I’m the last guy on the planet that should be wearing a blu-tooth headset. I get angry if I see people in one, I make comments to strangers in them like “beam me up Scotty” or “are they invading yet?” So when my new job required me to dawn a blu-tooth, I thought to myself, “Why god? Why must I jump into the world of absurd looking business men? Why?!?!” After browsing the company site for a bit I found the Icon Ace to be the smallest, and least intrusive looking one (even though it has giant bling on the side), and it supported A2DP, so of course I googled A2DP. Stereo music via blu-tooth… I can handle that. Order placed, and now we wait with little to no excitement knowing that when it arrives.. I have to actually use it.
We’ll begin by discussing my first experience with it… like any other blu-tooth device you have to pair it, so I began the process. Pair to phone… good..done. Wait can I pair it to both my phones?… YUP! Wait, my laptop has blu-tooth, can I pair it that too?! YUP! So now this little devil is voice controlling my Macbook, My IPhone and My Nexus.. Alright I’m mildly impressed so far, it does more than expected. Gotta go to the grocery store guess I’m taking it with me to drive, the Mrs. Calls.. blu-tooth says call incoming, I push answer button aaaand…. she sounds as good as she did on my phone, which by an audiophiles standards is still pretty horrible, but there isn’t any loss between the phone and the headset and that to me is a great thing! After about 3 minutes of walking around the store I forget I’m even wearing the stupid thing, which explains the goofy looking people wandering the world with their headsets on. Saying this makes me a huge hypocrite but it’s kind of nice to just drive and talk without holding a phone to my face, or play XBox while on the phone with mrs… etc.
I return home and plug the headset into my computer to check for updates.. Jawbone has a great little app to manage your device from your computer called MyTalk. After about 15 minutes I’ve updated the headset, changed the talk-back voice to a secret agent sounding guy, and enabled A2DP.
Later in the week I’m at work, not a lot going on, so I push my button and say “Play Music.” And soon the sultry tones of As I Lay Dying being filling my ear with joy. Not just average joy however, the sound quality on the headset is surprisingly good. There is a decent bass response, and a good high end response, and it fits well enough that only I can hear the tunes. A2DP is now my best friend.
I fully understand that a blu-tooth isn’t for everyone, and some people like me still think you look like a ridiculous secret agent wannabe, I get that. But I have to say the Jawbone Icon is an incredible little piece of hardware, worth its weight in gold. I use it for skype, phone calls, my Playstation 3, everything that accepts blu-tooth in my home has been paired with the JawBone at least once. If you don’t have a blu-tooth or are looking for a new low-impact one, I highly recommend this.