Jabra BT250 review

Published on: 18 November, 2005 by KidoBorg

Things have changed a lot since the first Bluetooth headsets appeared with 1-1.5 hours of talk time. BT250v like most of the today's headsets offers about 7h of continuous talk time and up to 200h of stand-by. Charging it takes about 2h and is done via the belt-holder/charger.

The point of a wireless headset is to able to roam around without the need of wireless, so range plays a big role in our testing. The BT250v performed unsatisfactory compared to the rest of the headsets currently on the market. If there is a clear line of sight, the BT250 can be used up to about 25 feet. At that range there is strong static, but still the voices are clearly understandable.

Model	Range (feet)
Jabra BT2500	25
Logitech Mobile Freedom	45
Cardo Scala-500	50
Jabra BT800	150

The table above shows at what distance communication was possible when there was a clear line of site between the headset and the phone.

Hearing the other party is no problem with the BT250v. The headset's volume can be adjusted from very loud to really hard to hear. The ear-piece reproduces sounds very accurately with excellent clarity. The problems come if you go outside or step in a noisy environment. The headset does not provide any kind of noise/wind-cancelling design or software, so the other party has hard time distinguishing your voice from the surrounding clatter.

For our tests we use a small fan supplied to us by Logitech to test their Mobile Freedom headset. The comparison chart below shows at what distance the voice was not garbled by the wind.

Model	Type of wind suppression	Range
Cardo Scala-500	Design	7.87in (20sm)
Logitech Mobile Freedom	Design	9.84in (25sm)
Jabra BT800	DSP	11.81in (30sm)
Jabra BT250	None	23.6in (60sm)

The table above shows at what distances the air-stream created by a fan does not suppress the voice of the person using that headset

The official specification calls for up to 8 hours of continuous talk time. In our test we achieved 6 hours and 40 minutes of continuously playing music - excellent achievement (only Logitech Freedom so far achieved 7h of continuous talk time in our tests).

Conclusion
There are different types of headsets for different needs. If you want to have a discreet headset, offering the most commonly used features, great battery life and ergonomics and lacking capability to cope with noisy environments, I recommend the BT250(v). The headset works great in a office-home environments where ambient noises are minimal. It is very comfortable to wear for long periods of time thus making it ideal for stretched conversations.