VXI BlueParrott B250-XT Bluetooth Wireless Headset Review

Gadgets

Written by Danny Penman

Over the years, Newsmonster has tested countless bluetooth wireless headsets and found them all to be fairly awful. The best ones (usually designed by Plantronics) were just about passable. Most (often designed by no-name manufacturers in the far East) were terrible. With this in mind, we were a little reluctant to try out a headset made by VXI because we'd grown so cynical about the marketing claims made by manufacturers. Still, we gave it a go and were pleasantly surprised.

The BlueParrott B250-XT isn't brilliant but it's streets ahead of the competition. It can't compare to a wired headset (even to the one supplied by Apple with their iPhones) but it is significantly better than any other bluetooth headset we've tried. The sound quality is sufficient for a decent two way conversation and you don't need to concentrate to hear the other person on the phone; nor do they constantly have to ask you to repeat yourself. The BlueParrott has occasional problems with 'drop outs' but again these aren't so frequent as to render conversation impossible.

The range of the Blueparrott is a claimed 66 feet, which seems more or less true. It also has 'Xtreme Noise Suppression' technology to eliminate background noise, which works quite well.

The BlueParrott looks very industrial and built to last. It also has a boom microphone which probably explains why sound quality is so much better than the competition. Battery life is excellent at around 150 hours on standby.

Is it worth the £80 ($120)? Yes and no. If you want to maximise voice quality buy a wired headset, but if you need a wireless one buy this BlueParrott. It's big (and a bit ugly) but does the job reasonably well. Alternatively, you could consider the Plantronics Voyager Pro UC which looks a lot sleeker but doesn't quite match the voice quality of the BlueParrott.

All in all we're still waiting for a truly great bluetooth headset; until then, we'll be sticking with the BlueParrott B250-XT.

Price around £80 ($120)

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