Plantronics 975 Bluetooth Headset Review

Plantronics are one of the leading manufacturers of telephone headsets. While their mobile phone range isn’t perhaps as large as rivals such as Jabra, Plantronics tend to focus more on quality over quantity and as a result they tend to pack an impressive number of features into their Bluetooth Headsets.

The last headset released by Plantronics was the Voyager Pro – a heavy duty headset that’s designed to suit the needs of people who use their headset for long periods of time. It is without doubt a great headset – one of the best you can currently get, but for those who want something for more occasional use, or something more discrete, the Plantronics Discovery 975 may suit you better.

The Discovery 975 is a small, lightweight bluetooth headset that looks great and was voted ‘Editors Choice‘ in August by cnet.com so I thought I’d give one a try and see just how good it is.

In the Box

Plantronics are quite generous when it comes to including accessories with their headsets. The Discovery 975 comes with a UK & EU micro USB mains charger, leather charging carry case, carry clip and 3 different sized ear gels. What stood out to me though, was the lack of a Car Charger. You’d assume that most people would be using the headset while they’re in the car, you’d expect a car charger in the bundle – after all, how would you charge it if it ran out of power while you’re driving?

Plantronics know that this could be a problem, but they also know that headsets are used frequently outside of the car too and instead of bundling in a car charger, they’re including a carry case that has a built in battery and will not only protect your headset, but will also charge it when it’s not in use. Once the carry case is fully charged it can charge the headset fully twice – effectively tripling the stand by and talk times of the headset, boosting standby time to around 21 days and talk time to around 15 hours.

Fully Loaded

It’s not just the battery life that’s impressive about the Discovery 975. For such a small headset it manages to fit in a surprising number of features. I’ve listed it’s main ones below:

• Multipoint: The Discovery 975 can connect to two mobile devices at the same time. This makes it a perfect choice for those who carry two phones, use a bluetooth headset for making VOIP calls on their laptop or PC or enjoy chatting to online gamers as it means that you can stay connected to both devices and the headset will automatically connect to which ever device makes or receives a call.
• QuickPair: Judging by the amount of support queries we get, it seems that pairing two bluetooth devices still causes a headache for a lot of people. With the Discovery 975, the first time you turn the headset on it will enter pairing mode and when you access the bluetooth menu on your phone you will be asked to pair with the headset. Press yes and the headset connects – it’s that simple. No searching for bluetooth devices and entering passcodes. (This should work for all phones, but older handsets may still need to search and enter a PIN.)

• Dual Microphone and WindShield: I’ve covered this a bit further on in the review but the Discovery 975 has advanced technology to make your calls as clear as possible, and unlike some, it does do exactly what it promises to do.
• Small & Light: The Discovery 975 weighs just 8 grams which makes wearing it extremely comfortable.

Charging the Headset

When it comes to charging the headset you’ve got a couple of options – you can either plug the mains charger straight into the headset or you can place the headset in to the carry case and connect the case to the mains. Personally I’d always go for charging it in the case – this way the case will start to charge once the headset is full and you should never find yourself with a dead headset and a dead case.

To charge your phone using the case when you’re away from mains power, you just need to place the headset in the case and it will start to charge straight away. The case has a small LCD display window on the front that will show you the amount of charge left in both the headset and the case as well as a Bluetooth icon to let you know that if your phone is still connected.  Charging the headset from empty took around about an hour an a half regardless of whether you use the mains charger or the case.

It’s probably worth mentioning too that the headset uses a micro USB charger, so depending on the phone you’ve got, you may well be able to use the same charger on both your headset and phone.

Headset Controls

Bluetooth headsets should be simple and easy to use, with out the need to flick through pages of the user manual and the Discovery 975 is exactly that. To keep controls down to a minimum, there are only 2 buttons on the headset. The first is a multi-function button to answer and end calls, activate voice dialling, redial the last number called, enter pairing mode and to turn it on and off.

The other button is to adjust the volume. Most bluetooth headsets have 2 separate keys, a volume up and a volume down but the Discovery 975 only has one. At first I thought that this would make adjusting the volume difficult, but that’s not the case. The Discovery 975 has 3 preset volume levels, low, medium and high, and with each press of the volume key you cycle through the volume levels. So if you’re on a call and need to adjust the volume,at the most it will take two presses of the volume key to adjust the volume to a suitable level, although I didn’t find that there was a noticable difference between each of the 3 levels.

Call Quality

Plantronics only make headsets, so it’s no surprise to find that the Discovery 975 has pretty much all the noise cancelling technology you could ever want built in. It uses 2 microphones to filter out background noise and ensure that you are heard by the person on the other end of the phone. As well as dual microphones, it also has something called Windsmart to eliminate wind noise. A series of grooves on the headset along with filters over the microphones and noise reduction software help to cut out any wind noise and ensures that you can be heard.

One of my biggest pet hates while using headsets outside is from wind, and when I tried the headset  I found most of the noise was eliminated. I could still hear some wind noise, but only in strong gusts and it didn’t disturb the call. The person I was calling could still hear me clearly. In terms of audio quality, I could hear people loudly and clearly, and had no problem while using the headset while driving. As with most in car hands free kits and headsets, at speeds of up to 70mph I experienced no problems at all, throw in lorries on the motorway or concrete roads and you might start to struggle, but for the most part I couldn’t fault the Discovery 975.

Summary

When I review a product, I always look for something bad about it, but to be honest I can’t find anything bad with the Plantronics Discovery 975. Battery life is great – especially when used with the carry case, it’s light, comfortable, has excellent audio quality and it looks good. If I’m being really picky, the volume key is a little on the small side and the strap that comes with the case is a complete waste of time as it doesn’t attach securely so if you use it you’re likely to lose the case (and headset).

My Rating: 10/10