Apple Bluetooth earbud doesn’t suck… It slurps!
Posted December 31st, 2008 by GenghisPhlip
After 2 years o wanting one (but thinking they were a bit too expensive) I finally recieved an Apple Bluetooth earbud for my iPhone (Christmas gift!). I couldn’t wait to get it unboxed and put it to use. The packaging was very Apple (similar to an iPod Nano’s box) and the earbud came with a special cable that allows both the phone and earbud to charge at the same time.
The cable also automatically pairs the devices so setup is a snap (although I would have liked to have had the option of setting it up manually). The earbud took about 45 minutes to fully charge and then it was time to give it a test run. The first thing that I noticed was how perfectly it fit my ear and how light it was (so light that it would be easy to forget that one was wearing it). I eagerly dialed up a buddy and awaited the connection. That was when the device’s true nature became evident. Before the connection was even made I began hearing a loud static from the earbud. The static continued through the entire conversation which was actually much shorter than expected due to the static. I reset both the headset and the iPhone and tried again and again heard the static. My buddy and I had agreed that we would just deal with the static while I messed with settings i.e. volume, distance from device, etc… After adjusting the volume to a more reasonable yet still staticy setting I began testing the distance that I could get away from the phone while still maintaining a connection. I set the phone down on my desk and began to step away and the call dropped. Just like that less than 6 feet from the phone. I thought that I must have accidentally done something that caused the call to drop so I tried it again. Sure enough, everytime that I would get further from the phone than the distance from my hip to the earbud the static would increase exponentially and quickly the call would be dropped. I could not believe this. Bluetooth is supposed to give you a bit over 30 feet of distance between the devices and I was not even getting 6. I decided to just do some phone in pocket tests and put up with the static. On my 6th call (total) my phone indicated that the earbud’s battery was dying. My 6 calls were short (due to the static) and should not have killed the battery. I placed the headset back on the charger and left it until it indicated that it was fully charged and tried my tests again. Same results. It’s going back to the AT&T store. I’m done messing with it.
Evaluation: Nice looking, staticy, short distance between devices, extremely short battery life.
I found the same thing. I took the POS back and got a really cheap Moto that works great. Sorry you had to find out the hard way like I did.