Bluetrek G2 Bluetooth Wireless Headset

Posted Sept. 14, 2004 by Tong Zhang, Senior Editor

The Bluetrek G2 Bluetooth headset is made by Innovi Technologies, a Hong Kong based research and manufacturing company that’s been making networking and mobile products since 1988. The Bluetrek G2 headset is their second generation Bluetooth wireless headset. It supports both Headset and Hands-free profiles, has a very sleek form factor, good voice quality, and it’s very easy to operate.

The Bluetrek sports a sleek design with a grey body surrounded by silver side covers and a chrome face cover that acts as multi-function button. A clear plastic button sits in the middle of the chrome button and doubles as LED for power status, pairing indicator and on/off status. There are two small light silver buttons on each side of the headset, two of which are volume up and down controls and the other two are dummies that do nothing other than make the headset look symmetrical. The speaker housing is made of a soft plastic (almost rubber-like) and doesn’t use a foam cover. The ear loop has a clever design: it’s attached to the headset with a hinge that allows the ear loop to be easily turned one way to fit your right ear and another way to fit the left. No need to take the ear loop down to change sides. The ear loop is made of flexible materials and seems to have a stiff wire running inside to hold the loop in whatever shape you bend it. You may have to experiment for a while to get the loop in the correct shape to keep the earpiece seated in your ear, but once you finally get it right, it fits very well. The headset weights about 12 grams and feels very light.

The Bluetrek G2 supports both Headset and Hands-free profiles. We tested it with the HP iPAQ 6315, the XDA II, Sony Ericsson P800 and the Nokia 3650 (which has only Hands-free profile). It is very stable with the iPAQ 6315, and we had no trouble transferring calls, resuming from standby or using MS Voice Command. Pairing the headset was easy on all devices. Holding down the multi-functional button in the middle of the headset until it flashes red and blue alternately, discover it with your phone, enter the default pass code (0000) and voila, you’ve got them paired.

The voice quality is very good on all the phones in our test. Both incoming and outgoing calls are clear without added white noise or static. The noise canceling worked well in quiet and medium noisy environments. A slight hissing sound can be heard if you use it in the presence of a noisy car engine (think sports car or diesel engine). Sound transferring between the phone and the headset is very speedy. On all the phones we’ve tested, the headset was always intelligent enough to know when a call came in or you dialed an outgoing call, and picked up the sound quickly. You can listen to system sound or MP3 on PDAs and use voice command to talk to your PDA via the headset.

The range didn’t perform as well as the sound quality. We get maximum of 10-15 feet between the phone and the headset before we start getting random noise and voice quality degradation. The landline test faired well. The G2 has very smooth sound on both receiving and outgoing voice. The noise canceling worked very well.

The Bluetrek G2 supports some key phone features such as voice dialing, mute calls, redialing the last number and rejecting calls. However, the redialing and rejecting call functions only work in Hands-free profile. The headset also supports Microsoft’s Voice Command on the iPAQ 6315. You can use the headset to open contacts, see your calendar, etc. on your PDA by just talking to it via the headset, providing even more hands free options when using the headset with PDAs with voice command capability. Another great feature is that it can work with two mobile phones, supporting multiple pairings. You can pair the headset with two phones and make calls on the primary phone and receive calls on both via the headset.

The Bluetrek has a rechargeable lithium polymer battery that takes less than 2 hours to recharge. We get 5-7 hours of talk, PDA sound/voice command usage per charge. The standby time is about six days, which is very good. The G2 manual recommends charging your headset only when you’ve drained the battery. You should not leave the headset on the charger for a long time. They state that if the battery drains completely, it might take up to 10 hours to charge it fully back up again.

Pro: Sleek design with just the right size and weight. It’s easy to operate and pair with a variety of phones. The voice quality is quite good and noise canceling function performed well in quiet and somewhat noisy environment. Supports duo profiles and some important features such as voice dialing, mute calls and sound transferring. Great battery life compared to most Bluetooth headset currently on the market.

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headset kit

Above, the included charger, manual, headset and case.

Con: Noise canceling is less impressive in very noisy environment. The range between the phone and the headset doesn’t exceed 10-15 feet. The headset hangs once in a while. You can power cycle it to reboot the headset if it hangs.

The package includes the Bluetrek Bluetooth wireless headset, an A/C charger, a leather carrying case with belt clip and a printed user manual in 6 Western Languages. Optional accessories which you can purchase separately include in-car charger and the BT07 universal adapter and cable for phones without built-in Bluetooth support. The headset is available in Titanium and Blue Steel .

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