Customer Reviews

Jabra STONE2 Bluetooth Headset [Retail packaging]

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I used a bluetooth headset in the past. It was an excellent device for when driving and having to take a call or just sitting at home and not wanting to hold the phone against your head for long conversations. Given the opportunity to review this device, I can honestly say I was impressed. There are only two negatives that came to mind, which I'll get to later on in the review.

Aesthetically, the device has a sleek look. It feels nice in your hand, although the part that wraps around your ear is more rubbery, which is nice as it won't bother you when it's wrapped around your ear. The portable charger it comes with doesn't increase the size of the unit that much and will easily fit into a pocket. It also keeps the unit charged when on the go, an excellent feature. Here though is the first negative. The unit comes with a usb connector and an electrical outlet connector, both are rather limited in length, VERY limited.

In terms of set up, I have an iPhone 4 and with it the bluetooth set up took less than 5 seconds. The phone saw the bluetooth device and automatically connected to it, no pin number necessary (although instructions are provided if you need to go through the process with a pin number). Making phone calls was pleasant enough. If the earpiece is uncomfortable, the unit comes with a few other choices, which will hopefully prove a better fit. I love the fact that I can answer calls by simply saying 'answer', no buttons to press or find. The earpiece itself has a button that lets you check the battery level and if a call is incoming allows you to answer it and/or finish the call (another option aside from using the voice feature). Furthermore, pressing it twice will redial the last number. You can also adjust the volume by moving your finger along the length of the earpiece. So the unit itself carries no negatives but its price point is up there (for $60 or $75 this would be a no-brainer). Truthfully, having experienced what his unit has to offer, if I was in need of a bluetooth device, this would definitely be my pick.

The Jabra Stone 2 is a surprising bluetooth unit with a few very good features that are sometimes overshadowed by awkward ones.

The good:
Good, functional design
Decent acoustics with noise reduction
Real, hands-free operation with voice-activated "answer" and "decline" functions
Portable charging egg with clothes clip
Good voice quality on the listener's end

The bad:
Sometimes bizarre design decisions including right-ear-only orientation
Shorter than advertised talk-time
Hollow sounding voices

The ugly:
Ridiculous, illogical battery life claims (ten hours)
Equally ridiculous multimedia device claim

It is easy to call the Jabra Stone 2 "awkward" because it isn't really bad; in fact, some of its features are real, unique innovations which, with slightly better implementation or with less grandiose claims would be considered great in another device. With the battery life as one important exception, the stone 2 does what the manufacturer claims it does and if you wish for anything at all, you wish that it did it only slightly better.

Out of it's oval plastic box, the Stone 2 is a sleek package, shaped like a flattened, black egg that functions as a charging station and it is here that the innovation begins: putting the headset into the charging station turns it off; taking it out again turns it on and, once you've paired the headset with your phone, creates a bluetooth connection quickly and dependably.

Another fine innovation in the Stone 2 is its digital signal processing features. The Stone 2 borrows a page from other manufacturer's playbooks and uses a voice for important announcements such as the headset's battery level and reading off the phone number when a call is received. The Stone 2 allows the user to take, or reject calls by saying "accept" or "decline" after the voice has read the last digit of the number (saying them before then seems to drop the call directly to voicemail). This is a great feature for people who simply *must* talk on the phone while driving; it allows them to keep both hands on the wheel.

The Stone 2's voice feature ignores one aspect of contemporary culture: in a world full of cell phones that store libraries of phone numbers, fewer people memorize phone numbers as they once did, and having a string of numbers read to a user might not tell him or her anything useful.

Those are all very praiseworthy design features but once you go past them, things get rocky.

Used in a quiet environment, the Jabra Stone 2 is a stellar performer. Listeners report great sound, while the user hears the voice on the other end as somewhat hollow, but certainly clear and recognizable. In noisier, or windier environments, conversations rapidly become exchanges of "huh?" and "What?" despite Jabra's claim of effective noise-cancellation.

One definitely edgy aspect of the Stone 2's design is the decision to use an asymmetrical, right-ear-only design. The Stone 2 is certainly stylish and well-fitting in the ear (better than the great majority of bluetooth units I've ever owned or tested including Blue Ant and the (early) Aliph Jawbone), however, no matter how good the fit, the design begs the question, `what about people with reduced or absent hearing in their right ears?" Jabra's obvious answer appears to be, `use something else.'

Things become well and truly strange when you come to the Stone 2's battery life. Jabra Claims that the Stone 2 unit alone has a two-hour battery life and that it will run for up to ten hours with the charging cradle. The second of these claims lacks even a toehold in reality.

The Stone 2 unit I have for review doesn't like long phone calls. It has never lasted for more than ninety minutes before the voice started announcing "low battery" and the claim that the Stone 2 with the charging cradle operates for up to ten hours is based on a logical dodge: if the user makes phone calls that drain the battery, and puts it back in the charging cradle until it is fully charged, repeating the process until all the combined power of the charger and headset is exhausted, the total time the headset was functional might tally up to ten hours, but it will be ten hours broken up by charging cycles when the unit will be either useless, or only partially charged.

