Nokia’s BH-501 looks great, sounds wonderful and is very easy to use but is also the most absurdly flimsy product Nokia have ever made.
At approximately £40, the BH-501 seems like excellent value for money. It’s got all the latest bluetooth audio profiles and is a perfect companion for a modern media-phone like my N95 or as audio output from a shiny-new mac-book. It can connect to many devices including almost any mobile phone and with an integrated mic you can make calls (as long as you speak loudly).
I used to use mine for listening to podcasts. I’m sure they would not impress an audiophile, but then again no bluetooth headphones ever could. They were just fine for listening to MP3s. I found the clarity and loudness sufficient to listen in noisy places (I used to wear mine while cycling). Sounds great, right? Unfortunately a silly design means that that your BH-501 will break and become useless long before you get your value from this product.
Did you notice that I refer to this product in the past tense? That is because every one of the three BH-501s I have ever owned has broken. Calling them fragile is an understatement.
In what might have seemed like a bold stroke of the designer’s CAD system, the BH-501 has a sort of folding mechanism where the two arches that go over the ear bend at a hinge to make the device occupy less volume. The hinged component is curved component made of bendy-moulded plastic, that looks like a curved, tapered spline. At it’s thinnest it converges to a width of approximately 5mm diameter. It’s hardly a co-incidence that every one of the devices I have tested fails at exactly this point.
Please believe me - It’s not that I have been unlucky. I’ve been through three of these. Each time I optimistically (stupidly) expected that I had just been unfortunate and that Nokia would never have marketed a fault. Each time I was wrong. All three headphones failed in exactly the same way
My verdict is that this product should be avoided, except for very light indoor use. If you have one of these devices you should never place it round your neck, like you might do with an ordinary pair of headphones. The plastic cannot cope with the torsion which results from normal body movement and will very quickly fail next time you wear them on your ears.
If you are a BH-501 owner, I’d appreciate your comments here. I’m particularly interested to know how quickly the plastic failed and what kind of treatment you gave it.
I believe that Nokia should be quick to admit that they made a mistake here and offer to recall the product. I’d be happy to buy other Nokia accessories, but I feel that to continue to market a product with a known serious fault is somewhat dishonest.
Im a chilean 26 years old man, tree months ago im buy nokia bluettoth headset, but at four days this is broken.
Im a hungarian 26 years old man, two months ago im by nokia BH-501 headset, but at twenty days this is broken. I send that to the official service. Now im waiting to the answer.