You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions, articles and access our other FREE features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, download files, upload your own photos and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
BoxWave has been good to us lately. They’ve been sending us accessories for our Motorola Q we didn’t even know existed. Last week we were able to get our hands on Boxwave’s FlexiSkin for the Motorola Q, and put it through a few tests here at HellomotoQ. This week we are able to do the same with Boxwave’s Dual Handsfree Stereo Headset. Yes it is a mouthful, but it is exactly what it is: a wired handsfree headset and stereo headphones in one package. Yes, wired headsets still exist, and some people still prefer them because they like wired connections over faulty Bluetooth ones.
The great thing about this accessory is that is follows the BoxWave retractable cable mantra—the headset retracts and recoils just like their miniSync cables. Sweet! So, if you've ever used BoxWave’s miniSyncs before, the Dual Handsfree Stereo Headset will come second nature to you. BoxWave’s website gives a thorough list of features for the earphones which includes neodymium drivers that are supposed to sound a lot better than other types of drivers (i.e aluminum, cobalt, or ceramic). The headset of the product includes a single-touch call button that works with the voice recognition application on our Motorola Q. We will review this product in an orderly fashion so we’ll start with the physical features of the handsfree headphones itself.
The headphones’ construction is durable and includes the recoil unit which also has a built-in lapel giving you the ability to attach it to a button up shirt, jacket, or even your pant pockets. Here are a couple of pictures showing the lapel in action. The headphones also came with foam pads for user preference, but we like to wear our headphones naked. The headphone/headset connector is a 2.5mm 4C gold-plated jack. The earbuds include neodymium drivers for better sound quality. We aren’t sure how large the drivers are, but neodymium drivers are supposed to be “the hit”, providing fuller sound since it can offer more power to the earbuds. The headset portion of the device includes the microphone, volume control and one button for talk, call-end, and speech recognition functions. We wish the volume control dial had a “+” and “-“ labels or some sort of indicator as to which way turns the volume up or down because it doesn’t matter how long we’ve had a device with a volume dial—we always forget how to crank it up when we listen to U2.
Speaking of U2, we tried out the headphones function first. After plugging in the headphones the Q automatically switched to the headset profile and we were ready to rock. We opened up Window Media Player and played some tunes. After a few songs we found that it sounded a bit more trebly than we wanted and it didn’t have the best lows in the world either. Although it wasn’t the greatest sound we’ve ever heard in our audiophile lives, we all agreed that it was good for what it was, a dual handsfree stereo headset. It could have also been because the Q didn’t offer the power that was needed to supply the bass. We wish we had another 4C device lying around to see if it was just the Q, but unfortunately we didn’t. We’ll update this part when we do.
Next up - the headset portion. After playing around with this feature, we want to give you a big tip when activating the voice recognition feature. Make sure that your phone is not in flight mode because the button on the headset will not work to activate voice recognition. In addition we also found that you have to press the button on the headset twice for voice recognition to be activated if your screen is on standby (blank) after five seconds. Otherwise, pushing the button once to activate voice recognition when a call is not in progress, will work just fine. If a call is in progress or if someone is calling you, the button works just like any other headset that you may have used in the past: press to talk, press again to end—easy stuff. The microphone quality worked very well with the voice recognition and with normal calls—even with loud background noise. It was fun to get a call while we were listening to music or watching a video because not only would the music or video pause, we got to use the same headphones as a headset. What's even better, the media resumes playback once the call is completed. It’s strange to hear the person on the other line in pseudo-stereo sound, but we’d take pseudo-stereo over mono any day. It also looked weird in public since it seemed as though we were talking to ourselves with regular headphones on but hey... It’s all in the name of convergence.
Overall, the Dual Handsfree Stereo Headset from BoxWave is great because you have the best of both worlds in one package, especially since we are all about convergence nowadays. With the gains of convenience and being compact, the headset is perfect for the Q user on the go.
Rating: 4.5/5 Pros: Compact and retractable, decent sound quality, and great headset and headphone in one feature. Cons: A bit more treble than bass, can get a somewhat tangled around the headphones section since they are not part of recoil.
You can purchase the BoxWave Dual Handsfree Stereo Headset for $29.95 USD here.
After a few songs we found that it sounded a bit more trebly than we wanted and it didn’t have the best lows in the world either. Although it wasn’t the greatest sound we’ve ever heard in our audiophile lives, we all agreed that it was good for what it was, a dual handsfree stereo headset. It could have also been because the Q didn’t offer the power that was needed to supply the bass.
You might want to play with the audio settings. Follow these instructions:
In the Start menu, find and click on Accessories
Find and click on Audio Enhancement > Headset
From this screen you can adjust the following settings along a scale of 1-5:
Surround Sound (default 3 -- speakers default to 2)
Bass (default 3 -- speakers default to 4)
Clarity (default 1 -- speakers default to 3)
Speaker Size (default large)
Not having headphones (yet), I'm not sure how much better these controls may make it... hoping you'll tell us all here!
I tried using those settings, but it didn't make that much of a change... I changed the speaker size to small, and moved the bass and clarity (treble?) around, I mean it seemed a bit bassier, but didn't have the punch you know? I guess I'd have to slap on a pair of Sennheisers and find out .
I thought the Motorola HT820 didn't have the punch at first, but you get used to it or it gets better with time. I think your mind adust to this lower level and it is good enough for me and I am very pickey when it comes to this stuff. Can't speak for the BoxWave, but for that price I will pick up a pair for the office, so I don't look like an alien wearing the Motorola HT820. Hay maybe that laysuit someone is putting on Apple for the iPod being to loud, maybe this is making some dumb standards. Can you image sueing because your portable device is too loud!
.
do incoming calls ring in headphones 
Linear Mode
