Douglas Morse of TreoCentral weighed in with his Motorola HS810 Bluetooth Headset review. This review was surprising because of the similarities and dissimilarities between it and other reviews of the HS810 from proven reviewers.
The TreoCentral review agrees with others in the idea that the HS810’s fidelity in transmitting bass tones leaves something to be desired. This issue is also specifically mentioned in a MobileBurn review of the HS810 published back in May.
TreoCentral disagrees with most reviews of the HS810 in the “sound quality” department. Their review says:
There are several problems with the sound on the HS 810. The first is that it tends to breakup regularly creating a constant crackle on both ends of the call. On the headset speaker, the tonal qualities are good, but receivers report very heavy bass with little treble response….
The headset, like many I�ve tested has sound issues and is terribly inconsistent in quality of response, even if you�re not moving…. The bottom line is that the Motorola HS 810 headset does not achieve consistent sound quality when used with the Treo.
Compare those comments to what Michael Oryl said about the HS810, “The sound was certainly clear and useable, but seemed a bit thin,” or what Mike Wendland said in his review in the Detroit Free Press, “In several tests, both the scala-500 and the Motorola HS810 sounded markedly better to the person on the other end of the conversation.”
The biggest issue in the TreoCentral review seems to be the Treo 650, not the Motorola HS810. This is supported by the following quotes:
- TreoCentral: The headset, like many I�ve tested has sound issues and is terribly inconsistent in quality of response, even if you�re not moving. Much of this may be due to the Bluetooth on the Treo, the other person�s cell phone, and innumerable other factors not limited to wireless interference.
- Detroit Free Press: It must be pointed out that the Treo 650 has a well-known problem with audio quality that its PalmOne manufacturer is trying to remedy. For me, the better audio quality provided by the headsets was the key benefit.
I’m concerned that the Bluetooth implementation on the Treo 650 may not be performing as well as palmOne would like. The evidence for this is a bit of a stretch, because it has to do with a data-oriented Bluetooth profile. See Are You Sure That Cingular Really Wants to Deactivate the Treo 650 DUN Profile?
People are still buying Treo 650’s at a high rate overall, so either they don’t know about the reported sound quality problems or they don’t think those issues will affect them. In any case, I’m hoping that palmOne patches the palmOS operating system on the Treo 650 before too long.