Stereo Bluetooth Headsets haven’t always been the most popular accessory in the world, but now that mobile phones are becoming focused on music and video playback, more and more people are finding a need for a way to listen to their music in stereo, but without wires tying them to their phones.
Stereo Bluetooth Headsets and Bluetooth Headphones allow you to listen to your music over a bluetooth connection and generally have a range of around 10 metres. This means that you can put your phone down and wander freely around your house with out having to take your phone with you – great if your phone is on charge but you want to listen to your music without having to sit on the floor next to a plug socket!
The big names in Stereo Bluetooth headsets tend to be Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Jabra as these all tend to have a large range of headsets available. Other manufacturers such as Samsung also make stereo headsets but tend to concentrate on just a couple of models, and I’m going to review one of them here – the Samsung SBH-650 Stereo Bluetooth Headset.
Samsung SBH-650 with iPhone 3G
I’ve used most Stereo Bluetooth headsets that are on the market, and recently compiled a list of my Top 5 Stereo headsets for the iPhone and iPod Touch. At the time of writing the post though we didn’t have the Samsung SBH-650 in stock which meant it wasn’t included. When they arrived I had a play with one and was pleasantly surprised at how good this headset it. I normally dismiss Samsung Bluetooth headsets and opt for Jabra or Motorola, but this is certainly one I’d consider when it’s time to replace my Motorola S9’s.
Design
The design of the Samsung SBH-650 is similar to that of the Jabra BT3030. It’s a small control unit that you plug your 3.5mm wired headphones into. Now, you might be thinking that the whole point of bluetooth is that there are no wires – well, yes and no. Bluetooth eliminates the need to have a wire going from the phone to your headset, you’ll normally find that headphones with wires do have a slightly better sound quality, and if you damage or lose your headphones it means that you can just replace the headphones not the whole unit.
The main unit is small and compact at 57 mm x 27mm x 8mm (excluding clip) and weighs 18g. Unlike the Jabra BT3030 that has all the controls on the front of the control pad, the controls on the SBH-650 are on the sides and front of the main unit. On the left side is the play/pause button and the charging port. Depending on the phone that you’re using, the play button will launch your music player and start playback. I tested this out on two phones, a Nokia N82 and the iPhone 3G. The N82 worked brilliantly and the music player started almost as soon as the button was pressed. On the iPhone, the play/pause function does work, but you need to be in the iPod app in order for it to work. This is down to bluetooth limitations on the iPhone, not the headset.
Samsung SBH-650 Controls
On the opposite side you have the track skip buttons, the power switch and the 3.5mm headphone socket. Turning the headset on is just a case of sliding the switch up towards the head phone socket. The size and shape of this button makes it difficult to turn off accidentally so you don’t need to worry about cutting people off mid-call. The track skip buttons were the one thing with this headset that I struggled with a little at first. Most headsets I’ve used have track skip on the front and volume keys on the side, the SBH-650 is the other way round, so I did find for the first hour or so I was changing tracks instead of adjusting the volume. A long press of the track skip buttons will fast forward/rewind a song where as a quick press will skip to the next/previous track.
The front of the SBH-650 has the volume keys and the talk button. The talk button is used to answer/end calls and to activate voice dialling if supported by your phone. Volume keys are straight forward and when you hit the upper limit the headset will bee p to let you know you’re already at maximum volume.
Headphones
Normally the headphones that you get included with an item are pretty awful, but I was impressed by the earbuds that came in with the SBH-650. They’re extremely comfortable and are a sturdy fit. Even after jumping around for 5 minutes I still couldn’t get them to fall out. They block out a lot of the ambient noise too, so if someone is trying to talk to you when you’re listening to your music, you probably won’t hear them, so for that reason I’d say only ever use one earphone if you plan on using this in the car. The headphones in the box are normal 3.5mm headphones and the microphone is built in to the control unit, so if you don’t get on with them or want to use your existing 3.5mm headphones, you can.
Audio quality was fantastic and you wouldn’t know that weren’t using conventional headphones. The 10m range was just enough for me to wander around most of my house, although the audio did tend to break up and skip a bit when I got close to the 10m limit – this would be the case with any Bluetooth headset though. Call quality was near perfect, and the caller had no problem hearing me, even when the SBH-650 was hanging round my neck on the lanyard.
