June 2010 Archives

Chances are, you've seen a lot of headsets.

 

But really - does yours look sleek and chic - or is it a freakish extension attached to your ear?

 

Just in time for summer, Jabra has release a white hot Bluetooth wireless headset, its followup to the black Jabra stone that came out last fall.

 

Not only is it easy to put together and charge, but it looks fantastic in your ear, on your desktop or in the palm of your hand.

 

Let's revisit some of the Stone's stellar qualities:

 

1. It comes with up to 12 days of standby time;

2. A feature called "StatusDisplay" measures battery power levels;

3. It gives you eight hours of talk time;

4.

Perhaps you've been eyeing the new iPhone, or Sprint's sexy new EVO piece.

 

But before you shell out the big bucks for something that promises 4G speeds and such, let's take a look at third phone that came out a little more than a month ago and has delivered on its word: the HTC Incredible.

 

 

When the phone arrived at TMC's Norwalk, Conn., offices, I was skeptical at first. After all, not many gadgets carry such a big name.  

 

But it didn't take long to see that the Incredible is definitely worthy of it.

 

Whereas the Motorola DROID was a huge chunker - thanks to the weight of a slide-out keyboard - the easy-to-navigate Incredible is a nice and lightweight 4.6 ounces. That said, I was a little frustrated that the touchscreen interface, which lends itself to typos, required me to slow down my made-for-BlackBerry texting speed.

 

Still, this baby is loaded with goodies.

 

These include an 8.0-megapixel camera, a wide selection of interactive widgets and instant weather news for wherever you are (I'm training for a marathon so the feature helped me plan this week's 12-mile run!).

 

The screen is 3.7 inches wide, so it's easy to tuck into the back pocket of my bootleg jeans (without adding too much unflattering baggage).

 

And unless you're in a city where you can take advantage of Sprint's 4G network, you won't lose sleep over lack of speed. Which for me, would be something "incredible" indeed!

 

Wearing headsets isn't a pain in the butt. What is? Putting them on in the first place. 

 

Moments after I tore into the sample kit for Sound ID's 510 Bluetooth headset - an elongated piece of black plastic that came with its own clip-on carrying sleeve - I had a devil of a time trying to adjust the little ear piece so it would slide into my ear.

 

But it was worth it! On my way home from work, I enjoyed the cool oh-so-relaxed feeling of not having a cell to my (and I almost forgot I was wearing what looks like a skinny flash drive pressed against my right ear).

 

 

The next morning, however, it took me more time to adjust the thing into my right ear than it did to brush my hair - and I have hair that's more than a foot long!