Noise Canceling Bluetooth Headset Review

Now that technology has made cell phones more popular than Watches and handbags, you can't go much of anywhere without seeing someone engaged in conversation with their hand plastered to their ear. This has become a bit of a problem since it ties up on of your hands and distracts you (while driving). That's probably why the most popular accessory since the phone charger itself is now the "bluetooth headset".

Noise Canceling Bluetooth Headset Review

Noise Canceling Bluetooth Headset Review

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Noise Canceling Bluetooth Headset Review

Noise Canceling Bluetooth Headset Review

What Is a Bluetooth Headset?

Nearly all modern cell phones have "bluetooth" capatibility. Mobile phones equipped with bluetooth have the ability to create a "personal area network" or PAN. A PAN is a short-range radio frequency meant to connect small devices like cell phones, laptops, PC 's, printers, digital cameras, video gameconsoles, etc. So a bluetooth headset is just a small earpiece with microphone that connects to your cell phone via this short range wireless frequency on your personal area networks. Now you know why you see so many people walking around talking to themselves that look like they're from the cast of Star Trek because of the futuristic device attached to their head.

What Makes a Good Bluetooth Headset?

A good bluetooth headset is comfortable and made out of quality materials that will last a long time. It has as decent battery life, and hopefully the audio quality doesn't sound like a semi driving through a tunnel. There are two sides to quality audio and the first is the earpiece. What you hear while talking on the phone through the bluetoothheadset is in part determined by the quality of that Speaker in the earpiece itself. A very low quality sub-$ 20 wireless you bought in a bargain store or flea market is likely to have very tinny audio due to the Speaker quality. Without some decent bass and mid-range response you're likely to have problems listening for any extended period of time. The largest factor of quality however lies in the microphone. It's garbage in-garbage out they say, and you'll only hear audio quality if that's what the microphone picks up. The same for the person you've called, the audio they receive on their end is only as good as what your microphone picks up. Often, that quality is affected by your physical location. If you are in a car with an open window, in a subway station, or at arestaurant-the microphone is likely to pickup much more than your voice. In contrast, if it's a nice sunny day at a quiet park or if you're inside the headset on your sofa will likely have much better audio.

What is Noise Cancelling Technology?

Noise Cancelling Technology is where a headset attempts to differentiate between your voice and background noise. It then separates the two to the best of it's ability, canceling out the noise and transferring along only your voice to make the audio quality cleaner. Of course this works with varying degrees of success from poor to stellar. Once again the quality of the noise canceling bluetooth headset (and price paid) are probably pretty good indicators of the audio quality produced. Noise cancelling bluetooth headsets inis also called "Digital Signal Processing" or DSP. With better noise canceling Headsets usually have more than one microphone (two or more) to be able to separate the noise better.

What are the Best Noise Canceling Bluetooth Headsets?

There are a handful that are simply exceptional and really stand out from the crowd you should take note of. I'll tell you what makes each one unique.

The Eliph Jawbone
The Jawbone has been getting absolutely rave reviews since it was first shown at CES early 2008. The Wall Street Journal, c |Net, engadget, Financial Times, and Macworld all give it stellar reviews. On c|Net the user reviews are a bit lower than what the editor's gave it, but all in all they are still above average. It uses "military grade" noisecanceling technology. You can usually find it new for $ -100.

The Jabra BT800

There are online reviews of the Jabra BT800 going back as far as 2005, which means this headset has been out awhile. Jabra is the world's largest maker or bluetooth headsets, largely because of their lower pricepoint compared to others on the market. The thing that makes the BT800 popular to this day is what sets it apart-the digital display for caller ID. This is a feature not found in nearly any other bluetooth headset. The SDR in this headset boasts both noise cancelling and echo cancelling. Admittedly since this unit has been out a few years, newer units like the Jawbone will have better DSP, but then again you can get the Jabra BT800 under $ 40 -50now.

The Blueant Z9

The Blueant Z9 bluetooth headset came on the market in 2007 and retails for about $ 100. It claims to have advanced noice cancellation that preserves the natural voice. " They call this their "Voice Isolation Technology". In addition this unit has 2 modes for noise cancellation, both standard and "Max". I guess you could be at the market or in a dog kennel and having the options for extreme circumstance can't be all that bad. It's highly rated by most users at tech sites, in fact more highly rated that all the Motorola bluetooth headsets we viewed.

The Jabra 8040

Noise Canceling Bluetooth Headset Review