Beauty of Bluetooth

The JX10 weighs just 10 grams and was designed by Danish company Jacob Jensen Design. Nearly every photo of the JX10 online appears to the be the silver model (which looks nearly white in some images) but mine was a stylish metallic black. According to one eBay reviewer, the black model is so sought-after that people are selling fakes, so it's probably safest to buy from a trusted source.

Hooking up

My mobile, a Motorola Razr V31, was far ahead of me when it came to connecting with the JX10. The two advanced devices basically ignored the slow-witted, fumbling human as they automatically discovered one another, shook hands and hooked up. The Razr already had an option in its Bluetooth menu for Hands-Free, and after finding the JX10 once, it remained listed there as a known headset, making reconnection easy.

The JX10 can plug straight into your ear and more or less stay there, but it also has an optional over-ear hook to keep it more secure. Most of the time it was pretty comfortable. My ears are annoyingly sensitive (wearing iPod earbuds gets painful after a while) and sometimes I would take the JX10 off and find my ear a bit sore, but on the whole it wasn't too bad.

Beauty call

When incoming calls arrived, the JX10 emits a soft beep in your ear. It's not too distracting, so if for any reason you don't want to take the call, it's quite easy to ignore. No one else could hear when it went off in meetings.

A small button on the side of the headset connects the call: despite its very compact size, it was quite easy to locate and press. No one seemed to be able to tell I was using a headset while I spoke to them, with most reporting my voice as quite clear.

The JX10 also woke up instantly when anything was activated on my mobile, it never lost connection. At one point, the JX10 kept doing this annoying beep in my ear that didn't indicate a call. It turned out to be a low battery alert. After recharging it, the annoying beep went away again. Battery life generally was good: it seemed to last for a couple of days at least without a recharge.

Walkie talkie

Quite a bit of unplanned stress testing took place during the trial. The JX10 was dropped numerous times, sat on, and even accidentally left to bake in the car in the midday heat. Despite this it kept working, has no scratches, and its detachable hook did not get bent out of shape at all. So the JX10 scores a perfect 10 for ruggedness.

Overall the Bluetooth headset was easy to use, and it did make driving easier. On the downside, I had a much higher mobile bill that month. Firstly because I kept calling people to see if it would work, including relatives overseas. Secondly because when you use a wireless headset you tend to stay on the phone for longer while driving, as there's no need to suddenly drop the call when you need to take a corner.

The same goes for talking while walking: there's no need to end the call when you reach the newspaper stand and have to start fumbling for your wallet. The downside here is that you look somewhat strange talking into mid-air, especially if your hair is hiding the device.