russian

Phone Search:

RSS

Samsung Galaxy Note. First Look

Today, large companies, especially corporate giants like Samsung, do not surprise users with extraordinary products...

First look. Sony ST21i Tapioca Microsoft Windows Phone 7: Reasons for Failure First Look at Samsung Galaxy S3 as a 2012 Flagship

Reviews Editorials

Mobile Phones Editorials MP3 Forum

Review of Blackberry HS-300 headset

Package:

Headset
USB cable
Ear tips (three sizes)
Ear hook

Design

At first when you look at HS-300 through the plastic of the package the headset looks exactly like other low range headsets by Nokia, Samsung, and Jabra. The box is nice: a compact package in attractive colors that immediately draws your attention. Inside you find only essentials – nothing redundant.

The front panel is made of glossy plastic and the company logo looks rather painted than printed but this is due to the new materials used. The inner side is made of something like resin. The headset is tiny and inconspicuous. Too bad it is available only in black – black always looks good but I would really like to see other colors like white, green, pink and so on – we can already get a Blackberry case in any color – why not apply this practice to headsets? The assembly quality is good. On the back side of the headset there is an uncovered microUSB slot, the earpiece is not too big and it has a loop for the ear hook. On the front part there is the mic hole.

Wearing Comfort

The ear tips have some kind of a sealant inside so you can easily wear HS-300 without the ear hook – even when you jog the headset sits firmly in the ear. It is easy to find the proper size of the ear tips and the ear hook is light on your ear – though I have found its shape to be a bit alien to my ear. But all in all, HS-300 will fit most people.

Controls

This is one of the few cheap headsets that have a separate power button on the side. The multifunctional button is fit below the RIM logo and the light indicator is very conveniently situated inside the power button. It flashes in green, red, or blue depending on the situation. The multifunctional button is easy to use thanks to its size and solid stroke. You cannot manually adjust the volume on this headset – it is adjusted automatically

voice prompts are also a part of the controls to a certain extent – you can find the full list of the voice prompts following the link. I don't think that this is an actual market advantage of this model but it is a nice touch. The voice prompts are available only in English.

Battery

The headset is quoted to provide 4 hours of talk time after on a full charge. There is a nice feature connected to the battery – after just 15 minutes of charging you can talk 2 hours via this headset. You can also find this quick charge feature on some Nokia headsets. I have come across a package with an AC adapter on some websites – mine however had only a USB cable.

The battery life is not impressive but the quick charge feature may come in handy.

Pairing

I have tested this headset with Blackberry 9780 – the pairing takes just about a couple of seconds, no password needed, after the first start-up the headset automatically enters the pairing mode. The sound quality is good but in noisy environments my interlocutors were complaining about some outside noises, but in office or in car communication runs smooth. I am giving the sound quality a general B+. You cannot connect more than one phone to the headset – A2DP is not supported which is typical for a low range headset.

Bottom Line

You can get this headset from retailers for about a hundred bucks. Let' see the advantages:

Good looks
Decent sound/voice quality
Comfortable ear tips
Quick charge feature
Separate power button
Voice prompts

The downers are the short battery life and the not so good ear hook. For a hundred bucks you can get a much more advanced headset like one of the older Jawbones. The proper price for this headset would be fifty dollars max. But if you wish to have a headset that carries the same logo as your favorite smartphone don't be afraid – it is a decent choice.

Do you want to talk about this? Please, go to our Forum and let your opinion to be known to the author and everybody else.

Sergei Kuzmin ([email protected])
Twitter Livejournal
Translated by Robert Mugattarov ([email protected])