Nokia BH-604 Bluetooth headset

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I’m very delighted to have been accepted by WOM World / Nokia as one of their gadget testers. For my first go at it, they sent me two units: a Nokia N81 8GB mobile phone and a Nokia BH-604 Bluetooth Wireless Headset, which is a beauty!

Music has not really been a big part of my life — I’ve just never been totally interested in collecting albums, memorizing lyrics, knowing about artists… I’d listen to music, yes, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to have my own CDs. Good thing, too, because I never had the urge to buy gadgets for music. Until now.

Nokia BH-604 Bluetooth Headset When I first put on this Bluetooth headset and played what music I had on the phone, I was an instant convert! Now I find myself asking friends for music files, and ripping CDs for saving tracks on my mobile phone.

The Nokia BH-604 (despite the not-so-flattering designation it’s been given) is an awesome piece of work. Listening to music with it is like being in a concert hall. (I have done that, at least.) The full stereo output is simply magnificent!

It’s rather big, but surprisingly light-weight, so there shouldn’t be much of a problem lugging it around (except that you might look like an out-of-place DJ). The design, however, is intuitive and has resulted in a comfortable piece of equipment. I like the placement of the buttons on the right cup: play/pause in the middle, forward up front, rewind in back, a volume slider below the cup, and a call button out of the way of the music-player stuff.

I was successful in pairing the headset with two Nokia phones: the N81 and the 6500c. I was also able to pair it with a Sony-Ericsson phone, and it worked just as fine. However, it probably won’t work 100% with Bluetooth devices that aren’t equipped with A2DP. To test the clarity of sound against Bluetooth distance limitations, I left the music player in my room and walked around the house. Despite the walls (although my door was left open), the sounds still came in crystal clear when I was about 40 feet away.

It’s not just for listening, though, because it has a built-in mic. Several times I used the wireless headset for calling, and the sound quality was just perfect (well, as perfect as our telecommunications networks can make it).

Call handling is a cinch. When listening to music and you answer a call, the music fades to the background and comes back to the previous volume setting after the call.

What’s more, it can also be paired with a laptop. I paired it with my Acer Aspire 4520, and was able to use it for video conferencing. My contacts on the other end of the line all told me that the audio coming through was decent.

What’s really impressive with the Nokia BH-604 is its battery. Believe it or not, I enjoyed the headset’s crisp, high-quality sound for 6 days before I completely drained its juice. I had it on for about 5 to 6 hours each day before it finally gave up. And the charging time is only about 1.5 hours.

The catch? It retails for a whopping P7,000+! On eBay.ph, though, there are sellers who’re willing to part with their headsets for about P5,000. I wouldn’t cough up more than a thousand bucks for a headset myself, but I imagine my music-loving friends would pay the tag price for this fantastic Bluetooth gadget.

This entry was posted on Monday, 19 May 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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