[General Accessories] Menneisyys:
Separate A2DP source / HS support group: in here, I've elaborated on whether the given headphones are capable of connecting to separate A2DP (music) and a headset (phone) sources at the same time. This will be of little relevance to anyone wanting to play back music off a capable Windows Mobile phone.

A side remark: By capable phones you will probably want to stick to as an A2DP player, I mean for example the HTC Wizard, which has unbeatable battery life because it decreases by 7-8% an hour (!) while playing back WMA's and MP3's by the built-in Windows Media Player and transferring the music via the "hacked" Widcomm BT stack to an A2DP headset and NOT overclocked (that is, run at the default 195 MHz). Note that the battery life would be even more stellar with a multimedia player consuming even less CPU cycles; most importantly, 40th Floor's iPlay or TCPMP / CorePlayer; read this all-in-one article for more info. Note that if you overclock the Wizard to, say, 240 MHz, the battery life will, while continuously playing back music via A2DP, definitely decrease; it still remains pretty good (11-12% decrease an hour).

Most non-TI OMAP-based phones or standalone PDA's (the Wizard is a TI-based phone, as with, say, the GPS-enabled HTC Artemis), on the other hand, will have much worse battery life - think of 20-25-30% charge drop an hour with most Samsung- and Intel XScale-based phones (assuming you use the factory battery and not a thick, heavy extended one), which is even made worse on some models with an utterly buggy A2DP implementation; for example, the HTC Trinity / P3600 (see this). Compare all this to the much more stellar results of, say, the Nokia 5300 (I've listened to music for some two hours on it via A2DP and the phone didn't show any significant battery level drop) or, even better, the, in my opinion, absolutely the best standalone multimedia player of today, Samsung YP-T9J. The latter has some 23-24 hours of music playback via wired headphones and some 15 hours via A2DP. Excellent battery life, I'd say - even better than that of the non-overclocked HTC Wizard, let alone most other current Windows Mobile-based devices.

Unfortunately, the Nokia headphones are NOT capable of multiple connections. That is, you can only conduct calls via your headphones on the same device you're also listening to music on - and not on another device. This, unfortunately, also means that, should you device to go for the Samsung YP-T9J (I most definitely will as I'm really-really fed up with the Microsoft Bluetooth stack incompatibility of my expensive Pulsar 590A - and with the bugs and inherent problems of the Widcomm BT stack hack for the Wizard, my, because of the stellar battery life, main A2DP source. Do check it out if you see it some time, it's definitely worth giving it a try!), you won’t be able to listen to some music while also being connected to your (other) phone.

Volume group: with stereo headphones and Bluetooth headsets, it's also very important to know whether it's able to produce a volume that is significantly over the ambient noise level of even the loudest street. That is, you'll want to consult the results here before you buy the headset and find out it's just plain useless because, say, of the very low maximal volume.

As can clearly be seen, both the Nokia and the 590A excel at this area; the Pulsar 260 really doesn't.

I've also examined the granularity of volume setting. The Nokia has 10 volume levels and is, therefore, a bit less sophisticated than the two Pulsars with 16 volume levels each. However, in practice, I haven't really run into situations when the less volume levels would have caused any problems with the Nokia, particularly if you also consider the fact that, with the Microsoft Bluetooth stack, the system volume (the volume you set on the Windows Mobile device) has a direct impact on the Bluetooth volume too. (This isn't the case with Widcomm.)

Feedback, responsiveness group: some headphones (particularly the Pulsar 260) produce very annoying beeps when you press any hardware button. This is why I've added an Audible feedback: button sounds row in here, where I've also listed how the tested headphones behave in this respect. As can be seen, both the Pulsar 590 and the Nokia are far better in this regard.

Visible feedback: The Pulsar models are also well known for their strong, blinking LED (Light Emitting Diode), which, unlike with some other manufacturer's headphones, just can't be disabled. This may be a stumbling block for many - for example, the blinking LED on the 590A/E will make it almost impossible to be used at evening / in the night with all the lights shut down.

Finally, the Responsiveness: data rate change back to HQ mode after it switching to low-quality mode and, then, back. This only applies to better, fallback-capable BT stacks (in the test, I’ve used the Widcomm one); the MS BT stack doesn’t support “falling back” to lower bit speeds to extend range (which means the range with the MS BT stack is much more limited than with the Widcomm one). test tests how quickly the tested headphones switch back to the fastest (in general, 320 kbps) Bluetooth data rate (meaning the best sound quality) after a "fallback" to a slowest, still available (around 180 kbps) speed. This parameter can also be important if you, say, often walk around / leave your current room, leaving back your sound source, AND you’re using an advanced, fallback-capable A2DP sound source like a Widcomm-based Windows Mobile device. The less the recovery time (as is the case with the Pulsar 590 and the Nokia but not with the Pulsar 260), the better.

Note that it's only the Widcomm stack that uses speed fallback to greatly extend the operation range; the Microsoft BT stack is far-far worse in this respect (too). This is why, if you move a lot without your sound source (as is the case with MS BT stack-based Windows Mobile device), you will encounter skips even when you are only 15-25 feet away from your PDA in the same room, let alone in another room (where the sound transfer will almost surely completely stop). With the Widcomm BT stack, you won't encounter any skips (in general), because it will just "fall back" to a lower transfer speed to extend the range (and avoid skips).

As can clearly be seen, the Nokia and the 590A switch back to the highest transfer speed (and, conversely, best audio quality) very fast, unlike the 260. In addition, I've found a small annoyance with both Plantronics models (but not the Nokia): if you play with volume changing too much (you, for example, turn the volume up entirely from being next to silent), the BT transfer speed will be reduced (meaning lower sound quality). Of course, this will, thanks to the gradual transfer speed (and, conversely, quality) increase, only temporarily have a bad effect on the sound quality. Again, don't forget you will only run into the consequences caused by the bug with the Widcomm BT stack - the much "dumber" Microsoft BT stack doesn't support speed fallback.

Finally, the Misc group lists a lot of unrelated information; for example, physical dimensions, the existence of a dongle shipped with the unit, the presence of a built-in FM radio, the charger type (in which, the 260 is the best), how good the supplied / online manual is (one of the stumbling blocks of the 260) and the reviews available on all these three headphones. This is closed by the Cons and Pros sections, which just recap the major problems and advantages of each model.