Jawbone II!

[Zodduska]

I had the plantronics discovery 665 and while the incoming SQ was good and fit was great.. it has no noise canceling at all so outgoing quality was fairly poor.. the mics pick up every little sound around you.. I returned it when the JB2 came out:

I've had the JB2 since release and I like it but it did take quite a bit of fussing to get a perfect fit.

The first thing I did was bend the crap out of the ear loop until it started pressing the JB against my face then after that I took a look at the earbud.. even the largest size seemed to come loose pretty easily if I moved my head around, I solved this by putting one PK1 donut foam over it.. this was very comfy and worked well, most any earbud foam should have similar result. I had however already ordered some jabra large size mini-gels

and when they arrived worked out even better than my makeshift earbud, the JB2 sits even closer to my head and is basically immovable.. yay

incoming SQ is not great, wind noise canceling is worthless (I think this is impossible with a mic based headset), other noise canceling works fantastic, volume levels are kind of a pain.. the loudest is too loud, 2nd to loudest is too quiet.. range is as advertised ~30feet

In the end it's worth the effort for a sleek little bluetooth if the price doesnt bother you.

[MediumFi]

Jawbone: the Bose of BT headsets!

Actually, I had better experiences with Bose then the Jawbone...

Jawbone did a great job of recording my voice. They were so good that people never raised their voice to talk to me, even when I was in a noisy environment. That leads to the first major complaint: I can't hear the other person!

What good does it do to have a hands-free headset that requires me to hold my hand up to my ear to push the headset into place and block out ambient noise? When I adjusted the ear loop to tighten the fit, it constricted against the back of my ear. When I contacted Jawbone about the low sound levels, they recommended that I buy an ear tip from their competitor. Say what? If you know your competitor makes a better ear tip, why not improve your own product?

The second issue is the terrible charging system. I used my headset so much that I had to charge it every day or at least every other day. The pins on the charger are prone to bending and being pushed in (then they no longer make contact). The adhesive used on the earpiece is too weak. After 100 or so charge cycles, the darned bond broke, making the earpiece pull apart unless I was very careful removing it.

These problems were not an anomaly. My first unit had all these problems. I liked the noise cancellation so much, though, that I bought a second unit. It had the same problems before simply refusing to charge anymore. I never bought a 3rd unit. Instead, I use the old reliable (but hated) ear bud attached to a cable.

If Jawbone came out with an IEM version with improved charging system, I'd love it! Until they address their two "killer defects", however, I'll pass on their product.