Motorola H605 (maybe H600 in Europe?) BT Headset

[Guest jcostantino]

I just received it a few hours ago and let me just say I'm not terribly impressed. This is Moto's (first?) behind the ear design, similar to the Jabra 250 and others.

Briefly.. it fits great BUT it's awkward and time consuming to slip over your ear. It also looks great BUT it is HUGE. I have a big head and decently sized ears and I look like (more of) a dork with this thing hanging off of my head. With that said, I don't feel like I'm going to lose it like my HS820.

The "soft touch" material they mention in the promo material is basically a thin moulded piece of rubber. When they say "soft touch" they really mean "not covered in spikes" since it doesn't yield to anything. I was expecting some kind of gel or silicone. It is very comfortable to wear and you only slightly notice the weight on your ear.

Putting the 605 on is a bit tricky. Since the entire earpiece is rigid except for the speaker which pivots and twists - you slide the "boom" part between the ear lobe and your skull and rotate it down along the back of the ear. It's hard to explain precisely what's going on but once you do it once, it's not so bad. Problem is that the joint for the twist/pivot of the speaker is very loose and the speaker gets turned the opposite direction and you need to fiddle with it to turn it back around.

The button layout is fairly standard, Call/End button which does voice dialing, redial, etc.. volume up and down keys. There is also a (huge) blue LED on the front of the "boom" part. It blinks when in standby and is solid when on a call. When it's not lit, the lens is silvered and looks very slick but when the light is on, it looks like something out of Star Trek, which may or may not be your thing.

Incoming sound quality is excellent. My biggest complaint with the 820 is that the volume is too low at maximum levels, the H605 does not have this problem - mostly due to the speakers closer proximity to the ear canal. Everyone I called sounded clear and loud.

Outgoing voice quality was something completely different. The first person I called couldn't hear me so I had to switch to the 820 which he said was much better. Being that I only partially charged the 605, I figured I would fully charge it and try again - the second time I called, it was with a fully charged battery and he said I sounded better but muffled, and the headset would drop out whole sentences as I was speaking! Later, my wife called and I picked up with the 605 and was promptly asked "What's wrong?" When I asked her why she asked that, she told me that I sounded sad and distant on the phone. Apparently, the H605 - when it does work - makes outgoing audio so muffled and distant that people think you are horribly depressed! She also said it was dropping out whole sentences of mine!

Did I mention what it plays when a call comes in? "Flight of the Valkyries" I don't know why they chose such an obnoxious ring without even giving the option of changing it to a simple "beep beep"

If you can't tell, I'm completely displeased with this headset in almost every respect. The only thing they got right was incoming call audio. Everything else is a major disappointment. I suppose if you're a loud talker, the muffled microphone of the 605 would be acceptable but I'm used to being able to talk quietly with the 820 and be heard clearly.

I let a girl at work try it on and she looked ridiculous with it on. I don't know how the design concept got OK'd at Motorola but it looked great in the pictures and it's just bizarre in person, especially wearing it.

My next headset is probably going to be the Jabra 250v, I should've gotten that one in the first place.

Edited June 13, 2006 by jcostantino