The latest from Plantronics, BlueAnt, and Aliph fight for your earspace

I’ve resisted buying a Bluetooth headset because I’m not down with cyborg fashion. But as the Borg used to say on Star Trek: The Next Generation, resistance is futile--especially now that many states are adopting laws requiring the use of hands-free devices while driving. Sure, you could use a wired headset, but wires are cumbersome--and besides, it’s 2010. In that spirit, we called in three intriguing new Bluetooth headsets and put them through their paces.

The Discovery 975's included charging case features a battery-life indicator.

For starters, all three look pretty slick as far as fashion goes, but the Plantronics Discovery 975 gets points for its elegant design and dead-simple setup. Its main button lets you make, answer, end, or reject calls. iPhone 3GS users can also press and hold it for a second to start up the phone’s built-in voice commands and place a call that way. The other two headsets, Aliph’s Jawbone Icon and BlueAnt’s Q1, also let you access the 3GS’s voice commands, though the process is more straightforward with the Discovery 975 and Jawbone Icon.

In the case of the Q1, you have to initiate verbal commands by first pressing the main function button and speaking the phrase “phone commands.” With that hurdle passed, voice commands become the Q1’s main differentiator. You can ask the device for remaining battery life, turn the headset on or off, pair it with your phone, and more--just by speaking. Sound quality on the Q1 during calls is excellent--as it is on the other two headsets--but the Q1’s ability to recognize voice commands suffers noticeably in noisy conditions.

The BlueAnt Q1 responds to voice commands, but it has a hard time hearing you in noisy surroundings.

On the other hand, the sharply designed Jawbone Icon offers a more limited spoken repertoire, audibly reporting just its remaining talk time if you press the function button. While it’s paired with your iPhone, a small battery-life indicator also appears at the top of the home screen--a great touch. When placing calls with it, we found its hard on/off switch to be much more intuitive than the invisible on/off button of its predecessor, the Jawbone Prime (4 out of 5 stars, Sep/09). And we successfully extracted the promised 4.5 hours of talk time out of each charge on the Icon--reasonable, considering that I’m lucky to get that much from my iPhone 3GS.

The Jawbone Icon comes in six styles, including the Ace shown here.

The Q1’s battery life is more limited (3 hours), but it does offer that voice control and A2DP audio, which lets you listen to music from your iPhone--a terrific feature that the other two headsets lack. Unfortunately, the Q1’s audio signal over Bluetooth was unreliable--it cut out pretty often during playback, and the problem got worse as the phone was moved further away.

The Discovery 975 matched the Jawbone’s sound quality and its 4.5 hours in charge life. It also comes with a small rechargeable charging case with a built-in battery meter. That’s a nice extra, but you’ll have to decide if the extra talk time is worth another $30.

For its hip design, long battery life, comfy fit, and sound quality, the Jawbone Icon takes the prize as the best headset of the three. But the Q1’s voice controls or the Discovery 975’s charging case could tip your scales in their favor if you’re interested in those features.

Discovery 975
COMPANY: Plantronics
CONTACT: www.plantronics.com
PRICE: $129.99
REQUIREMENTS: iPhone or other mobile phone with Bluetooth connectivity
Fast, easy setup. Lightweight, comfortable fit.
No A2DP audio. Expensive.

Q1 Voice Controlled Headset
COMPANY: BlueAnt Wireless
CONTACT: www.myblueant.com
PRICE: $99
REQUIREMENTS: iPhone or other mobile phone with Bluetooth connectivity
Excellent sound quality. A2DP audio.
A2DP streaming audio cuts out if phone is not close to headset. Noisy conditions disrupt voice-command recognition. Shorter battery life than the others.

Jawbone Icon
COMPANY: Aliph
CONTACT: www.jawbone.com
PRICE: $99.99
REQUIREMENTS: iPhone or other mobile phone with Bluetooth connectivity
Easy setup. Stylish yet affordable. Very good sound quality. Battery life shows up on iPhone's home screen. Comes in six different styles.
No A2DP audio.