Mobileslate

As promised from my earlier post, my review of the Motorola MotoROKR S9 bluetooth headset. Thanks to Sprint and FedEx for making it possible.

• Overall an attractive looking package for a headset. The simplicity and red and black color combo look appealing.
• The overall weight is heavier than the Samsung Upstage, but I’m assuming the rubber and battery make it heavy.
• Putting the headphones on is a bit cumbersome at first, since you’re not sure how much you can bend it.
• Taking the headphones off is a bit cumbersome too, and if you don’t use two hands, one of your ears tends to pinch your ear.
• Maybe it’s because I have a big head, but after a few minutes, the headphone tends to pinch my ear lobe, but it’s not too uncomfortable.
• Bluetooth pairing was simple and quick. Oddly, when I tried to pair the S9 with a few other headsets, it only push audio into one of the earpieces and not both. Leads me to believe how device may process stereo vs. mono output.
• With the bluetooth active, there is a slight hiss when low or no sound is being heard. When music is playing, the sound is pretty decent. The bass and treble quality are perhaps as good as it can get with earbud-type magnet speakers. I’m biased for wanting more bass, but these will do.
• As these headphone do not cover over the ear, they do not block out 100% of the surrounding noise. They rest just inside your ear.

Oddities

• It seems that after I paired the headset to the handset, the audio did not seem to come through the headset when navigating. I tried to look for a setting to promote the audio output to the headphone only, but could not find the controls.
• When I loaded a game, the sound instantly transferred from the handset to the headphones. Quitting a game returned the sound back the handset.
• In using Pandora with the Samsung Upstage and the Motorola S9 headphones, the audio work through the headphones. With the available controls, it seems not possible to switch between the handset and headphones for audio output.
• Voice calls to and from the phone did not always work through the headphones, I will continue to see if this is a software problem or bluetooth oddity that seems to happen sometimes with some of the other bluetooth capable mobile devices that I have.

Verdict
I used to always be listening to music and almost always have a pair of earbuds or headphones on. These wireless headphones get rid of the pesky cord while being able to attach it to my mobile device. The battery life is good, claiming play time up to 6 hours, talk time up to 7 hours, and standby time up to 150 hours! I guess I need to go out and get the iPod nano bluetooth adapter so I can carry my iPod more frequently now…

Tags:   bluetooth · content · data services · Mobile · Motorola · music · Pandora · SprintNo Comments