Sony HBH-662 Bluetooth Wireless Headset Review

Using The Sony HBH-662 Headset

Set Up:

After charging the headset for the first time, we were able to ?pair? the headset to both the Moto and Treo with no problems. Compared to the somewhat intricate steps it took to pair the Motorola HS-850 to the phones, pairing of the Sony Ericsson was quite simple. During the initial use, there is no complex button sequence to press on the headset. Just turn it on by holding down the main button on the side. Then navigate to the Bluetooth function of the phone and tell the phone to search for new Bluetooth devices.

The LCD indicator comes in handy at this point to let you know what mode the HBH-662 is in. There is a nice little animated icon for when the headset is searching for devices. And when its done pairing, it goes back to displaying the battery strength. If you want to pair the headset to another device, you can simply hold down both volume buttons to put the headset into its ?pairing mode?. Both phones found the headset as ?HBH-662? with no problem.

Functionality:

Our first test was to find out how well the headset connects to incoming and outgoing phone calls. When receiving calls on both the Treo and RAZR it took less than 1 complete ring for the headset to ring and visually identify the caller on its LCD. It was pretty cool to see the caller-ID function working on this headset. The 7-digit phone number starts to scroll as soon as the headset rings. Unfortunately, I could not get the headset to display the phonebook entry when calling. In other words, ?Nate? would not show up on the caller-ID, only his 7-digit phone number would. I pretty sure this is due to the functionality of the phone and not the headset. Sony Ericsson has said this phone book function works well on their cell phones.

With the touch of main button on the side, the calls are connected very easily. For outgoing calls, the user dials the number and the calls are automatically transferred to the headset usually before the end of the first ring.

I must admit, as a Treo 650 user, I was very excited to see these results for the Sony Ericsson headset and how well it worked with the picky Treo. Incoming and outgoing calls couldn?t be easier to connect to/from. The RAZR V3 again showed its ability to work with other manufacturers and functioned well with the Sony Ericsson HBH-662.

Sound quality on the Akono HBH-662 was very good. The speaker on the headset doesn?t sit directly in the ear canal but rather a little father back. I would imagine the size of a person ears could change the way the headset sits though. The sound quality of the voice as you are talking to other was quite good. No one ever complained about the quality or strength of my voice when talking and in fact had to be convinced that I was talking on a BT wireless device as opposed to using the phones built in microphone.

The volume on the HBH-662 is good. Not great. You will not find yourself turning down the volume or anything due to the loud speaker, but functions well when driving with the windows up or walking outside with no wind. You will find some that have modified this headset by removing the earloop and installing a JABRA Eargel to insert the HBH-662 directly into the ear. It might seem extreme, but one can get an incredible amount of amplification from this headset by implementing this ‘hack’?