(image courtesy of Acquire Magazine)

In case you’ve been asleep at the wheel, recently California and Washington states have jumped on the bandwagon of states enforcing hands-free cellphone laws. Other metropolitian areas like Washington D.C., New York and New Jersey are also places where it’s illegal and you will be fined for talking on the celly while driving unless you use a hands-free device. Which brings me to my bluetooth headset review and recommendation. First, I must state I DO NOT recommend or do reviews about products unless I have tried them personally, you’ll be surprised how many reviews are on the web and the people don’t even have the product in hand.

Now down to biz! If you’re in the market for a handsfree bluetooth device look no further than the Jawbone. I had their original device for over a year and swear by it but the latest release the Jawbone2 blows the original away. You see, what makes the Jawbone successful is it’s ability to eliminate the ambient noise around you and solely pickup your voice, they call it the NoiseAssasin to describe the noise suppression algorithms they developed. I have tested this standing beside a lawn-mower, while vacuuming at home, in my Starbucks “remote office” and in a convertible and in all of these very noisy environments callers only hear very minor noise. If you haven’t heard of the Jawbone before you might be thinking “Mario is sippin the kool-aid.” That’s exactly how they tried to clown me on my radio tech segment on the Russ Parr morning show (clip below). But I’m not sippn’ kool-aid, I’m telling you it works.

Russ Parr Show

Why does it work so good?

The Jawbone has a proprietary military-grade audio sensing technology in it that was originally developed for DARPA (yes, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) so military personnel in battle could hear each other better. Their patented tech is called a Voice Activity Sensor (VAS) and it’s able to detect when the person is talking and capture the frequencies of your speech even in the presence of noise. (see the Jawbone online demo)

(image courtesy of Jawbone)

The specs:
Price: $129.99 retail (I have seen it cheaper online at newegg.com for $109.99
Weight: 10 grams
Talk Time: Over 4 hours
Standby Time: Over 8 days
Range: Up to 33 feet (10 meters)
Charge: 80% charge in 35 minutes, 100% charge in < 1 hour
Colors: Black / Silver / Rose Gold
Supports Bluetooth® 1.1, 1.2, and 2.0
Measurements: 2-inches long, 0.5-inches thick, 0.5-inches wide

Pros:
The Jawbone2 is a big step up from it’s original. It’s 50% smaller, a great size that is very fashionable and very lightweight. It comes with 3 earbuds and 4 leather ear hoops in different shapes and sizes making it easy to find a great fit even for Will Smiths ears (sorry couldn’t help it :-). It’s even comfortable to wear with glasses! The NoiseAssasin technology works and it eliminates alot of background noise. The beveled diamond pattern, style and colors make a beautiful fashion statement, no more looking like Robo-Cop.

Negs:
A little pricey, look online for best deal and I don’t like the proprietary charger, although it’s a major improvement over their original.

Do I recommended: YES

Don’t act like we don’t need these bluetooth headsets - remember what Nextel did to public cellphone conversations? It all started with Nextel and that dag gone “chirp-chirp” sound - man was that irritating. But what was even worse was that for some reason people with those phones always seemed to be compelled to talk on their speakerphone in public (I know you’ve seen ‘em). Do me a favor if you still see these cell-etiquette violators in action let them know it’s 2008 and the Jawbone2 might be something they should check out.

Share your cellphone horror story, when and where were you the last time you were violated by cell-phone misbehavior? Hopefully, not the movies