[Ennjay]

Believe me. I took full advantage of Best Buys superb return policy. Verizon's as well.

[vinmontRD]

Originally Posted by Ennjay

Believe me. I took full advantage of Best Buys superb return policy. Verizon's as well.

Tempting. I'll swing by my local Best Buy, check out the return policy and their BT headset selection. If it looks reasonable, I may start the process there...

thx...

[LarryH]

Originally Posted by vinmontRD

Thx Larry... I've been through too many BT headsets, and never quite found one I could live with, and it's discouraging to essentially cough up $80 to $100each time to discover another disappointment. Would be nice if I could try about a dozen of them for about two weeks, and only pay for the one I like most (I'd even return the others). But that's not likely to happen.

I've been reading up on the Z9, and it sounds good - except I'm a bit concerned reading that the earpiece has been reported as being a bit large and uncomfortable - which is one of my issues with the Jawbone, and why I resorted to experimenting with a Jabra mini gel to replace the stock Jawbone earpiece (with only limited success).

Would be nice to see a Z9 and try it before buying... but short of that, I'll be looking for other people's reviews and trying to get a sense of it from that. Curious to hear about your experience with it.

Well, as with most of this stuff, YMMV (your mileage may vary.) When it comes to something subjective like fit and feel, it's pretty hard to go by other people's experiences. Unless something's universally panned, it still comes down to "one man's poison."

I love my Jabra JX10, my Samsung WEP200 and the some of the others I've played with. I made the comment about Plantronics headsets not supporting call-waiting directly on the headset and yet you'd be hard-pressed to find any mention (even in professional reviews) about this. FWIW, Plantronics will confirm this. Clearly, to most, that doesn't matter. It might to some.

And when it comes to comfort... wow, that's really getting into the YMMV area. The best any of us can report is how well the units do what they claim to do. What might be the most comfortable for me might be torture for the next guy.

Good luck. I will test out the noise-cancelling aspects of the Z9 (I have a Jawbone as well) and get back to you. The Jawbone's fascinating but it's biiiiig. As much as we depend on the functionality of these things... at the end of the day, they're our toys as well. And, when it comes to toys, can you ever have too many?

[dtboos]

Nextlink Invisio B3 is the best I've used so far.

I buy my BT gear at BlueHeadsets.com: best discounts on wireless Bluetooth headsets and Bluetooth stereo headsets

[egale]

For all you curious folks, I had the Z9 for a couple of days. Horrible!!!!!

Fit is ok. Loudness ok. Incoming sound ok. Outgoing sound bad, muddy and garbled. A call to Blueant tech support helped but it still doesn't come close to my WEP200 or Plantronics 510.

Noise cancelling made it worse. At its max setting, sitting next to the tv, the sound was so broken up you could not understand and, you could still hear the tv.

I brought it back!

[jr956678]

Originally Posted by vinmontRD

Interesting - you seem to like the Blackberry more than the 665...but aren't they both essentially the same? (at least the plantronics 655 and the BB version?).

They are - for the most part. RIM has reportedly "tweaked" the HS-655 in some fashion to optimize it for use with a Blackberry. I don't know what they have done but it does seem to work better than the 665 does. The most obvious external differences are the HS-655 has the Blackberry logo in the multi-function button, and shows as a Blackberry 655 in the phone's paired device list instead of a Plantronics 6xx. Functionally the most obvious difference I see is less static and better range - the 665 had to be in my holster on the same side of my body as the headset or it would get quite "staticy" - the HS-655 can be up to 10-15 feet away before I start to get static in it.

I believe the only differences between the Plantronics 655 and the 665 are the implementation of a noise cancellation technology they call AudioIQ.

[vinmontRD]

Great info from all of you - thanks! But as usual, I suspect I'm starting to overthink this, and just succeeding in making the decision harder...

Larry - I certainly appreciate your point re: ymmv, especially regarding fit and comfort. Ears certainly vary from person to person, and coming up with a universally comfortable fit is virtually impossible. You also caught my attention re: Plantronics not supporting call waiting on the headset - I would find that *very* annoying! Ideally, I'd like the phone in my pocket or its case - where I don't have to bother with it when I'm using a BT headset: I shouldn't have to fumble for the phone when I hear a call waiting signal! Excellent point.

Not sure what to think about the Z9 at this point - but egale's post certainly makes we wonder, although it's conceivable that a dud may come off the assembly for any product. But I'm wary now about this.

dtboos' post about the Nextlink Invisio B3 mirrors what I've read from a few others, although I can't find any real reviews on this yet. Their "soft spring" looks like a neat idea - I wonder how it would feel after an hour or two? When I looked at their website, confusing the issue is the fact that they have two new very neat looking headsets coming out later this year: the Invisio G5 and the Invisio Q7, both of which look extremely promising. See:
INVISIO Q7

The Q7 looks like it may have all the audio benefits that you might expect from the Jawbone or Z9, but what appears to be greater concern for comfort and fit. (EDIT: I just read on one site that the Q7 *is* an upgrade to the Jawbone - and that Invisio made the Jawbone for Aliph??? see:
Cellphones: Invisio Q7 Bluetooth Headset With Jaw-Sensing Technology - Gizmodo

Then I found that it seems that production of the G5 and Q7 was delayed a year. Impact Wireless is taking pre-orders for the products with anticipated release next month...see:
Impact Wireless)

The G5 appears to be incredibly small, but with the same "soft spring" fit.

What to do? I'm finding that I avoid using the Jawbone except for car trips where I know I'll need to be on the phone - it's that annoying. My Cardo Scala is simply disappointing and somewhat mediocre. My HS850 has mediocre volume and lousy noise resistance - especially since it doesn't use an in-ear earpiece. So I'm ripe for a new headset.

Sometimes I think it would be better to know *less*...

[vinmontRD]

OK - more info!

Appears that NextLink ran into trouble last year and all was delayed when a key employee left. Although they're planning to release these headsets later this year, a year delayed - it seems that they licensed the Q7 technology to Samsung, and this is the basis for the WEP 400! (I love convergence).

So - the Samsung WEP 400 appears to be, essentially what the Q7 was intended to be late last year. I'm also encouraged by the comments from WEP 400 owners who seem to really like it... Here's a picture:

[Ennjay]

I've heard the Samsung 200 is a nice set. I didn't try this one, but I did try the 410. It was nice fitting and all, but I was told the sound was horrible, and even in a quiet room people couldn't hear me. The 200 on the other hand I've heard nothing but great things, and it seems to be fairly cheap online now.