For the purpose of this review the headset was used alongside my Android smartphone
My hat comes off to the guys and gals that make these "Unboxing" You Tube Videos, not being blessed with assembling skills of any shape or form, from furniture to engines. I do have the ability however, to invariably put something together and have parts left over and then spend the lifetime of that product waiting for a premature collapse.
With that background, I tend to open these boxes in the same frame of mind that you might have when getting back on a horse after being thrown. "Does it know I am nervous and I wonder how many extra parts I will have to store afterwards?"
The box did contain a lot of wires and parts but once you remove and plug in the charging unit and the parts that make up the headset, most of the other bits are options to use it with different equipment, or in a slightly different fashion, with a padded earpiece and microphone fitting over either ear.
I have always been a little off-centre, left handed, is a clue, but I found out some time ago I was in fact right eared. I never would have thought the human ear was that bothered how it was used receiving in stereo non-stop but with me my left ear had no interest in any inner earpiece, for work or listening to music, but my right ear, would give it a go but not for a prolonged period of time.
With this very comfortable headset, my left ear was totally enthusiastic and the position of the microphone comes into play also, left or right all easily adjustable.
Assembling the kit wasn't the anxious occasion I thought it might be, once the charger is plugged in it and the head set is quickly assembled and placed on the magnetic charging stand, it gradually fills up four white charging bars on the front and its ready to go, taking about an hour.
Pairing it with my mobile through Bluetooth was straightforward and the review model came with what I believe is an optional extra, in the form of a Busy Light, that plugs into the back of the charging stand, as would the other connectivity options, direct to a landline for example, flashing different colours depending on the activity being used.
I have used headsets that couldn't bear to be parted from the main communication device for anything other than short distances, before crackling or losing a connection but I wandered all over the office, then also much further away from my phone at home and the signal was always perfect.
In fact the connection was that good that I decided to make use of it to listen to the US Tennis Open at home, the only option available for those of us not having Amazon Prime this year and no one in the room could hear any muffled noises. I did however forget to cancel the pairing with my mobile after replacing the head set on the charging stand late at night and my phone in the morning was picking up calls I couldn't answer, it being downstairs, the headset up. My fault and not something you would forget to do if using it regularly. I like music and we have a shared Spotify account in our house and the quality of sound was fine for me but this is first and foremost a working tool that can play music adequately.
It can also facilitate conference calls and the ones we set up to use that facility worked fine.
I was slightly amused one morning when the earphone suddenly warned me in a female voice that the headset needed charging, I clearly hadn't gone through the instructions in detail as I didn't realise that was a facility the headset possessed.
The price in the UK is the wrong side of £200, depending on the model you choose but you get what you pay for. This is a high-quality piece of equipment that would not be a burden to wear in a job where you are making and receiving calls for a large part of the day and all the functions you might need in a communication device are present.
For more information visit the Sennheiser site.
