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![]() Plantronics Voyager 510A Headset We'd Wear![]() Price:
$99
by Brian Heater Most Bluetooth headsets manage to defeat the purpose of going wireless. Either they're too painful to wear for extended periods of time or they run out of juice halfway through your workday. The Voyager 510 is different. In addition to offering a whopping six hours of talk time, it's the most comfortable wireless headset we've ever tested.
The device comes with three removable speakers of varying size and shape, covered in a spongy cloth, that are easily attached to the headset in order to rest snuggly in your ear canals. It's an effect that's fairly similar to your average stereo ear buds. The Voyager's top and boom arm swivel to adjust the headset for use on the right or left ear. The swivel function allows for the user to fold up the headset for easier storage when not in use. At a relatively light 0.7 ounces, it's fairly easy to forget that you have the device stored in your pocket, never mind on your ear. The boom's arm extends off of the headset more than two inches, ensuring clear speech. The headset has only three buttons: Power, Volume (both located on the base) and a single Call Control button that makes for simple call pickup, hangup, redial, and pairing with Bluetooth-enabled devices. When held down for two seconds, the call control button activates voice dialing for phones that support the feature. An LED on the outside of the boom flashes either red or blue to indicate whether the device is powering on, off, or is ready to sync. The Voyager's sound quality is quite crisp when making stationary, indoor phone calls, producing an excellent, noise-free conversation on both ends of the call. Unfortunately, despite the Voyager's noise-cancelling capabilities, a small amount of wind or other exterior noise created a good deal of sonic interference on the other end of the call. We used the Voyager 510 to make calls using Skype with a Bluetooth-enabled Dell notebook, but our conversation sounded distorted on both ends. If you want to make calls from your office, but don't trust your cell phone's signal indoors, we suggest you pick up the Voyager 510S Bluetooth Headset System bundle ($249), which uses the headset with an office desk phone. Other than how good it feels on your ear, the Voyager 510's greatest strength is its endurance. With an impressive tested talk time of six hours, and an estimated standby time of 100 hours, you should be able to go a few days without a charge. At $99, the Voyager 510 isn't the cheapest Bluetooth headset out there, and we wish it sounded better outdoors. However, its unmatched comfort, long battery life, and ease of use make it worth the price. Compare Prices | Plantronics Voyager 510 Specifications
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