charge nightly pretty much. If I only used it an hour of talking a day, I could probably go a couple days. But I can’t predict my usage and if I were to use it for an hour one day and not charge it, I’m not confident that I can go for a couple hours of talking the next day.
- I can’t put it on with one hand.
- The funky wind sock thingy keeps slipping off in my pocket. Not a big deal really.
- Some buttons are a little difficult to press (volume rocker, and the one above it). But lots of headsets have difficult to press one.
I had a Nextlink Bluespoon AX before and it was cool. When people dream up cool, futuristic headsets, they would probably come up with something that looked like the AX. But the AX had some flaws: brittle plastic/durability issues, sound quality. So the AX was the cool looking headset, where everybody complained about the sound quality. After I chipped it (don’t know how), I decided to go to the other end of the spectrum: big, clunky and with good sound quality. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the 510. It is comfortable, and noone has complained about the sound quality. I can hear others well, and they can hear me well. If it had a mini USB plug and a USB charging cable, it would be close to perfect. I’m over the cool look, function is so much more satisfying. Ultimately, sound quality is the most important feature, and the Plantronics 510 has it in spades.