This is a very specific review to help others figure out if this product will fill a specific need. I couldn't find this info when I was making my purchasing decision so I'm leaving this review to help others.
In my case I purchased these headphones specifically for use with a desktop computer to use with skype and general music listening. The idea was to use these for 8 hours a day to listen to music and take 10-30 phone calls that come in on skype a day. This has worked great forever with plantronics wired headsets but I would like to be free of the wires.
What the specs and the other reviews I have seen don't point out is a very important design element in this headset, this headset doesn't support Multipoint. Which means The 903+ is essentially two discrete products in one. First there is a Mono Headset that provides mono sound through both ear pieces and has dual microphones. Second there is an excellent Stereo Headphone that has no Microphone function.
These two modes are completely separate. At any given time only the Headset function or the Headphone function can be active but not both. Therefore there is no way to combine the microphone and the stereo audio function. This has two implications: (1) You can't pair the headset with a phone; and the headphones with a separate physical media player at the same time. (2) Any device you connect can only actively be using either the headphone or the headset but not both at the same time. A single physical device would have to switch modes on the fly to use both.
On a cellphone with the latest bluetooth profiles these two modes will work great; you can listen to music in full stereo and when a call comes in the headphones mode shuts down and the headset function fires up. You need the latest in cellphone but it does work nicely.
However if you want to use them with desktop computer, then you can in practice use them only in a single fixed mode. They are either going to be just bluetooth stereo headphones or a bluetooth headset. Desktop computers aren't expecting the dual mode device and will see the headset as two separate devices at the audio layer and there will be no indication to the computer that both can't be used at the same time. So the computer will try to access both simultaneously if you are playing music and try to take a phone call. The net result is conflicts and lockups.
Until desktop bluetooth functions catch up with cellphones; or plantronics adds multipoint to this family of head sets; you will need to look else where if you want a dual mode bluetooth headset/headphone for your desktop computer. Plantronics BackBeat 903+ Headset
Also own a Backbeat 906. When I decided to buy a second headset, I chose this 903+ without second thoughts even though there wasn't any price discounts for this newly released product. The sound quality, when listening to stereo music, is excellent.
A new and neat feature is that, after you turn on this headset, a female voice announces/whispers to you the approximate operating time left so that you know when you may need to charge the headset. The 906 instead uses LED light pattern (blink 1, 2, or 3 times) to indicate approximate battery life.
update: the microphone volume seems to be too weak. you may want to get a traditional headset for making calls. The 906 doesn't have this problem (but picks up much more background noise than the 903+, which has great noise-cancelling feature).
In short: Great headphones, I'll keep buying this model until I find a pair that works.
I had received the original 903s for Christmas and I loved them. They fell out of the car one night after getting home from the gym and were run over the next morning, so I decided to pick up the 903+s. It is difficult to lift, do cardio, yoga, and plyo in the gym while tethered to a phone, and having headphones with a connecter or mic in the line tend to be a nuisance while running, so wireless is the perfect solution.
So, I received my 903+s in the mail and headed out to the gym that night. I was stoked that the headphones had their own battery display on the iPhone, like the Apple Bluetooth headset does, and that play/pause skip forward/back and all the other functions seemed to work properly. Towards the end of my workout, after about an hour and a half of use, the Voice Control feature on my iPhone started engaging itself. First I thought I had hit some button on the headphones by mistake. A few minutes later it happened again. And again. I assumed my iPhone had an issue, so I restarted and performed basic troubleshooting. It kept happening. I finished my workout and headed home.
I set my headphones and iPhone down on my bedside table, and Voice Control continued to enable itself. I took the headphones out and plugged them into the charger and hoped that it would be better the next day.
I headed to the gym the next day, only to discover that the headphones wouldn't turn on at all. I did a quick search online to see if there were any known issues or quick fixes. Turns out, according to the Plantronics forums, that these headphones tend to start having problems, if not outright dying, after very little use. Bummer. So I returned that pair and am currently waiting for a new pair.
The fit is good enough, the sound is good (don't forget that they have their own audio level control), and they're handy as a Bluetooth headset. I would give five stars if they didn't have this QC issue; after exhaustive research, these seem to be the best on the market. When they work, they're perfect.
Excited for my next pair! - Wireless Headphones - Bluetooth - Wireless Headset - Plantronics'
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