Connecting the headphones
Multiconnect
Not to be confused with Multipoint, Multiconnect allows you to pair the headset to a mobile phone and a music player at the same time, which probably doesn’t sound all that exciting, but what it means is that you can pair this headset to your phone and your PC, play music from iTunes and have it stream over bluetooth to the SBH-650. If your phone rings, you won’t have to dash around trying to find the pause button in iTunes or turn the speakers off, the SBH-650 will pause the music for you, play a ringtone instead and allow you to answer the call using the talk button on the control unit. You can add Bluetooth to your PC if it’s not already enabled by using a USB Bluetooth adapter.
For me, this was one of the best features. I’m often listening to music off my computer, and have to pause the music and take off my headphones when ever I needed to go to another room, but with the SBH-650 I could move around the house freely without interupting the music. It’s not just phones and computers that will work though, if you have a 2nd generation iPod Touch running iPhone OS 3.0, you’ll be able to stream your music using Bluetooth to the SBH-650 too.
Wearing the Samsung SBH-650
Carry Options
There are three ways you can wear the SBH-650, either on a lanyard around your neck clipped to your clothing or just in your pocket. Of the 3, I think using the lanyard is your best bet. Although the spring clip is quite strong, it doesn’t take much for it to come off your clothes, and the last thing you’re going to want to do is loose it. The cable on the headphones is only about 50cm long, so if you are planning on putting it in your pocket, it will need to be a shirt or inside jacket pocket. If it’s hanging round your neck, you’re less likely to lose it and its easy to access to answer calls/change track.
Charging & Battery
The SBH-650 uses it’s own mains charger, so you won’t be able to use the same charger as your phone, but you can get an SBH-650 Car Charger to keep it charged while you’re in the car. I found that charging the headset fully took about 2 hours, and once charged I got over 8 hours of music playback from it before the battery died. Standby time is quoted as 170 hours and talk time is 8.5 hours.
Charging the Samsung SBH-650
Overall I’d say that the SBH-650 is a great Stereo Bluetooth Headset. If I was to rate it, I’d say 9/10, It does everything that you’d need it to do very well, but for me the positioning of the track skip & volume keys should be the other way round. It’s only a small niggle and once you’re used to using it I can’t see it being a problem.
For the price, you’ll struggle to beat it. Audio quality is excellent, Batttery life is great and it looks stylish too. If you wanted to compare this headset to others, then the closest in terms of spec and price are the Jabra BT3030, Sony Ericsson DS 200 and the Plantronics Pulsar 260.
If it’s not quite what you’re after, why not take a look at the rest of our Stereo Bluetooth Headsets.
While Charging the ON/OFF button Must be On or OFF Position ?
how to parring
how to paring to nokia 5800
how to parring
I have this sometimes too, check the volume levels on the pc and in itunes. If you double click the volume icon by the clock you should get volume properties to open up.
have a play with the slider and see if that helps. yuo can also adjust the volume on the headset too.
i have been able to connect the headset withmy phone and laptop, but the sound output level through i tunes is low, as in ,it is much louder when i connect a wired headphone.does anyone know whatthe reason could be?
Glad to hear it’s all working. 99%of the time it’s the drivers that cause the issue on this, so it might be that they just didn’t install properly last time!
Enjoy your new headphones :)
It works! :)
Finally after I don’t know how many hours trying to solve this riddle I got it to work. After installing the latest Widcomm drivers it suddenly worked. Don’t know what I did differently because I installed these drivers before without success…
Thanks for your reply, Andy!
I’m glad that I don’t have to read more blogs now!
And I want to mention that the quality of this headset is superb and mobilefun’s service is outstanding.
A happy customer
I’m pretty sure that this is down to vista not having the correct drivers installed. If you’ve updated the drivers for your bluetooth adapter and still having this problem then I’m not sure what to suggest.
These posts might give you a few pointers?
https://www.mobilefun.co.uk/blog/2008/06/how-to-use-your-bluetooth-headset-with-skype/
https://www.mobilefun.co.uk/blog/2009/06/using-a-bluetooth-headset-with-your-pc/
I’ve had this headset now for 3 days and sound quality is absolutely fantastic. I had no problems at all to connect it with my desire.
BUT, I can’t connect my headset with my acer aspire one netbook.
I’ve read forums and blogs for hours, downloaded drivers, installed and uninstalled in all possible variations and still cant connect to my netbook.
