Motorola H680 Bluetooth Headset Review

Moto H680 – Real-World Performance

Initial charging of the Motorola H680 took a couple of hours to complete out of the box, but as soon as we turned on the headset for the first time, it was in pairing mode and we paired it to our workhorse Treo 750 in under a minute. As advertised, Motorolas EasyPair technology made pairing the Bluetooth enabled mobile device pretty simple. If you want to pair a new device, all you need to do is turn off or Un-Pair the first device, and the H680 will go into pairing mode straight away after being powered back on. Of course, this forces you have to at least be aware and pay attention on where and when you power the Moto unit on. I actually didnt even fuss around with the power button during our week of testing so it really wasnt a big deal.

The Motorola H680 does not have active noise cancellation, but did adequate job of transmitting our voice in noisy environments. At a price point well under $80, we dont really expect superb noise cancellation like the Jawbone-series of headsets, but we do expect to be able to communicate with our party easily. The Motorola headset met these expectations, but there were complaints that the voice quality seemed hollow and distant. Unlike the Plantronics or Jawbone series of headsets, our callers could tell that we were definitely on a headset. Because of the lack of noise cancellation, our parties could tell exactly what was playing on the television or radio as well. If having active noise cancellation is a must for you, you might want to be wary of picking this headset up.

Volume output from the H680 was exceptional. Lately, our biggest concern with Bluetooth headsets has been the volume output from these sets. It seems that manufactures are getting a clue now that users dont want to always put a hand up to cup their ear to hear a conversation. No doubt the speaker placement from the H680 has much to do with the high volume level (relative to the majority of Bluetooth headsets on the market), nevertheless, it is welcomed.

To test the Motorola H680, we used our normal cache of mobile devices: Treo 750, Apple iPhone, MDA Vario, and LG Envy. Overall, the H680 was a great performer and all functions worked as advertised with little fuss and hassle. We found that when making or receiving calls, the Motorola H680 alerts and transfers calls very quickly. You will not miss any parts of the conversation as you dial out either since the H680 immediately connected to each phone as we tested it. During our test, each one of our test phones performed almost identically and we didnt have any complains due to hardware incompatibilities.