I just picked up the Plantronics Voyager 520 Bluetooth headset and I got to say that I like it a lot. I was looking for a cheap bluetooth headset as the one I had, the Motorola H500, was not behaving and was dropping calls all the time. I don't know if it was old age or what but it wasn't performing up to par. Now as I looked around I found at Buy.com this unit selling for $49.99. Wasn't a bad price and was about $20 more than I was thinking. However for what I would get I realized it was a bargain. The thing can handle 2 phones. Interestingly enough I have 2 cellphones. One I had always had and another from my wife's plan. She was not in a contract for quite a while with AT&T formerly Cingular and they gave her 2 Motorola Razr phones to tie her down. Great thing is that we have mobile to mobile free calls so I use that phone to call her 99% of the time. With this uint, I can receive calls from both of my phones. That convenience is astounding as for a lot of times, I may have both phones in my pocket and have to reach out to get them. By the time I did, she would hang up and I would have to face the music answering questions like where I was and why couldn't I answer the phone. Since I got this, my availability has shot up more than 75%. Whether that's good or bad is another topic not for this blog.
The unit features a one touch button instead of the multiples you find on many sets that can make it hard to control. On the H500, there were 3 buttons. One to turn the thing on and off as well as set the status, another to turn the volume up and another to turn it down. With the voyager, its all in the motion. You can press the button as well as move it back and forth which accomplishes exactly the same thing.
One of the biggest benefits to it is the call quality. The manufacturer's claims of noise cancelling are true as folks I talk to don't complain anymore that they can't hear me or that I'm sounding muffled or choppy. I hear them crystal clear and they do the same.
Now for the cons. For me, the Plantronics voyager 520 is not the most comfortable. You have to make sure its properly seated in your ear since this can bring discomfort so much so that it hurts your ear when you press the button. Worse yet for me, I wear glasses which means the over the ear hook has to share my spectacles frame. This takes some extra time to adjust which I didn't have to do with the H500. However it doesn't fall off as often.
The other con I have is its inability to switch phones. If I'm on one of the phones and someone calls the other, I can't temporarily switch to the other phone and get back to the one I'm listening to. I am alerted that someone is calling the phone but I can talk to them and have to let the call go to voice mail.
Overall this is a great headset and I would recommend it to anyone looking to buy a low to medium priced bluetooth headset even if you don't want to use 2 phones at the same time, the capability of which makes this a great bargain.
Iain
