[JASJAR, XDA Exec, MDA Pro General] dreamtheater39:
My Jabra BT250v review!

Hello everyone!

I got myself a jabra bt250v, and i thought I'd share my experience/views about it.

Overview: The Jabra BT250v is a good bluetooth headset if you're looking at purely wireless convenience over your 'wired" stereo headset. If you are looking at mobility and range, you might have to think again. The features of this device, styling & appeal, ease of use is great, and second to none....however, the range and audio quality of the headset can be quite disappointing.

1. Design, Styling & ergonomics:

The Jabra BT250v comes in a very slick design. The headset fits behind your ear, and I must admit that its one of the most comfortable BT headsets I've used so far. The build quality is excellent, and its definitely a headset you'd love to use! The buttons are well defined, and very tactile to use. My overall rating for the design & styling would be a 9/10 as I guess its one of the very few BT headsets which are appealing and well designed.

Rating: 9/10

2. Ease of use

The headset is extremely easy to set up. It is intutive, and you should have no problems at all in quickly pairing up the headset and get it rolling. The headset I got had zero charge, and I put it onto the charging dock. It took roughly 1 hour 45 minutes to charge completely. I was definitely happy with the total time taken to charge it from nothing to full charge, and is comparitively great too! I had it easily detected and paired with my qtek 9000 in no time! Another brilliant feature of the 250v is that it supports vibrator alerts. This can be a great feature if used well. Here's what I do...I turn off Vibrate alerts on my qtek, and keep my jabra 250v to do the vibrate alert. This way, I save on battery life on my qtek, and get the headset to do the work! I think this is a great feature, and Jabra definitely got this right for them!

Rating: 8/10

3. Audio quality

The audio quality of the Jabra headset is worse than average. Be prepared to feel like the dying general on the world war II battle field trying in to tune into his army base from some dense jungle! The quality is great if you have your paired device within 1 - 2 feet radius, but i guess this is not practical really. The simplest test I performed was by putting my qtek in my jeans pocket, and the headset on the same side on my ear (qtek in right pocket & jabra on the right ear!) I'm close to a 6 footer in height making the distance between the two (jabra and qtek) roughly 3 feet apart. I felt like I was trying to tune into my battle ship stuck in a storm a 100 miles away from the shoreline! I guess Jabra got this really bad, and the practicality of the device is questioned. Most of the time I'm infact pulling my device out of my pocket to get it closer to my ear, and I guess this is plain stupid! There is a lot of static noise, crackling and everything once you start drifting away from the 2 feet mark. This is a big disappointment and a shortcoming for the jabra.

Rating: 2/10

4. Range of the headset

Jabra claims a sweet 30feet range. You might see that on the specifications, and be fairly excited! DONT! As I said earlier, you must be happy to get a little more than 2 or 3 feet of undistorted connectivity. The further you go away from 3 feet distance, the quality suffers exponentially. Its almost unusable at a distance of 6 feet or over. I have tried in different places, with no radio interference at all, and still this is the best I could get from the Jabra. If you are planning to use it as a replacement to your wired headset to avoid getting tangled and knotted with the wires, this might be an option. However, if you are the person who walks up and down while talking, and you plan to leave your gadget syncing on your desktop, you'd be tied down by a virtual leash!

Rating: 1/10

Conclusion

The Jabra is still a great device packing in vibrate alerts onto its headset. Its a good buy if you're looking at using it on a daily basis, especially if your device is bulky and need a headset to go along. However, if you are looking at a perfect BT headset with good range and audio quality, you need to think twice. I'd suggest you try using the device in different ways such as putting your phone in your pocket and checking the audio quality etc. and then make a decision before buying it. Otherwise, you might end up being pretty disappointed if you go by the brand name and end up expecting too much!

Total Rating: 5/10

Cheers,

Sandeep