Hear, hear for the Jabra Stone?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 13 December 2010 08:02

Your IT - Mobility

Jabra's polished 'stone'-like Bluetooth headset is launching in Australia at last, bringing A2DP technology along for the ride, transforming what is normally a voice-only wireless headset into one that also plays music, Internet radio and more through the headset at much higher quality than non-A2DP headsets, as single-ear Bluetooth headsets finally go beyond the voice-only paradigm. What's it like?

If you've ever used a standard Bluetooth headset on an iPhone and have tried to use it to listen to the audio from your music, videos, Internet radio or any other sounds your iPhone makes, you'll have noticed something: none of that audio plays through the headset.

Sure, your non-A2DP, standard Bluetooth headset works fine for voice calls on your iPhone, but if you try to play music, you get nothing.

Interestingly, you will get music and Internet radio playing through a non-A2DP Bluetooth headset on a Nokia smartphone, for example, but at much lower quality than an A2DP headset would deliver, thus dramatically lessening the overall listening experience, or at least the one beyond voice and video calls.

What's the answer to this problem? The answer is to put A2DP technology into 'standard' single-ear Bluetooth headsets as Jabra has done with its Stone, something normally only seen on stereo Bluetooth headsets that go over both ears.

Jabra's Stone has thus been a revelation for my iPhone use, finally letting me listen to audio, Internet radio and the audio from videos over a single-ear Bluetooth connection at the expected high yet normal quality, and for the most part it has been a very enjoyable experience.

This is one of the major differences between the Stone and other headsets, although as you will see, there are others, not least of which is which market segment I believe Jabra's Stone is really aimed at.

The biggest new feature is what Jabra calls a 'new, ground-breaking shape', which fits over your right ear only, at a weight that is so light, it really can be easy to forget the headset it there, just as the Stone's feature list promises.

The 'over the ear' shape of the Jabra stone fits into a stone-shaped battery that gives the Jabra Stone a total 8-hour battery life during the day, although in chunks of one to two hours at a time before you plug the headset back into its 'stone' for both storage and recharging.  

'MultiUse' technology lets you connect the Stone to two devices at the same time, the simple 'Status Display' shows you Bluetooth connectivity and battery status 'at a glance' are two nifty features, and when you push the Jabra out of its stone-shaped charging holder, it automatically turns itself on.

There is only one button, which is used to answer and hang up on calls, or to stop and start audio. Fascinatingly, this has led some to claim in US online reviews that there is no on/off switch.

However I found this to be nonsense from people who didn't read the manual or jumped to assumptions, then ending up stuck in false beliefs.

What's the unbelievably simple way to turn it on and off then?

Continued on page two, please read on!