dandino's Full Review: Motorola H500 Bluetooth Headset
My wife and I upgraded to LG VX8300’s (review available), which are Bluetooth compatible. My wife had wanted the trendy Bluetooth headsets for a while, so we got one for her. After less than a week, she hated it so much she gave it to me. It’s a nice little toy, but it has some severe problems.
Style
The H500 comes in every color of the rainbow, so this is good for the style conscious. There is the flashing blue light around the Motorola logo, with a glossy black plastic finish.
Clarity
Usually, my mother is the first person to complain about the clarity of phone conversation. She would always complain about previous headphones that she could not understand me. I have never had a single complaint when using the H500. I find that the conversations I have are as clear as if I wasn’t using a headpiece. In this respect it works quite well, as I use it mostly in my noisy work environment or while driving.
Comfort
As long as you don’t move your head too much, it is ok, but not great. If you look up or turn your head too fast, it flops out and you can’t hear anything. I find it needs to be frequently re-adjusted. It sits flush against your ear, so at least there is nothing poking my eardrum. When you’re still, it is comfortable and lightweight.
Battery
The advertised battery life is 8 hours of talk time, however I think that is fairly exaggerated. 5-6 hours sounds more realistic to me. I only have it on when I’m on it, and I do not talk for extended periods of time on the phone. It does charge up fairly quickly, ~2 hours. The fun part is trying to figure out when the battery is about to die. Is it a bad connection? Is my phone dying? Is my Bluetooth dying? Is it interference? Who knows?
Range
I have left my phone and walked away to see how well it works. It gets a solid 25 feet. I have a small house, so when I put my phone down I can go through the entire house and into the basement without loosing signal.
Ease of use
Here is one of the problems I have with it. They tried to keep it simple, and they made it too simple. They have 1 button that basically does it all. I don’t keep this thing in my ear all day long, so when I get a call, I turn it on if I want to use it. It takes too long to connect and you need to be a master of timing. If you don’t hold the button down long enough, it doesn’t turn on, if you hold it down too long it will go into discovery mode and your phone won’t recognize it. This is one of the problems my wife simply couldn’t get over. She was tired of struggling with it, which is why I inherited it. The other major problem is that what do you do with this thing when not in use? My wife was called by her mother frantic one morning asking why my wife had been calling her all night. The H500 was in her purse and was redialing all night. I had the same experience; my boss was listening into a conversation with my wife, not intentionally. I had managed to call him and he could make out my voice and kept waiting for me to direct my attention to him. I tried to remedy this by purchasing a heavily discounted holster for it. It was from Motorola, but it was the ugliest and cheapest piece of junk possible. I never used it. And the final major problem is that I often find that the connection was made improperly. I can hear who I’m talking to, but they can’t hear me. This happens once every 4 or 5 conversations. Quite frustrating.
Summary
When I’m actually using it, I love it. But there are so many problems with it that it can be infuriating to get to the point of use. It’s not at the point where I’ll replace it, but when this one is lost/broken/dead I will definitely be buying a different model.
Type: Bluetooth HeadsetNoise Reduction: YesEar Coupling: Over the EarTalk Time: Up to 8 hoursStandby Time: Up to 130 hoursCharge Time: 1 HoursOperatin...More at Newegg.com
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