By this reasoning, Jabra might as well say that the Unit has twenty-hours of talk time because you'll use much of those twenty hours to get the full ten hours of charge, talk and charge again cycles out of it. This is either logically bizarre or a deception depending on your way of looking at things.

Almost equally odd is Jabra's claiming that the Stone 2 is a multimedia device. Yes, it will certainly play an audiobook stored on your phone, but it has only a volume control and an end-call switch on the body of the device, and single-ear sound with a strongly limited dynamic range stopped being the norm for listening to media with the introduction of the Sony Walkman a long, long time ago.

At the end of the day, the Jabra Stone 2 is not a bad headset; it is a good one.

Used in a quiet environment with still air for a series of short phone calls, it is better than a lot of what you find out there. The charging cradle with its clothes-clip, is a cool innovation. The sleek unit fits well in any pocket and gets the job done with style and aplomb, but some things about it make you wish that Jabra would fire the copywriters who allowed them to make the ten-hour claim and hire engineers whose vocabularies included the words, "bigger battery."

After aquiring a Plantronics Voyager headset just for home use, I didn't think I'd need anything else. However, after using the Jabra Stone for about a month, I have a new favorite.


*** What I like most about it (most positive first) ***

- Style and fit: I think the fashion police has issued that wearing a headset while not on a call makes even George Clooney look like a dork, but the Jabra Stone 2 may prove to be the exception to the rule: it's small, has a leathery shell, hugs the ear closely, and nothing protrudes or blinks (even the obligatory blue light is not visible while worn!). If you have over-the-ear hair, this headset will probably go unnoticed. Comfort- wise, I tried it with the standard eargels (out of 4 supplied) and practically forgot it was there right away.

- Operation: there is only one button (with good tactile feedback) that is intended to "do the right thing", like giving the battery level or take/hang up a call. Volume control is superbly implemented as well: you just slide your finger up or down on the headset, no need trying to locate buttons. Most impressively, if the phone rings while you're wearing this headset, you simply say "answer". Awesome.

- The 'Stone'. This very small recharger doubles as a carrying device. It's about the size and shape of an egg except about half as thick. The headset fits into it seamlessly and can be fully recharged four times while on the go. It's too bad the back is open though - that would have been an excellent dust protector.

- AD2P a.k.a. "advanced audio": the acronym stands for the ability to 'stream multimedia', as Jabra puts it. This means that the headset pairs with an iPad for example (which others don't), or can be used to listen to an audiobook on your iPhone. It found that the audio quality was marginally better than on my previous (non AD2P) headset, although I had expected a much larger quality boost. Also, a word of caution: not all apps support A2DP; for example, Skype on the iPhone currently doesn't! Clearly that's not Jabra's fault, but it was nonetheless a surprise to me.


*** Things I don't like (most annoying first) ***

- Right ear only: My previous headset was switchable from right to left ears, so I now miss that feature on very long conference calls.

- Battery life. The claim is two hours, but I manage to empty it out in barely one hour. To be fair, I usually leave the phone 15 feet away in the charger, perhaps that switches the unit into a higher power level. That said, because I always place the headset back into the "stone" I'm confident that it's well charged when I need it.

- Packaging and documentation. So awful I had to mention it, even though you need to pry the parts out only once.

* Inspection and Testing
** Pro's and Con's
*** Conclusion

* The STONE 2, the second edition of their Stone styled Bluetooth headset is a brilliant technological piece of audio equipment.

I've been using the Stone 2 for the past several weeks and it improves on the "basic" functions of a Bluetooth headset while incorporating wireless commands that connects to PDA, computers, MP3/4 players and the internet.

This is something special.

The Stone headset is about the size a large almond. There are two styles offered: a smooth, glossy finish and a textured, matte finish. The model I have is the textured and although it is made out of a polycarbonate material, it feels glove-leather soft.

The headset, itself, is shaped like a strip of fruit skin that's been peeled. It wraps around the ear and the speaker itself fits comfortably in the ear canal. There's also two other earpieces included inside of the beautiful, if not elaborate, headphone case.

Once on, the headset gives you instructions on how to connect it to your primary Bluetooth device. After which, the headset will tell you how strong of a charge the headset has. After having to forget to place it back into its shell for several days, the headset told me that the charge was strong.

The broad part of the headset (the other side of the speaker) has a soft "click" mechanism. This is the on/off switch. The volume control, which is an invisible touchpad above it, is engaged by gently moving a finger up the headset--next to no pressure is needed.

A2DP--wireless connection. Flawless. I have a separate prepaid phone as a business line and calling my main PDA, the headset will tell you "Telephone # xxx--xxx-xxxx is calling. Accept or Ignore?" At this point, accepting puts you into a conversation and ignoring returns you to the music you may have been listening to.

