Sony Ericsson HBH-60 Review

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Sony Ericsson HBH-60
3 stars
Average rating for this product is: 3 out of 5

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scarborian's Review of Sony Ericsson HBH-60 Bluetooth Headset

17th Jan 2004

Overall Rating

3 stars
  • Value for money
    2.5 stars
Good Points

Light and compact. Easy to use.


Bad Points

Gets Un-comfortable after a while. Poor operating range and sound quality.


General Comments

If you read my review on this site of the new Jabra "Freespeak" 250, you will know that I was less than impressed when I paired it up with my Sony T610. So in an effort to get a decent Bluetooth "set up" I decided to try the Sony HBH-60. After all this headset was made by those awfully nice Sony people to complement their Bluetooth equipped handsets! Weighing in at around 22 grams and costing around £90 the HBH-60 will fit either ear and un-like the Jabra, has a speaker that sits just outside your ear canal. After charging the headset for a couple of hours I paired it up with my T610 (a cinch to do) and hit the road. My first cell call was only a few minutes into the journey, and just like my experience with the Jabra, left me disappointed. Sound quality from the headset was very poor unless I moved to within about six inches from the handset. The quoted range (like many other Bluetooths) is around 10 meters! I think this is wishful thinking on the part of the manufacturers as my experience with both the HBH-60 and the Jabra 250 fall well short of this! I then tried making a call using the headset, which invlolves simply pressing a small button on the side and then (after the bleep) saying your stored voice dial command. Again it took four attempts to get the phone to dial and once connected the quality was far from good, unless I moved my head closer the T610! During that conversation I became aware that I could not hear the other party and when I looked at the phone it was telling me that the Bluetooth connection had been lost! This is simply not accepteble for a device that is intended for "wirefree" use and costs the best part of £100.
So, its back to the shop with the HBH-60 and back to the drawing board for me. I understand there is a HBH-65 available, but try as I might, I can't find any information as to what the difference is between the two. Has anybody found a good "useable" bluetooth headset that is compatible with the Sony T610? If so, let me know and I will try it. Until then I suppose it's back to just picking up the phone to use it! How 90's is that?

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Members' Comments onscarborian's Review

  • tofo on 23rd Jan 2004

    Have used up a HBH-30 and two HBH-60's and now have a HBH-65.

    Some improvment to the way it keeps contact with the phone but sometimes they fail to contact and you need to "bond" again.

    It is difficult to see the indicator "LED" in daylight. The volume buttons are difficult to press being on each side of the device!

    You have no clue about the state of charge when the thing is in use. Forces you to charge every day to be sure. (Would be intelligent to display the batter status of the HBH-60 in the phone. (Alarm aswell please).

    Would be nice if the headset could optionally charge from the phone like the Sony Ericsson bluetooth car. The connection with the phone is sometimes lost and it has hard times connecting. The bluetooth menues on my P800 are realy poor - No clear view of the status and how well the devices communicate.

    When the volume of the HBH-65 is adjusted with the buttons the sound from the person at the other end of the line is completely interupted (disconnected) while the device beeps a long beep into your ear. Better adjust before you talk!

    You hear about people having degrees in ergonomics and man-machine communication. I mean it takes a lot of skill to build this thing and have it intercommunicate with a phone.

    What kind of organisation builds a technicaly supercomplicated device but forgets to ensure it serves the user?

    (Like the location of the microphone of the P800 - easy to block while speaking, or the headset connector that blocks the thumbwheel, or the flip mechanism for the lid/keypad that stops flipping, etc, etc)

  • rigid on 18th Nov 2004

    You can actually find out the current battery level by pressing both volume buttons together whilst in stand by mode. The LED flahes 3 times for full, 2 for half battery and 1 flash for low.