Jabra FreeSpeak Bluetooth Headset BT200 Review

For Bluetooth enabled phones supporting Bluetooth v1.1 Review based on pairing with an Ericsson T39.

The headset has good form factor, though a little bit Original Star Trek... The device rests comfortably in your ear for reasonable-length conversations. It can get a little uncomfortable on conversations more than 30 minutes though, if it's not adjusted to fit in your ear perfectly.

Life for the lithium polymer battery is fairly consistent with published performance (three hours), just shy of 3 hours of constant conversation. I haven't carefully tested total standby time, which is listed at 96 hours.

The process of pairing the device with a handset is easily done by following the instruction manual, but is not readily done 'by instinct'. Once you've initiated the pairing on the earpiece, you configure the settings on your handset to recognize and accept the earpiece, which involves using a default passcode. The passcode is not modifiable after the pairing operation, and not required to operate the headset.

The headset volume is excellent, adjustable in eight increments. This is attributable to the device being self-powered; it doesn't have to draw its power off of a handset. Using much higher volume may affect battery life – I haven't tested this extensively, because I use the lowest volume setting indoors, and above the third or fourth setting it becomes uncomfortably loud, especially with the sound piped directly into one ear canal! The headset also supports voice dialing. If you intend to use the headset whenever you use voice commands, it is recommended to record the voice commands via the headset to avoid problems with tone recognition.

Sounds good so far? Well...

Where the rubber meets the road, voice conversation, the headset doesn't perform as well as I'd hoped prior to purchase. The device is susceptible to interference, in the form of crackling, and in severe instances very bad static. This seems to be worse for the person on the other end of the call than at the headset, but incoming voice is affected by the crackling as well. At a range of 30ft. calls are intelligible but there is sufficient crackle to cause call quality to suffer a fair amount, and quality degrades significantly if the headset is even a little further away. Microwave ovens severely limit the audio quality by imparting bad crackling sound. 2.4GHz cordless phones are also likely causes of interference – I have yet to knock on neighbors' doors to determine if that is causing some of my interference. The device also lists wireless networks as possible causes of interference, but the 802.11b network where I live hasn't caused apparent interference, even in the same room as the base station.

Varying network transmission power settings doesn't seem to have an effect either. Outside, where I would expect call quality to improve, I was surprised to find that crackling and interference actually seemed to increase, even while carrying the handset about 30-40 inches from the headset. In general, call quality has been okay with only nuisance crackling, but certainly is not as clear as when using the handset or a wired hands-free.

When the paired phone detects the headset and a call is received, the phone asks to “Answer call in phone?”. If nothing is pressed, the call is routed to the headset when the call picks up. There is about one second of latent delay between the time the call is transferred to the headset, and the time the audio actually picks up in the headset. This is the same when transferring between calls with call-waiting.

In Bluetooth “On” mode, the phone will automatically transfer calls to the headset when the headset is powered on, or when the headset's Talk button is pressed. These options are not available in “Automatic” mode. Transferring an Ongoing Call to the headset only works with the phone Bluetooth setting set to “On”. Set to “Automatic”, the function is not enabled. Calls cannot be transferred to the earpiece by powering the headset on in this mode. Conversely, to transfer ongoing calls from the headset (in either Automatic or On mode), you can access the Transfer option in the phone's Ongoing Call menu. Another way is to 'power off' the headset. There is no option in the Ongoing Call menu to transfer a call to the headset.

However, in “Automatic” mode Bluetooth phone menus can be accessed, and the phone setting can be changed from “Automatic” to “On”, in order to enable the call transferring discussed above. Once the headset is in “On” mode, these menus cannot be accessed and the mode cannot be changed to “Automatic”. I use the “Automatic” mode to conserve battery life on the phone when the headset isn't in use (much of the time compared to how much the phone is on, but this is a minor issue since battery life on most Bluetooth-enabled phones is already quite good. I haven't noticed any real additional battery drain using the “Automatic” setting for routine calls.

On a lighter note, be advised that while using the headset outside, there is a definite stigma of being a lunatic who is carrying on animated conversation with himself! This is even more than with a wired headset, because the phone is likely nowhere in sight and there are no wires to link your conversation to apparent sanity. That aside, the device is an improvement over having wires dangling when trying to do other things while carrying a conversation, but the crisp clarity I hoped for hasn't materialized. 6 / 10 to put a number to it. With improved call clarity, I'd readily jump to an 8.5 – operating pecadillos are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

AGB 1/2003