Build and Construction:
Build quality appears to be excellent with a solid feel and nice
buttons. The plastic used feels expensive with switches,
connectors and buttons all feeling solid. The appearance
color is silver and black. The connector for power is
along the inside of the unit and mates with a connector in the
standard SE charging adaptor. You can see the connector in
the picture below.
Comfort: Comfort is
always subjective and I must admit that I am biased toward ease of
use with glasses since I am always taking them off or putting them
on. This headset is NOT comfortable to me and I could not
find a way to make it comfortable. I think it is a design
flaw based on ear geometry that is different than European
ears. I could find no setting or position of the ear hook
that would allow the earpiece to set in the proper place in the
ear canal.
I have included photos to illustrate the
problem.
Here you can see that the ear loop needs to
extend back further to allow for comfortable adjustment of the
earpiece in the ear canal while still looping the ear.
Here I am pushing the cartilage back so that I
can even wear it.
In the photo above the speaker is pinching
against the cartilidge in my ear and there is a gap between the
earpiece and the ear canal.
Visual size comparison between HBH610, D640,
Flamingo and D510.
Connectivity: Pairing
is easy. I had no problem pairing it to a BB 8700 and a BB
7290. On powering it on, it instantly connects to the
handset. I have not had it drop a connection while in
use. It is sensitive to placement relative to the handset
and does not like the handset to be on the left hip if the headset
is in the right ear and vice-versa.
Visual size comparison between HBH-610, D640 in
holder and Flamingo.
Sound Quality:
Outgoing sound quality was very good but not as good as the
D640. In back-to-back calls to individuals and in the
recordings you can hear that the D640 is louder and clearer.
Incoming sound quality is a little distorted and not on par with
the D640. In general incoming sound was closer in quality to
the nXZEN than the Plantronics units. However, I will let
you be the judge in the sound shoot-out I had between 6 units,
first in a quiet environment and then in a noisy
environment. Noise cancellation is pretty descent but you
can hear the effect of the noise cancellation and it is not as
good as the D510. Volume level was not as good as the D640
or D510, usually needing more than a 2/3 volume setting for
adequate volume.
Quiet Sound Tests using 8700:
Sony
Ericsson HBH-610
Plantronics
D640
Plantronics
D510
Plantronics
M3000
nXZEN
5500
Flamingo
Noise Cancellation:
Noise cancellation is good. In every test you can hear only
barely hear the background noise but you can hear the effects and
in some ways those effects are more obtrusive than some sets that
don't achieve the same level of noise cancellation. The D510
was clearly superior in this category. I have not yet tested
in windy conditions.
Noise Tests using 8700:
Sony
Ericsson HBH-610
Plantronics
D640
Plantronics
D510
Plantronics
M3000
nXZEN
5500
Flamingo
Ease of Use: The
unit is easy to use with just two buttons, one being a nice square
large button for connecting, disconnecting, powering on & off
and pairing. The second switch is a rocker switch for
volume. I find the unit easy to use but very uncomfortable.
Other Comments:
Sadly, this very attractive unit did not make my top three.
I had hoped to see a unit that could compete with the Flamingo and
the D510 but this isn't the unit. Maybe on SE's next try
they will address some of these issues. In all fairness to
this unit, I cut this review a bit short because of the headset
discomfort. Perhaps with additional tests it might have made
a better impression on me. I just couldn't get there.
