I wanted a new headset for my iPhone 4. After reading several reviews I went ahead a tried the Jabra Extreme.
The audio quality for listening is great. I've used a motorola and plantronics in the past and sometimes felt they weren't loud enough. This Jabra earpiece is plenty loud. I hear everything fine. I use this for talking on the phone, but also use it for listening to podcasts.
I read some reviews that said the mic was of poor quality. I had some trouble when I first set it up. My friends were not impressed with my microphone and then I started to have dropouts while listening to podcasts.
After doing some research is appears there may be a bug in the iOS4 software for the new iPhone. A tech support website suggested reseting the "network settings" on the iPhone. It's an option in the settings menu. This clears out all wi-fi and bluetooth settings. I had to re-pair the phone to the earpiece and that has cleared up ALL THE PROBLEMS.
It works great, now. My friends report that I sound great and I no longer hear any dropouts. I love this thing.
Great battery life, too. Jabra EXTREME Bluetooth Headset[Retail Packing]
Let me say that my last two bluetooth devices were Jabra. I like Jabra and have had good results with them.
My last bluetooth was the Jabra BT500. It is an over-the ear device that worked very well for me because I have very small ears. I can't depend on a device that uses the in-the-ear contact to hold the device to my ear. My ipod earbuds pop out when I open my mouth, because they are too large to screw into my ears. And when I do force them, they are painful and rub the skin off the inside of my ears. What I really need is a child-sized earbud. Hmm The Jabra BT500 came with a choice of three sizes of eargels. The smallest one fit inside my ear. Good contact, good sound.
So, the Jabra Extreme was my choice this time because it has a wire that does go around the ear, if you choose to use it. This one also comes with different eargels, but not for sizing. The different eargels are meant for choosing between using the ear wire, or not. There's one eargel for using with the wire and it's a round soft plastic that just goes over the speaker. The others are in two sizes and meant to hold onto the curves of your ear from the inside if you don't have that wire adding support.
The Jabra Extreme is a mere 1/32 of an inch smaller than my ipod earbuds. The Jabra BT500 is a full 1/8 of an inch smaller. And additionally, the BT500 didn't actually have the speaker part inside your ear, it had a directional eargel that had a long-ish side that went into your ear canal as the speaker part stayed outside. Although the Extreme does have a directional eargel, it's nothing more than enough outside the circular shape to show which end has the hole in it for the sound to come out.
The wire does keep the device from popping out of my ear. But it does make the inside of my ear sore after phone calls. I don't even talk much on the phone. If I had to wear this all day, my ear would be bloody. I tried putting the gel from my old device onto the new one. The speaker is literally twice as wide on the new device, hence the good sound quality, no doubt.
My second big boo-hoo for the Extreme is that although it says it has voice commands, it doesn't for me. My old Jabra would beep when I touched the on-off button meaning it was waiting for me to say the name of the person to call. On the screen of my phone, if you looked, showed "Speak Now." So, obviously, my phone supports voice commands. On the Extreme, it is supposed to work the same way, touch the hang-up button to activate. Yet, when I do that, absolutely nothing happens. One of the big reasons I use a bluetooth is for the hands free dialing in the car. Now I find myself fumbling to at least dial while driving and that makes me very uncomfortable. It also sets a very poor example for my kids as I promote limited phone use while driving.
On a positive note, the sound quality seems very clear and people I talk to say I sound "normal." The people I talk to most didn't even know that I had gotten a new device and was not speaking directly into the phone. If sizing isn't a problem for you, I would wholeheartedly promote this bluetooth headset.
The price I paid, here at Amazon.com, was very reasonable. I can surely buy more expensive devices. But I've been a fan of Jabra for a long time and thought this would work well for me. I'm not sure that even with a great price I can live with this for the long term. My last Jabra lived for about 4 years.
Love this bluetooth. It is incredibly comfortable. I have purchased several other bluetooths and they are always uncomfortable. This one fits well and works well. I purchased this one as a gift. They love it too!
