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262 of 268 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fit is crucial, June 12, 2008
The New Jawbone is just what I need for my iPhone and I find its quirks to be easy to get used to in exchange for fabulous sound quality. However, fit is crucial to proper operation and so be sure to buy from a store with very good return policies in case it doesn't fit your ears.
Here's the biggest issue: The voice sensor must contact your cheek in order for noise suppression to work properly. If it does not touch your cheek, the people you are talking to will hear echo, hollow sound, clipped words or other distortion. The challenge is to get the earbud far enough into your ear that the sensor is aligned properly. I have what I believe are average ears and the smallest supplied rubber earbud is still a little too big.
But as long as I remember to periodically adjust the Jawbone to keep it touching my cheek, it works quite well. I am going to experiment with other earbuds (Aliph does not sell any sizes other than the S, M & L in the box).
Much lesser quirks are that it is impossible to tell whether the headset is on or off when it is in your ear and button action when accepting/initiating/refusing a call is far from easy to control due to the invisible, non-tactile switches.
So when you press on it to seat it in your ear properly, it turns off or on, depending. This is easy to work around by starting with the unit off and pressing hard for two seconds to simulateously turn it on and seat it, but the button design is not the smartest. This design also makes it awkward to change call volume, but the default setting is fine, especially because you can adjust it in finer increments anyway on many phones.
Overall this is an excellent product, marred only by limited fit options and slightly dumb ergonomics. I plan to keep it. Best testimonial came from my daughter, who when I called her a few minutes ago asked, "Are you still using the Jawbone?" If she has to ask, that means it's working (grin).
UPDATE: I tried the Jabra clear gel earbud with the long "tail" and it works quite well. I can use the JB without the ear loop now, though I prefer retaining it for safety. Sound is good and fit is much improved.
-dan
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104 of 106 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
MiniGels are the key, June 16, 2008
With the included ear hooks and black donut shaped earbuds, this thing just won't stay where it is supposed to for me. Nearly every bad review seems to be about fit or sound, and with the Jawbone, sound depends on fit. If you can't get the New Jawbone to fit right, it is just not going to work correctly.
I found Jabra MiniGels at my local Verizon store in a 4-pack for $3. It's actually 2 each of 2 sizes, marked "14" and "83", which the package claims is "two standard and two small". The "83" size is larger and that's what works for me. They fit tight, in place of the black donut earbuds. The angle that worked best for me is about 15 degrees upwards of pointing at the white Voice Sensor. I could angle them almost 45 degrees and then the MiniGel would go really deep into my ear and fit really tight, but after a few hours this was increasingly uncomfortable. For me, a lesser angle is still very secure without being as tight and irritating to my ear. The looser it is, the more it can droop down over time, especially when eating or chewing gum. If it droops down, then it is no longer properly aligned towards the mouth and the white voice sensor loses good contact the face.
The best way I found to put it on with the MiniGels is to start with the Jawbone pointing down towards under my chin, and then twisting it upwards into place. I can do it without looking in a mirror now, and holding only onto the sides without going anywhere near the button surfaces. If feel like I need to poke it deeper into my head while pulling on my ear to seat it better, I can poke my finger directly on the gel or the black plastic post that holds it, rather than mashing on the button surfaces of the Jawbone.
Even with the Voice Sensor, the New Jawbone is not wind-proof. If you call yourself and listen on a muted phone in your other ear, you can hear how the background dampening algorithms work for things like turning on the kitchen sink -- the water sound comes through full volume briefly and then the jawbone starts to filter it out. If you talk without the white voice sensor properly touching your face, the algorithms will treat your voice as noise and actively try to filter you out. Wind is not a constant noise and so wind sounds will come through to the caller with varying levels of filtering. Callers will hear some of your radio if you leave it on loud enough. At the extreme, I've been able to make myself unintelligible to callers by rolling ALL my car windows down at highway speeds and wearing the Jawbone on the window-side ear, but most convertibles aren't as bad as that, and honestly, car windows do roll up for important phone now calls don't they? Understanding how the noise filter works may help you not rate the Jawbone unfairly... It has to work the way it does or no one would hear you when you start talking with a consonant sound (Like "Sh") because the voice sensor hasn't heard your voice through your face bone yet.