There's no paperwork included, and to be honest, none is actually needed. You just have to know where on your phone or Bluetooth device is the connection. On Jabra's website, you can download the instruction manual or watch a Quickstart tutorial. Also, the site gives you options to buy peripheral software that will allow you to have wireless- audio access to programs on your computer, especially iPod Touch, iPad and the iOS. There's a Jabra device page set up on Apple's website for device compatibility.

** Pro's And Con's.

+ Extremely comfortable. Feels like a soft earmuff.
+ Long battery life, digital-strength indicator (voice.)
+ A2DP connection works well. (And, the ability to use the headset for voice-activated programs and virtual activities is extremely promising.)
+ Audio reception. For calls, the receivers had no idea in our conversation that I was wearing a headset, even outdoors. Musically speaking, the reception changed with the bit rate of the songs I listened to. In other words, all of the music did NOT sound the same. (I wasn't looking for the highest audio fidelity because it is only for a single ear and I wouldn't want the company to compromise the other advancements in lieu of it. I have premium headphones for that.)

Con's

- Price. The price in the past 4 weeks (as of the date of this published review, 3-3-11) ranged from $89- $130. Having several other Bluetooth/ wireless headset devices, this one is above average. If the "better" Bluetooth headsets are between $ 50- $60 during that year when it is released, I would say a reasonable price would be about $75- $80. $130 is definitely not in my price range for a Bluetooth headset, but more importantly, I think it is overpriced even for a high-quality device such as it is.

*** So... Stylish! Comfortable! Long battery life! Audio connection/ corresponding fidelity and internet/ software-program compatibility all above par. Price warrants a re-evaluation to something a bit more moderately priced.

5 minus 1 equals 4 stars.

When this item was delivered to me I was excited to give it a try. I charged it up the first time and all seemed to be working fine. I used the product the next day while at work and the battery died after just 5 hours. I put it into the charging pod like it said to do and it charged it up seemingly like it advertised. The battery only lasted for 2 hours the next time. I can now only get about two hours at a time out of the ear piece. I find this to be very unacceptible for a bluetooth headset. Especially when it was adverdised that you should get 10 hours of talk time. Everything else about this is good. The design is very comfortable and the voice activation feature works well when it actually has a charge. The battery life is the only drawback to this product. But to me that is enough of a problem to warrant a 1 start rating.

I bought this product almost 5 months ago, and It was working fine, I didnt like the 1 hour battery, I had to charge between calls, but overall was ok, then the volume of the device start decreasing, I had problems to hear the voice comands when connected, but if i pressed the finger on it to pop up the volume was ok, finally one day it stop working, i cant hear it anymore, they can hear me but I cant hear , I was trying to look into the internet for answers but not luck so far, so Im trying to apply for the warranty...
I dont recommend this product...
Regards
Eva

I'm a longtime user of Jabra earpieces and this one was a major disappointment. Three key reasons: 1) poor instructions on the different ear canal pieces (can you even reconfigure it for the left ear?); 2) embarrassingly short battery life; and 3) poor fit to the ear, it regularly fell off, especially with sunglasses on. This one is getting returned in less than a week and isn't a good value at all.

Definitely the best styling, comfort and fit of any bluetooth headset on the market. But that doesn't mean anything when the battery life is only 90 minutes. I was skeptical of the battery life after reading the other reviews so the very first time I used the headset, I tested it. After fully charging the headset, I used it during a 2 hour conference call. The call quality was so-so. I wasn't very impressed and the other participants said that it was just ok. The claims about suppressing background noise seem inflated as the other participants commented twice about the background noise. After 89 minutes, the device indicated that the battery was low. At 96 minutes the device shut down. Everything you read on Amazon and the other sites about the battery life is true. Stay away from this one and go with the Plantronics Voyager+. Over 5 hours of batter life and much better call quality. Jabra, I loved the styling, fit (especially since I wear glasses) but the quality is unacceptable. Maybe next time.

I've been an avid Jabra fan ever since working the cell phone business and I must say this is one of the worst headsets I've ever owned. It was awkward to wear especially because you couldn't rotate ears when using it. I've purchased the Jabra Bt160 4 times and the only reason I had to get a new one is because I ran over my last bt160. The Stone was uncomfortable to wear, you can't charge it without the adapter that came with it, so obviously you now must carry 3 things with you. (headset, charging stone, and charger) Worst is probably the sound quality. Hearing wasn't bad, but people were always saying to me that they couldn't understand what I'm saying. Save yourself the cash and stay away from this headset.

I bought this and found out that the battery life is only 2 hrs. you need to keep charging it with the base unit to get ten hours. All the reviews and specs on Amazon site is misleading. There are times the unit will not charge properly if you placed it back to the base unit when the base unit is plugged into a usb port. you need to unplug from usb port and plug in again to ensure the unit will charge properly. This is not in the manual