[Touch HD Themes and Apps] Rozenthal:
A few days ago I received the Bluetrek Metal headset. I spent a whole week exploring various available bluetooth headsets and finally decided for the Metal, because it seemed like a very good balance between price / quality.

Also, I do not like the look of 90% of headsets on the market - they're way too attention grabbing, have big blue lights flashing all over the place and are also unacceptably large.

Metal is nothing like this. I went for the black version and it's as simple looking as you can imagine. A small black bar with an ear-plug on one side and microphone on the other. Design wise, it's a perfect match for Touch HD.

Describing the size and weight of this tiny thing is really hard. You have to hold it in your hand to realize just how thin and light Metal is. Even tough the name "Metal" suggests otherwise, the device is only a few grams in weight. The housing is metallic, most likely aluminium, with a very good matte finish. Overall, Metal feels very solid and durable. There is only 1 small led, placed on the inner side of the device that can lit up blue or red, depending on different operations.

Along with the device, you get a plethora of accessories:

- 6 different silicone ear-buds (3 in ear and 3 with earloop)

- 2 different sized earhoooks

- short USB charging adapter

- 10 cm USB charging adapter (apparently needed for some USB ports, not shown in the photo above)

- belt clip

- car lighter USB charger (although this is listed as optional, it came with mine standard package)

Speaking of charging, Metal has super-cool solution for charging. With a small rubberized adapter, you plug the device itself into the USB charging port. No cables or anything. I find this very nice. The led's on the device in form you when the charging is complete. Initial charge took about 90 minutes from empty to full.

The pairing is idiot-proof. Turn on BT on the phone, turn on the headset, enter '0000' on the phone and that's it. After that, when ever the BT on the phone is turned on it will automatically pair with Metal when it's in range. The signal strength is normal for BT devices. If you don't have too thick walls, you can easily leave the phone in the other room without losing the connection.

Sound quality is okay. Nothing spectacular, probably not as good as the high-end models, but perfectly fine to understand the other person. I talked to my girlfriend over the Metal for a few days, and later asked if she noticed any differences in sound quality. The answer was straight and simple - no. She had no idea I was on a BT headset. So, I can conclude that the microphone does the job good, as well. Of course, Metal does not have noise-cancellation technology, so this is probably not a good choice if you need to make calls in very loud environments. But for normal usage (home, office, car) it's perfectly fine.

Cool thing about Metal is that you can use it without the ear-hooks attached. It may look strange that you can just plug something in your ear, without securing it in any other way, but believe me - it's not a marketing trick. I tried jumping around, waving my head in all directions, head-banging and all sorts of sudden moves - Metal stayed inside my ear firmly. So, this is a big plus for me, since I wanted to keep things as simple as possible.

While I was worried about really small buttons, in practice it didn't turn out to be THAT big of a problem. Yes, they're very, very small. Too small, to be honest. But the main button to start and end a call is slightly bigger and protruded up, so after some practice it should be ok to locate it while the headset is in your ear. Personally, I would prefer if the button size and arrangement was different, but it's usable as it is - barely.

The best thing about this device is that the price has dropped significantly. I ordered mine for 28$ from Sonicelectronix.com, which I consider to be a bargain.