Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Headsets & Nokia E90 - fatal combination !

I have been using a Nokia E90 phone for over an year now and I simply love it. One fantastic device it is. Since I prefer my hands to be free to do work in parallel while on a call, I have used bluetooth headsets for a couple of years now. I have used Logitech, Nokia and Sony Ericsson (SE) over the past years but most of them were mono headsets.

Then I stumbled across the new Stereo Bluetooth Headsets and after a quick comparison of features and design, I zeroed in on the Sony Ericsson HBH DS-200. In the beginning it was fantastic. Very non-intrusive, excellent sound quality (which can be even better when you replace the included ear phones with a better one (KOSS spark plugs for e.g.)), good mic reception, very effective ambient noise adaptation and very stable bluetooth connection.

But just after a month of use, the bluetooth connection started getting disconnected unexpectedly. Mostly it would be when I was dialing out a call and it would be on an average for every 4th or 5th call I dialed out. But then over the last few months it has progressively increased. It started getting disconnected on almost every 2nd call. Each time I got disconnected, the bluetooth headset freeze for a few seconds and then reset automatically. So I had to go and re-pair and connect it from my phone. Very very annoying !!

But being an optimistic techno-enthusiast I gave the benefit of the doubt to SE based on the assumption that it might just be this specific piece that is malfunctioning. So last month I went out and bought another SE headset. This time it was the HBH DS-980. A very cool looking headset and with a lot more features than the HBH DS-200. It has been working very fine since barring 2 instances where it got disconnected. It is a feature packed device where I can connect to my phone and my PC at the same time and listen to music from either. It automatically stops the music (from where ever it is playing i.e. PC or Phone or any other device) when you get an incoming call. But it has a small glitch. The music control features (play, pause, stop, etc.) work only with the last connected device. So if you were to connect your phone first and then your PC, it would not be able to control the music player on the phone. I am sure SE didn't really think it through before releasing this headset !

I truly hope this doesn't end up like the HBH DS-200. More on the HBH DS-980 to follow when I have used it for some time.

cheers for now.