Jabra BT800 review: Jabra BT800

The BT800 is an elegant silver model with accents of black and a bright blue LCD screen. Designed for simple ease-of-use, controls are kept to a minimum -- 2 buttons sit neatly along the body, and placement makes them easy to operate while wearing the headset. Depending on the length of time they are pressed, these buttons provide various functions; the power button is also used to end calls, and the "answer" button can place callers on hold.

A blue LED on the center of the headset is used to activate the menu, and doubles as a mute button. We found the scroll wheel (called a "jog" wheel -- presumably aimed at the more athletic mobile phone users wanting to stay completely hands-free while out for a run) very easy to navigate through the menu, and especially handy for volume control.

There is a myriad of call features including last number redial, caller ID, recent calls, call waiting, hold, mute, etc. Other functions include a vibrate alert, selection of polyphonic ringtones, voice dialling, and DSP (Digital Signal Processing) for noise cancellation.

The flexible, rubberised earloop can be rotated up to 180° to fit comfortably on either ear. For optimal performance, Jabra recommends wearing the headset on the same side of your body as your phone -- or within line of sight. While lightweight and compact, there is no way to adjust the tightness on the ear, making it feel loose at times, or as if it's going to slip off (especially when the vibrate alert is activated).

The attractive blue LCD makes the backlit display easy to view when checking caller ID and viewing recent calls, even in low light. Of course, it's impossible to see the screen (or the headset at all) while you're wearing it. I suppose you could flip it around and get someone next to you to let you know who's calling!

On the physical side, pairing a device with the headset is done by using the included stylus to activate a tiny port next to the control buttons. The stylus is equally as tiny as the aforementioned port, and incredibly losable. We recommend pairing devices at home, or wherever you are going to store the stylus as it's way too small to be carrying around.

We tested the BT800 using the Nokia 6260. Pairing was incredibly easy, we just followed the straightforward prompts in the phone's bluetooth menu. Support for pairing up to 8 devices should be plenty -- watch out once you've filled the quota though, as if you try to add more, the least used device will be overwritten. Sound quality while taking calls was clear and concise on both ends, and we didn't need to use the phone at all for basic call functions, though it had to be kept within a few metres to stay in the bluetooth range.