GBMH211W6 Review (Bluetooth Headphones)

As you probably know, I am a data center technician. I have long been frustrated that I was never able to listen to music without a headset but when I would do that I suddenly lost the ability to hear things such as IMs or my cell phone ringing. Of course you can only pair a bluetooth headset with one device -- until the GBMH211W6 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones from IO Gear.

I easily paired these headphones with my MacBook and my BlackBerry Pearl and they do exactly what they say. I can listen to music through iTunes and have the ability to hear IM alerts and such and I can control the music volume and track as well as play/pause all from the headset it's self. If a call comes into my cell phone these headphones automatically pause the music on my computer and allow me to take the call and will unpause the music whenever the call is complete. I am also able to place a call using voice dialing without going near my computer or my phone. The way this is able to work is these headphones support 2 different bluetooth profiles. One is the headset profile and the other is the headphone profile. Your cell phone will pair with the headset profile and your laptop with the headphone profile.

Aside from the incredible advantage that the above options provide the headphones are very comfortable and they sound great. I'm sure if your an audiophile who swears by Bose you will probably find something wrong with the quality but for what the normal mobile person uses these types of things for I think they far excel. Being surrounded by thousands of computers has always been an issue for me with the background noise but I am able to hear music just fine and I've had a couple conversations on the phone using these that the other party had no issue hearing me.

And beyond all of that... the battery life is AWESOME. I used these for about 8 hours in the data center and had it paired with both devices the whole time.... at least 7 hours of that was with music playing and when I left for the day the headphones gave no indication that the battery was running low. Oh.... and range is far better than any bluetooth headset I have used with my phone.... I've gone well over the 30ft range that it claims and the connection was still stable.... and this is in a building where the 2.4ghz spectrum is quite crowded.