Sony DRBT101/BLK Over-the-Head Style Stereo Bluetooth Headset Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I wasn't sure about these, but bought a pair because of the relatively long battery life as far as bluetooth headsets go and the convenience of having no wires to mess with at all. There are some good points, but, unfortunately, they are overwhelmed by all the drawbacks, especially their loose fit. Here are my thoughts:

Pros:
- Sound quality is right where I expected for the price. They aren't audiophile phones by any means, but they are a significant step up from the cheapy phones that come with MP3 players and the like. I tried some jazz, big band, vocals, brass ensembles, organ, piano, and orchestral music on them. Everything sounded just great, not phenomenal, but very good and clear overall with good balance between bass, mids, and highs.
- Excellent streaming bluetooth music quality. I noticed absolutely no difference in music quality between this set with streamed music over the bluetooth connection and a wired set with similar sound quality.
- Excellent reception range. With my MP3 player in one room and me down the hall with two closed doors in between us, the headset still kept pumping out the tunes with no static or signal loss. I couldn't get far enough away from the source in my little condo to get it to drop out or even skip. Pretty impressive.
- Nice control layout. The play/pause/skip, volume, and call answer buttons are all very easy to access. The one problem with the button layout is that the pairing button is behind the headband, so you can't really get to it while you are wearing the headset. That's not too big of a deal though, because you only need that button for the initial pairing. At least it has a dedicated pairing button so you don't have to remember some odd combination of other controls to get it into pairing mode.

Now for the drawbacks.

Cons:
- They are heavy for their size. I was quite surprised by the weight.
- They just have cheap foam covers over the earpieces. These tend to fall apart, get dirty, and get scratchy and uncomfortable over time and cannot be changed out.
- The connection between the earpieces and the headband is something of a little ball and socket joint that feels very fragile. The first time you accidentally put a little pressure on that joint, I imagine it will fail.
- All of the plastic is a very hard, brittle material. One fall or unfortunate squishing in a backpack and I'd expect to find the unit in lots of little pieces.
- The earpieces only rotate enough to accomodate your head, but do not fold flat for transportation. Since they don't come with a case of any kind and the earpiece connection does feel so fragile, these would be very difficult to transport safely.
- The tactile feel of the buttons isn't very pleasant. You can tell when you've pushed them, but they feel cheap. I wouldn't expect them to last long.
- The little plastic cover over the charging port is cheap and inflexible. A few cycles and I'm betting it will break off.
- It only comes with a USB charging cable (mini, not the smaller micro that's being used on the newest phones). If you want to charge from an outlet, you have to buy a separate charger. (It did only take somewhere between 2 and 3 hours to charge from a USB port, though. So, at least that goes reasonably quickly.)
- The headband forms a little loop over the earpieces. At first I thought it looked kind of cool. Then I put them on and looked in the mirror and almost laughed at how odd they look. You won't win any points for fashion or discreteness with these on.
- Here's the deal-breaker. This is why they are definitely going back. The gap for your head is too wide. When I first put them on, I was kind of like, "Oh, that's nice, they don't squeeze your head at all." Then I moved, and they almost fell off. With no wires attached, if they do come off, they aren't stopping until they crash to the ground. I have an average size head and they grip it so weakly compared to their weight that you can feel them moving around every time you move. If you look down, they slide most of the way off your ears then catch. But, when you look back up, they fall completely off. It's absolutely unworkable. The only way I could get them to stay on at all was to kind of put them at an angle so they would wedge in place a bit with the band going over the crown of my head towards the rear. That made them feel a little more secure on there, but looks pretty stupid and got uncomfortable very quickly.

So, the bottom line is, unless you have a super-sized head, they just aren't secure enough to use them for anything but sitting very still and listening to music. I wouldn't dare wear them out on a commute or during any other activity because there is a very real risk of them falling completely off with any sudden head movement, especially if you look up or down. Since there aren't any wires to stop their fall and they are made of such brittle plastics, that would spell almost certain death if you weren't nimble enough to catch them. It's also just plain unsettling to feel them shifting around with every little movement you make. It's too bad. They do sound pretty decent and worked well otherwise, but I would strongly warn against buying these unless you are a very, very sedentary listener.

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Product Description:
Enjoy wireless freedom with this over-the-head Bluetooth headset from Sony. It features an integrated microphone for hands-free wireless phone use and a remote that controls all the basic functions of your Bluetooth device. The built-in rechargeable battery provides up to 11 hours of music listening and talk time and is easily recharged via the included USB cable.

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