Wise and Blue WB120 Bluetooth headset review: Wise and Blue WB120 Bluetooth headset

Every once in a while we get to try out a Bluetooth headset from a little-known manufacturer, and this time it's from Wise and Blue, a South Korean company trying to make its way in the U.S. market. The company makes a variety of headsets, and one of them is the WB120, an easy-to-use, yet advanced, headset, with features like A2DP compatibility, multipoint, and a self-tuner that adjusts the sound quality to your preference. Though pricing is not yet final, Wise & Blue said it plans to sell the WB120 for around $100.

Measuring 1.9 inches long by 0.7 inch wide by 0.4 inch thick, the WB120 is blocky and rectangular, with a diamond pattern on the front; it's not really all that attractive. Right in the middle of the front surface is a diamond-shape multifunction button that has enough delineation around it that you can find it by feel. The charger jack is on the left, while the skinny volume rocker is on the right side. The LED indicator is on the bottom.

The most unusual part about the WB120's design is that it has a folding earpiece. The earpiece can be folded up for a more compact shape, or folded down so that it fits in your ear. Also, when the earpiece is folded up, the multifunction button is placed on hold to prevent accidental dialing. The earpiece is clad in a rubber ear bud cover, and the WB120 comes with two additional ear bud covers for different ear shapes and sizes. The WB120 does fit quite snugly in the ear, but if you want additional security, you can attach the optional ear loop. This attachment is a tad uncomfortable though, because of the little plastic handles that scratched against our ear.

We were quite impressed with the WB120's features. It handles basic functions like answering, ending, and rejecting calls, last number redial, voice dialing support, call mute, support for three-way calls, the capability to transfer calls from the headset to the phone and vice versa, and automatic reconnection. But it also has A2DP compatibility, meaning it can stream music from your phone, and multipoint connectivity, which lets you connect it to two different devices at the same time.

One of the more unique features on the WB120 is a self-tuner, which tests your hearing ability and sets an internal optimized EQ on the headset for the best possible sound according to your particular hearing condition. It does this by playing a series of tones at different pitches, and you then press the multifunction button whenever you hear something loudly and clearly. After testing this out a few times, we did find that we could hear our callers better, and that the music streaming from the phone sounded quite good, as well. Still, the quality difference seemed marginal.

We paired the WB120 with the Apple iPhone 3G. When it's first powered up, the WB120 automatically goes into pairing mode, so the process was quite easy. To manually pair with a phone, you can do so by folding down the earpiece. Call quality was very good overall. Callers could hardly hear the freeway while we were in the car, and they heard us clearly even in a busy restaurant. Callers did detect quite a bit of echo at times, and static was an issue. They also said our voice sounded a bit harsh and tinny. On the whole, though, we managed to carry on a conversation without too many problems. The WB120 did not fare well in windy situations, however.

The WB120 comes with a clip holder for attaching to your shirt pocket, a hand strap, a car holder that can be adhered to any surface in the car, and a loop that you can hook onto your cell phone much like a cell phone charm.