I’m running Vistas and there seems to be a big problem with bluetooth headsets out there but nobody seems to have an answer.
I would like to use my headset for skype but I have no idea what else to try.
My headset tries to connect but vistas wants a passkey and with or without passkey I always get the message wrong parameter…HELP please!
It really rocks….sound quality is superb..only draw back is it cant fwd or rewind files other than mp3. So if u r playin files other than mp3, next n reverse buttons doesnt works
Just to clarify my previous post, even though the music does pause when a call comes in, it rings in thr phone and not on the headset, and I have to manually press the phone button the on the sbh-650 and also answer the call on the phone – this way hands-free gets activated and I can proceed with the call via the bluetooth headset.
in short – and after couple days using it, great confusion :-) low usability…. poor documentaion.
I’m hoping to retract myself…
Hi Sam,
how you’re having to connect and disconnect doesn’t sound right to me – the whole point of it being a multi connect device is that you don’t have to do that!
The user manual is available from the samsung USA site: http://ars.samsung.com/customer/DownloadAnsTempl?AT_ID=145775&SEQ_NO=1
it might be that it’s too new for the UK site.
Their user guide lists this as the set up for 2 devices:
You can connect your headset to the phone and another
Bluetooth device that plays music files at the same time.
1 Pair the headset with a phone. See page 7.
2 If successful, turn the headset off.
3 Slide the power switch with pressing and holding [ ]
to turn the headset on. The indicator light turns on blue
after flashing blue, red, and purple twice.
4 Search for and connect with the device you want according
to the device user’s guide.
5 Press [ ] to connect with the paired phone.
6 When the phone and the device are successfully connected
with the headset, you can make or answer a call while you
are listening to music.
ah and BTW ? as far as I could see, there is no support page for the SBH-650 in Samsung’s website…
Many thanks for the help!!
The situation has improved, and it kinda works but not quite automatically as you describe.
I have paired the headset with the Phone and the PC (by pairing I don’t mean having an active connection)
In order to connect the PC to the headset, I have to explicitly disconnect the BT connection between phone and heaset. So at this point I’m listening to music from the PC.
When a call comes in it rings on the phone (not on the headset), so to get to that call, I have to manually switch the connection from the PC to the phone. Which is not practical at all.
I must be missing something the pairing process…and it’s not explained in the manual… nor anywhere in the blogosphere…
Hi Sam,
Once you’ve paired it to two devices it will switch between the two automatically. If you start music playback on your PC and select Bluetooth Audio for the playback, the headset will connect to your PC and start playing your music. If/When a call comes in, the music should pause and the call will come through. You won’t need to do anything,
I have this headset but cannot setup multi-connect.
How is it done ?
I can connect to the PC for music playback just fine. I can also connect to the Nokia 5320 for calls just fine.
I cannot however have both connections active at the same time…
I tried connecting to the PC first and only then to the phone, but the phone connects and promptly disconnects.
If I attempt to connect to the PC in second place, it fails to connect altogether…
Any help is appreciated.
The only phone that will have some problems is the iphone as it doesnt support music playback. I used it with my (now aging) N82 and had no problems with it. The N82 runs symbian 60 software.
Hi Martin Fredricsson.
I wonder what phone you are using the bluetooth headset on? I have a Nokia and i like to buy the SBH-650 but i don´t want to have any problems since it´s not from the same manufacturer.
Regards
Bearframe
Hi Youss, iPhone 3.0 doesn’t support AVRCP, which is the profile needed to allow music control. In simple terms, the iPhone only supports listening to music over bluetooth and the ability to play/pause. You won’t be able to track skip with any bluetooth headset at the moment.
Volume control is hit and miss, sometimes it’ll work sometimes it wont. This is again down to the iPhone OS not the headset.
Andy
Hi
i’ve been using it for more than a month now, but i still can’t skip forward ou even skip to the next song with it.The review doesn’ say much, I’d really appreciate of someone has tried it, and would let me know if it works with the iphone OS3.0.
Completely agree with the review – it’s a great headset.
I’ve been using it for 7 months now, and the most impressive thing about it is the sound quality. The design is also good, but the only thing I wish was a little better is the front panel with volume and phone touch buttons, sometimes it’s hard to press the correct button when the headset is clipped to your shirt. I also wish there was a dedicated mute button, as I often use this function while on the phone.