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Review of Nokia BH-111 Bluetooth

In the box:

Headset
Headphones
Tips
Charger
User Guide

Nokia now offers three wireless headsets in one form factor of main block with detached headphones. They are Nokia BH-214, reviewed today Nokia BH-111 and new Nokia Essense.

Review of Bluetooth-headset Nokia BH-214

All of them are successful, come under a famous brand name and allow changing headphones. The price is right too. I paid $83 for Nokia BH-111 in the branded store. I cannot complain, but there are several downsides.

Design and Construction

The package is fine, which is a welcome respite from the modern tendency to shrink it as much as they can. All components could have been located in a box 2 times smaller. The model is offered in black, pink, green, white and blue.

Доступно несколько цветов гарнитуры, черный, розовый, зеленый, белый, синий.

The frontal part is made of velvet plastic bordering on rubber, which resembled the back of an old Ericsson T68. At the top we have a charger jack. The clip is tight, but smooth, which is safe for clothes. The back cover is finished with glossy plastic and a 3.5 mm jack is located in the protruding section. Dimensions are compact: 48 mm x 37.6 mm x 12.8 mm. Weight is slightly above 20 g together with headphones. Headphones are of the same color as the gadget itself. I had the black ones. Cable parts are symmetrical, but short, though enough for a pocket or jacket. I like this instance, because temperatures are dipping and such a headset is becoming even more useful. You can talk, switch tracks or pause without taking the phone out. The build and appearance are top notch. Men will prefer black Nokia BH-111, but more feminine colors are available too.

Controls

On the front are playback buttons and the multifunction key to answer/end calls, switch lines and activate voice controls. An interesting option is a volume wheel made of rubber like material protruding from the body and easy to use. At the top there is a light indicator emitting red, blue or green color depending on the event. The wheel clicks for convenient “blind” use. Buttons on the front are not tight and convenient as well.

Power and Operation Time

The manufacturer claims up to 6 hours of playback and 7 hours of talktime. In real life I managed to get slightly more than 5 hours of music playback on iPhone 4, which is not the best parameter for this gadget. Moreover, why does Nokia still use an outdated jack and charger? An iPhone owner is likely to have a microUSB at hand, which is standard now. Subsequently, it will be difficult to find a cable for charging Nokia BH-111 from PC and you will end up carrying the charger around, which is really too bad. The charging time is two hours and the fast charging is not envisaged.

Multipoint

I still use the term for this technology, because it is all about connecting with two devices at a time. I tested the option with iPhone 4 and Blackberry 9900. Everything worked well and I had no connection issues. The RIM phone functioned predominantly as a player. I attempted to connect the headset to the laptop, but together with MacBook Pro 17 the Skype pair did not work, though I was more lucky with Sony VAIO F.

Phone Connection and Sound Quality

It is a music model, so I decided to test Nokia BH-111 with the music phone and the best candidate on the market is iPhone 4. The connection was hassle free, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR is supported, but the iPhone menu has no additional features. When you press Play on the headset the player does not start automatically, but then works well. You can pause and resume. Rewinding is impressive. To keep the volume down you need to move the wheel for a long time and it is easier to pause if you need to mute it for some time. Alternatively, you can take the iPhone out and put the volume down there. As I said in the box you will find inexpensive, but good headphones with decent sound. If you like another model can be used instead, but the majority will do fine with the default solution. Speech reproduction is decent and if you keep it near the mouth interlocutors will hear you pretty well. There is no echo or delays and interlocutors hear each other.

Conclusions

First let's mention advantages of this $80 headset:

Good design, build and materials
Nice controls and I especially enjoyed the volume wheel
Decent quality headphones
Quality sound and speech transmission
Simultaneous operation with two phones

On the downside we get an old charger and a 2 mm jack. Operation time is not impressive and the case or pouch would be nice in the box. Other than that it is a strong headset for music fans valuing wireless playback. In winter Nokia BH-111 is particularly handy. I think the company managed to come up with another hit product, which I can easily recommend for purchase.

P.S. Hey, Nokia I am getting tired of buying your products for review.

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

Sergei Kuzmin ([email protected])
Twitter Livejournal
Translated by Maxim Antonenko ([email protected])