I just found out about the Motorola Endeavor HX1. Is anyone using one of these? Cnet seems to believe its the best bluetooth they have come across.
(sorry, it's a bit long)
Hi!
I have the Voyager Pro, the Jawbone Prime and the Motorola HX1. That's crazy, right? Anyway, I've been testing them for weeks now, so I hope I can help anyone who has a hard time choosing among these.
So, the first thing is that the Prime is not a real multipoint headset. This means that while you can connect it simultaneously to 2 phones, it will only stay connected to one during an active call. In this regard, both the Pro and the HX1 are more advanced.
Pros and Cons:
Prime: +:it has the best wind noise cancellation - not counting the HX1's stealth mode of course. It looks cool, especially the earcandy line.
-: short battery life, no real multipoint.
Pro: +: it adjusts the earpiece volume if you enter a noisy environment, so you don't have to bother with volume control. This feature, the others do not have unfortunately. Great noise cancellation, good battery life.. etc
-: not so great wind noise cancellation, but no real negatives.. I think it looks okay. A bit big, but so what?
Hx1: +: among these, this is the ONLY headset that: announces which phone rings; announces which phone it has connected to, or disconnected from; ASKS you if you want the last number redialed on Phone 1, or Phone 2, and also gives you the opportunity to select whether you want to use the voice dialing feature on Phone 1 or Phone 2. Every time you turn it on, it announces the battery status (high, medium, low) plus you can also "ask" it by pressing the volume up and down buttons at the same time. Not only that, but it flashes blue when only one, and green when two phones are connected. Same with the battery. Don't want to put it on? No problem. Batt level high: green led, medium: orange, low: red.
It has the best battery life: 7 hours talk time, 10 days stby.
It is so loud, you will hear the other no matter where you are.
Stealth mode cancels out almost every noise, so if it is on, there is no comparison to the other headsets.
Motorola gives these extra, curved earbuds for the HX1. Those are so much better than the traditional ones. With those, the headset will never fall out of your ear. Really great.
-: no auto volume control on the wearer side; stealth mode is great, but it will make you sound.. well... interesting.
Noise cancellation: all three are really awesome.. but no.. The Prime is not better than the Pro. Actually I was a bit disappointed, since the Pro only uses a simple dual mic system. With constant noises, such as a hair dryer and a vacuum cleaner, the Pro is able to absolutely mask out noise! The only drawback is that when you speak, sometimes it masks out your own voice as well. The Prime will leave a little noise, but your voice is handled better. HX1 in CrystalTalk mode leaves the most noise unmasked, but it amplifies your voice as you enter a noisy environment. If you just want to be heard, and don't care about extreme noise suppression, Motorola is the best in this scenario.
Music: interestingly, none of them are good at blocking out music. And now I am talking about LOUD music. The HX1(in normal mode) and the Pro were equal. Music was loud, but my speech was also absolutely audible. The Prime cut out my voice sometimes, I was not really impressed.
My other test involved switching on a hair dryer (1700 watt Rowenta
) and blowing it on the headset at full power. After listening to the recordings, and repeating the tests over and over again, I found that the Pro and the HX1 in normal mode could not handle wind noise. In other words, I could ONLY hear the "wind", but could absolutely not hear myself. The Prime however did a very good job, probably thanks to its VAS sensor. Of course, if you switch the HX1 into stealth mode, you won't hear anything at all, just your voice.
I think feature wise and technologically, the HX1 is the best in this group.. and probably it is the best headset on the market today. But I really like and use all three of them, depending on my mood.
If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer. Hope I could help.
David
