Motorola Wireless Headset HS810

Coming from a long line of mobile phone products, the Motorola Wireless Headset HS810 is the third generation wireless headset. Though it's not the lightest one we've tested, the HS810 has one of the slickest form factors and the smallest in size with boom closed. It supports up to eight different Bluetooth 1.1 compliant devices including Bluetooth cell phones, PDAs and computers that have either headset or hands-free profile.

The earpiece on the HS810 is oval. Though housed in 2” long plastic with silver finish on the front side, the earpiece has a large clear plastic cover, allowing the pulsing blue light to shine through. This feature is designed to show other people when you are on a call so they don't barge in on you while you are having a phone conversation. Very nice touch! At the top of the clear plastic piece, you will find a small strap hole where you can connect your neck strap and wear the headset on your neck. The 1.5” long boom can be fold up when the headset is not in use. The soft plastic rubber ear loop hangs on top of your ear, and can be snapped in for either the left or the right ear. The loop hanger feels very comfortable when you wear it. However I do prefer the Logitech claw-design where the headset doesn't compete with my glasses for ear space. The HS810 weighs in at about 20 grams, which is very light in weight.

The voice quality of the Motorola HS810 is very decent, though not as good as Logitech's Bluetooth headset. It performed very well while in line of sight, but the voice quality starts to deteriorate once there is a wall or floor in between the phone and the headset. The HS810 performs well within a 30 foot range and has easy-to-use volume and mute controls. The voice dialing works flawlessly with the voice tags you've recorded on your cell phone. In our test, the HS810 paired up with both the Nokia 3650 (hands-free profile) and the HP iPAQ 5555 (headset profile) very easily.

Motorola's estimated 5-hour talk time seems on target, and the standby time was about 4-5 days in our tests. While no one in this round up can beat Logitech's 10+ days of standby time, the 5-7 hour talk time seem to be comparable all around.