MobileBurn published a terrific review of the Sony Ericsson Akono HBH-600, a Bluetooth headset that is compatible with a large number of mobile phones. The Akono HBH-600 is very similar in outward appearance to the HBH-65, its predecessor. The difference is that the HBH-600 tries to separate background noise from conversation in order to conserve battery power. This increases battery life significantly. As reviewer Michael Oryl said:
This kind of technology is going to force me to rethink the way I test headsets in the future. In a real world scenario, you are likely to get an amount of talk time much closer to the 4 hours than the torture test’s 2 hours, as a very large part of human conversation consists of silence. But as always, your milage may vary.
The torture test that MobileBurn has used in the past is to send a continuous stream of music through the microphone on the headset and to have a PC paired with the headset send the music back to the the earpiece.
The results of MobileBurn’s HBH-600 test indicate that they are evaluating products in a very conscientious manner. I will look for more opportunities to highlight their reviews in the future.