After a few months, I've changed my tune on this headset. See my update at the bottom of this review.
I've owned a lot of BT headsets. There are a lot good things to say about this headset. A2DP rocks. Works perfectly with iPhone 4.
PROs:
-Stays in ear without loop and very comfortable
-Comes with a neat little car charger w/ usb port and is adjustable, like a dock for your BT in the car
-Flawless and fast pairing with iPhone 4
-Voice dialing is without error (using it with iPhone 4)
-Play and pause music with voice control through headset
-Big plus for bikes...I get navigation audio through Jabra with phone locked and in my pocket. Awesome for getting around D.C on bike
-I can listen to my podcasts and music and audiobooks with it while driving and the nav instructions from GPS apps still come through loud and clear (other audio "dims")
-BIG PLUS for me...easy to carry in pocket without worrying about breaking off an ear hook (I use the in ear gel bud, no hook needed, one bud for left, one bud for right are both provided)
-Nice size, doesn't look to dorky, still, you want to remove when not using it to avoid DB look.
-Very loud audio, important for those hard of hearing
-Audio up and down volume buttons are separate and easy to use
-Power switch is not a push button type, it's a rocker switch, very easy to use
CONs:
-Can't think of any yet
UPDATE: May 2011
I bought two of these because I really liked the first one so anything I say below is based on the fact I have two of these Jabra Extreme's and have used it exclusively with iPhone 4.
I've concluded these headsets are unusable for their primary function, which is talking to other people on the phone. I can hear people just fine, and it pretty much does everything I want, with two or three glaring problems:
-People can't hear very well on the other end of the line, this is true for both headsets. 90% of the time I have to switch to using just the phone. Common complaints are my voice dropping out, echoing, lots of background noise(which leads to my next big Con)
-The noise cancelling is a joke. I don't even think it exists, everyone complains that it actually amplifies background noise, or at the very least the noise cancelling makes it nearly impossible to understand what I'm saying. Remember, I've used this headset (2 of them actually) for many months now and it's true of both headsets
-I love listening to my audio podcasts through my Jabre Extreme, the audio quality and volume are very good. However, I've discovered a problem with the Jabra Extreme headsets which I used to blame on my iPhone. Horrible buffering for the first few minutes of listening to audio through the BT headset. I confirmed it's actually the headsets and not the iphone after purchasing and using a Jawbone ERA (more on that later)
-Part of the seemingly non-existent noise-cancelling issue is the weird way they Jabra Extreme deals with certain noises. Any computer beeps or sounds (even very low volume sounds from a computer) is amplified many times to the person on the other end of my call. They often shriek and complain I blasted their ears. It's not an occasional occurence. It's every darn time. One person told me their ear was ringing for an hour afterward.
-The range is affected sometimes dropping from better than 30ft to a couple of feet. Sometimes if my phone is in my pocket on the other side of my body than the BT, the signal is interrupted. I have to reset network settings on iPhone constantly to resolve this (which leads to believe it's an issue with iPhone 4, then again, it hasn't happened with my new Jawbone ERA)
I have to change my recommendation to not buy, unless you don't give a rat's butt if the other party can understand what you're saying, then maybe it's the BT for you. I change my recommendation based on two things: inadequate processor power which causes buffering issue when playing back audio over the headset, and horrifically bad noise cancelling, bad audio quality for anyone on the other end of the line.
I recently bought a Jawbone ERA because it had good reviews, in order to compare it with my Jabra Extremes. The Jawbone ERA audio quality is nearly flawless and people on the other end of the line say it sounds better then when I just use my iPhone without BT. Noise cancelling seems to work very well compared to Jabra Extreme. Also I don't experience the buffering issue as with the Jabra Extremes. I can listen to A2DP audio just fine. - Jabra Bt530 - Bluetooth - Jabra - Headset'
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