After only a few days now, I can't say if the MiniGels will ever split. The "83" I've been using shows no wear or cracks after stretching it off and on many times, and also carefully twisting it around many times (it fits really tight) trying to find the perfect angle, and from switching left-ear and right-ear a few times too. Even if they do eventually crack or split, they were pretty cheap, and after a while I'd want to replace them just for sanitary reasons! I only mention this because other reviews that led me to the MiniGels mentioned that the eargels they tried had split. I think it was in reference to the original Jawbone where you had to actually modify one of the twist-on earbuds so the eargel would fit in place of the stock rubber, which would lead me to also think that doing this would result in rough edges which could cut and begin cracks.
I still have over 20 days left to decide if the New Jawbone is a keeper (I found this one at a local AT&T store). With the MiniGels it fits well without even using an earloop! It doesn't fall off; I can swing (Mosh?) my head clear upside-down and it stays on. Even with the best I could get it to fit with the included Leather earloop and black donut earbud, it would fall off right onto the floor any time I bent over. Why can't Aliph get this right? They must get so many returns just from bad fit; you would think they would figure out something better.
The packaging for the MiniGels from Verizon says, "Compatible with EarWave and FreeSpeak". I had to ask for them at the "Tech Support" / Parts counter, they were not on display, and only the Manager knew where they were. I called ahead before I drove there to make sure they even had any. The package says EargelWaveCombo2pk008 100-2303-08 with UPC code 607421730129. I hope this helps you all. For $3, trying the MiniGels is very worth it before you return your New Jawbone.
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66 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Most of the "fit" problems are due to the lack of instructions, July 11, 2008
Purchased this after a lot of amazon reviews.
The sound quality is as described (positives) in most of the reviews, and very happy with mine in all situations (street, wind noise, driving highway speed noise, and even in my convertible top down at city speeds).
Jawbone "Fit" problem that most people report could have easily been corrected by treating the ear-loop as an adjustable eye-wear and hand-adjust for a good fit. I had a initial problem also -- the ear-loop wire was too close to the top of my ear and was uncomfortable to wear after a few min.
Here is a simple guide.
1. Take the ear-loop off.
2. Find the ear bud that fits your ear, both comfortable and would actually hold the unit on without the ear-loop. That size would provide both the tight enough and comfortable fit.
3. Put a ear-loop on. Start adjusting the top so that there is no to little pressure to the top of your ear. I found that ear-loop sizes makes very little difference (included large, small, etc sizes are too similar to make a difference anyway).
4. Then bend the ear-loop toward to unit so that it provides support on the back -- but no need to go for a exact or tight fit. If you had used wire-frame eye-glasses, you should be familiar with this process.
5. The key steps are the #2 and #3 above. Should not take you more than a few minutes to get the comfortable enough fit you need, and forever to get that perfect fit (just like eye glasses).
======== Not related to "fit" problem, but Quality of my unit ====
- Update after 2+ weeks of use.
- Too bad I cannot change the 5 star rating down to some lower # based on this updated experience.
The fit (as adjusted above) and sound quality has been great.
The Problem with my Unit: My unit shuts down randomly, almost regardless of the battery status (I have hade my unit charged near full, since I was not traveling during this period). Most often during a call, and seldom during standby. Once the unit shuts down, it behaves as if the battery has run down and would not turn back on, for up to 15 mins (did not try after that). But after an hour or two, the unit could be turns on and operates for a few more hours (and for even 1 hour conference call). So this is not clearly run-down battery problem, but something else.
Now for the Aliph (the MFGR) Customer Service: Called Jawbone directly, and they insist that the problem is my phone dropping the call. Now I explained that yes, this could happen if you have the phone in your pocket, and some keys could be pressed..., but it does not explain the case when I had the phone on my desk, nor explain why the unit would not turn back on (not just dropping the call, but shutdown), yet operate properly after a ~ few hours. The Customer Service insisted that this is not a problem with their unit -- would not even recognize the logical disagreement in the evidence I provided and their explanation. This problem happened about every other day with normal business use (~ 1 hour talk, ~15~20 calls, 6+ hour standby per day). BTW, I got to a live person to talk to in less than 1 min -- fairly positive and frankly impressive when I now normally expect menus, menus and more phones menus and no live person interaction for 10~20 min.
I am returning the unit for replacement -- still like the sound quality and the fit. If the replacement behaves the same way as my current unit, I will be giving up on this unit and seek alternative.
=============
Quick update on replacement -- the replacement unit (new) works flawlessly. Perhaps the quality problem discussed on this forum is true for this manufacturer for now...
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