This will be the last in my current batch of stereo bluetooth headset reviews, the Nokia BH601. I’ve run out of headsets to review, unless of course one of the manufactuers wants to send me one to play with. Today I’d like to consider Nokia’s next iteration of the the series which previously gave us the flawed BH-501.
Fortunately Nokia have managed to fix nearly all of the BH-501′s flaws – the 601 is a substantially better product in almost every way. Unfortunately Nokia have introduced a range of new problems, which I am sure they will get round to fixing in a year or so.
The first major improvement is that it’s tougher. Nokia have eliminated both of the weak-spots in the bendy plastic adjacent to the earphones. The curves around the earphones of the BH-601 are sturdy bars of flexible plastic with shock-absorbing rubber inserts. They have the appearance of being able to withstand a great deal of twisting and bending. That’s good news because I have a feeling that I will get more than a few weeks use out of this device.
The next major improvement is obvious – they’ve added a few more buttons. Not quite as many as Jabra with their confusing BT620s, but enough to allow some nifty new features. In addition to the original volume controls and select/power button we now have a track-skip controller.
Oddly enough the volume controls work in a different way to those on the BH-501. They do not seem to be linked into the phone’s volume control. The two act independently rather than (as with the BH-501) change a single volume setting.
Another neat feature is that for the first time Nokia have noticed that nobody likes to be lit up like fairy-lights. This device has two LEDs adjacent to the standard Nokia charging port. The blue light blinks to show that the headset is active and the green light blinks when the headset is on charge. There are no lights visible from the side or front. That’s good news for people who do not wish to be the focus of attention.
It never occurred to me to complain that the BH-501 could not operate while charging. It just seemed like too small a thing to mention, but that’s another thing that Nokia have changed. I’m not sure that I’d ever want to talk while charging as having a charging wire plugged into a headset somewhat negates the benefit of a wireless device. It’s nice they thought of it though, I can confirm that it works.
And now the bad points: The reception range of the BH-601 seems to be considerably worse than the BH-501 (which was excellent). In ideal circumstances the BH-601 will give me 10 metres of range from my Nokia 95 while listening to stereo audio. In an environment with moderate to low levels of radio interference (e.g. a normal city street) the signal will often break down unless I hold the N95 almost adjacent to the headset. I guess the thicker plastic used to make this device absorbs a lot more of the signals.
Speaking of range, a related issue is the device’s ability to recover from an interrupted signal. Unfortunately it’s not good. As I wandered around my office building today, I noticed that somebody operating a photocopier nearby was enough to interrupt the signal. Also the motor which opens the steel gate of the cycle-park put out enough EMF to completely cut the connection.
While a brief interruption may be acceptable in the face of interference, the problem with this device is that once it looses a connection the the link stays lost. The only way to re-connect is to power-down the headset, and then re-boot it. The phone appears not to have detected the fact that the link has failed resulting in complete silence.
Another oddity is that this stereo headset seems to switch to monaural mode every time a call comes in. A phone call is always in mono but one of the advantages of having a headset with 2 earphones is that you can hear the mono audio with two ears at once. When you use the BT-601 to talk on the phone only the left can produces sound. The right can (which includes the microphone) remains silent.
It’s also worth noting that the look and styling of this product seems quite cheap. It’s a better design than the BH-501 but the quality of the plastic molding is poor, and the silvery insert in either of the phones looks very cheap. That’s sad because I would have been willing to pay slightly more for a device that has a more elegant design.
On the whole the BH-601 is a modest improvement on the ill fated BH-501. It’s definitely the best Nokia stereo headset I’ve tried but they still have a long way to go before they deliver the headset I really deserve.
