Nokia's BH-701 Bluetooth Headset

The Nokia BH-701 is a fashion-oriented Bluetooth headset, designed to appeal to those that value form over function. With its sleek silver color scheme, the BH-701 promises to make you stand out in a crowd. Included in the box is a power adapter, a stylish carry pouch, and a neck strap that keeps the headset conveniently in reach. The BH-701 features Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and supports the Handsfree and Headset profiles for maximum compatibility.

The Nokia BH-701 features an oversized steel loop that functions as an over-the-ear hook to secure the headset in place. A soft gel ring around the earpiece speaker fits comfortably in your ear and offers a small amount of outside noise reduction. There is a small plastic switch that's used for volume and a large main button on the outside of the headset. While somewhat comfortable, the oversize steel loop makes the headset look completely silly, like a huge earring. The design team completely failed on this one, and bad. However, the small gel ring around the speaker is really comfortable, and if you don't mind people laughing at you, it would be entirely possible to wear the BH-701 for several hours without getting an earache.

When wearing the headset on your right ear, the volume rocker is located on the bottom of the headset, and flicking the volume towards the back of the headset turns the volume up, while flicking towards the front will turn the volume down.

The charging port is located on the opposite side from the volume rocker, and accepts the now standard small barrel Nokia charger, which means if you're using the headset with a newer Nokia handset, you can use the same charger for both the headset and the phone. The included neck strap is silver and uses a chrome ring at the end to snap onto the large steel ring of the headset. If you think that sounds silly-looking, it is.

The BH-701's main button is used to power the headset on, and there is a microscopic multi-colored LED indicator to let you know the current status of the headset. Holding the main button down for about 5 seconds will turn it on, as indicated by a flashing green light. To enter into 'pairing mode', continue to hold the main button down until the green light starts flashing blue. To turn the BH-701 off, simply hold the main button for about 5 seconds, or until you see a flashing red light.

The main button on the BH-701 can be pressed once to accept an incoming call, or twice to reject the call. If your handset supports voice dialing, you can press the main button for 2-3 seconds to activate this directly from the headset. When you are not in an active phone call, you can also press the main button twice to redial the last number called, if supported by your phone.

The Nokia BH-701 is advertised as providing 6 hours of talk time. For a normal user, you should be able to go nearly 2 days on a single charge, unless you are a heavy talker. Once paired with a Bluetooth enabled phone, the BH-701 does an excellent job at maintaining a solid connection, even right up to the 30' radius limit.

One thing that the Nokia BH-701 does rather well is providing great sound quality. Since it is a longer boom-style headset, it is easier for the BH-701 to pick up your voice and cancel out other background noise. There is no additional noise-cancellation technology enabled on the BH-701, however. In most environments, including outdoors and in the vehicle, callers reported clear sound quality with little to no static.