Windows Phone Thoughts: More Than Just Good Looks: Jabra's JX10 and BT500 Bluetooth Headsets

Figure 4: The charging cradle sports the same styling as the headset.

The elegant styling of the headset can be seen in the charging cradle as well. The metal build and rubber pad (at the bottom) offers the right amount of weight and friction to prevent the cradle from sliding around the table. The rear of the cradle contains a female mini USB connector, while the front contains a male mini USB connector. You can attach either the supplied USB charging cable or AC power adapter to the former. Jabra's inclusion of two different charging cables here is great. You can leave one at home and one at the office, and they're dual-purpose built, so if you don't have the cradle handy, you can plug the cable straight into the charging socket of the headset to fill the battery up.


Figure 5: Putting it all together.

Together with the headset, cradle, and two charging cables, you'll also find a multilingual user manual and a suede carrying pouch with a magnetic seal.


Figure 6: The multilingual user manual and magnetically-sealed pouch.

On paper, the JX10's battery life is rated at 6 hours (talk time) and 200 hours (standby time). In the real world, I found the former to be on the money, though admittedly, I didn't really assess the latter since I prefer to leave the house everyday with a fully charged headset (so it goes on to the cradle every night before I hit the sack). Performance-wise, the JX10 offered a lot to be pleased about. The in-ear nature of the earpiece and the quality of the speaker produced loud, crisp audio. The headset's digital signal processing (DSP) technology, coupled with its Bluetooth 1.2 specification, ensured that background noise was compensated for and voice quality was clear. I've used a wide range of headsets in the past, and for some, I had received complaints from the person on the receiving end about how poor the headset's audio quality was. While testing the JX10, I received no such complaints, proving that Jabra didn't just design the headset to offer good looks, but great performance as well.


Figure 7: A compact adapter for a compact headset.

If Jabra ever revises the JX10 and works on making the earpiece more comfortable, then it would be near faultless. Regardless, those of you after a stylish, lightweight headset with great performance should look no further. Although, perhaps the BT500 is more to your (and your bank's) liking. Follow on for a look at the other of Jabra's finest headsets.