REVIEWS: Anycom's Bluetooth headset and USB adapter

ANYCOM sent us in two of their newest Bluetooth products for a review: the "Headset HS-890" and the "Adapter USB-200". Read more for a complete introduction of the gadgets.

Headset HS-890

This headset is the third generation of Anycom's bluetooth phone headsets. It comes in three colors: black, white and pink-ish. The retail box comes either with a car charger, lanyard, USB cable or just an AC adapter, our version came only with the latter. The headset has a very elegant design and it looks very modern. I was surprised to see that it had a perfect fit on both my ear(s), something that was not so for the other similar products I have tried in the past. In addition to the perfect fit, the headset proved very light and comfortable, after a few minutes I had completely forgotten I was wearing it!

The ANYCOM Blue Headset HS-890 supports both the Headset and the Handsfree profiles and it worked without any problems with both the phones I tried it with. Incoming sound was crystal clear while the sound I was transmitting from my side was equally good due to the intergrated noise cancellation feature coming from its DSP chip. The range was not too bad either, I was able to move around the room up to 6 meters away from the phone before it started breaking up. The device has 3 buttons: volume up/down while the Power On/Off button also does call answered/end, redial and mute. For some special phones there is also support for auto-answering, Voice Dialing and Last-Number-Redial. It's very easy to locate the correct buttons while wearing the device.

Overall, this is a great headset, maybe one of the best on the market. However, battery life could have been better. Just 5 hours of talk time and 140 hours of stand-by is a bit too low.

Rating: 9/10

Blue USB Adapter USB-200 (2.0)

You might ask why review a Bluetooth USB adapter as there are so many of these out there. Well, this one is special. Not only is a Bluetooth 2.0 version, but it also supports the Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) which allows for file transfering between Bluetooth devices at hundrends of kilobytes per second. Secondly, this adapter comes with the latest Broadcom software which has a lot of useful profiles in it: GAP, SDP, SPP, DUN, LAP, FAX, ObexFT, ObjectPush, HCRP, PAN, Headset, Sync, HID, Audio Gateway, BIP, BIP Camera, A2DP, AVRCP.

The only profiles missing are pretty much just VDP and BPP, but realistically only the BPP profile would have been useful at this time because there are no devices that support VDP yet. The BPP profile allows you to print to a printer via Bluetooth without the need of special drivers (the included HCRP printing profile requires special drivers for each printer).

Installation was very fast and went without an incident. In fact, no reboot was even needed. I tested the adapter with two A2DP/AVRCP headphones and worked perfectly, while sending files from and to my mobile phone also worked well. ActiveSync my PDA through Bluetooth also worked. Walking around the building never disrupted the connection and it seems that the 60-meter (200ft) range is for real.

Overall, this is a great little gadget. In any case, don't even think staying put with your existing Bluetooth 1.1 or 1.2 usb adapters! Speed, range, power consumption and profile support will obsolete them soon enough. If you need more range get the USB-250 model from Anycom (120 meters, 400ft), or if 200ft is enough for you, get the reviewed USB-200 one.

Rating: 9/10