Sony Ericsson HBH-65 Review

Sony Ericsson HBH-65Introduced with little fan fare, Sony Ericsson's HBH-65 is meant to replace the current top-of-the-line headset in their portfolio, the HBH-60.

Coming in at 22.4g, the HBH-65 is a mere two tenths of a gram lighter than the HBH-60 it replaces. It makes use of the exact same body as its older sibling, except that it sports an updated color scheme. The silver and black of the 60 has been replaced by a somewhat less attractive dark blue and silver. Simply inverting the colors to black and silver would have been better, if you ask me. But, as it turns out, nobody asked me....

But that is minor, because the important thing is that the HBH-65 has a winning design - new or not. The ear loop can be swiveled and flipped around to suit both left and right ears - even one handed. The loop is narrow enough to work decently with most glasses, too. The up and down volume buttons are easily found on the nose of the device, and the main control button is the best on the market. While being little more than a simple, round button, it sticks out just far enough on an otherwise plain surface to be extremely easy to locate. A indicator LED behind it glows red or green to denote status.

The control button handles all of the non-volume related functions, including power, call management, and pairing. You turn the device on or off by pressing and holding the control button until you hear a series of tones - rising to indicate power on, descending to indicate power off. Pairing the device is simple; it works the same way as turning on the headset, except that you continue to hold the button beyond the normal power-on melody. After a couple of extra seconds, you will hear a high pitched beep and the LED indicator that is behind the button will start to alternate between green and red. At this time the headset is discoverable and can be paired with a phone using a default PIN of "0000", as with other Sony Ericsson headsets. Once paired, pressung the control button will initiate or end a call, or transfer sound to the headset during a call that is already in progress. Everything functions exactly as with the HBH-60.

A more important change than the new color scheme is the battery management. The new battery system served up 50% more talk time on a P900 than did my trusty HBH-60: 1 hour and 30 minutes vs. 59 minutes. The P900 appears to use HV1 audio, much like many Nokia handsets, which accounts for the low talk-time performance. Using the HBH-65 with a T68i, a HV2 audio device, yields a better talk time of about 2:40. This is compared to the 2:26 count I got from my HBH-60. It appears that the improvement you will see with a HBH-65 vs. a HBH-60 depends on the handset you use.

Of course it is wonderful that the HBH-65 has a nice physical design - we can see that it can walk the walk. Luckily, it can talk the talk, too. Both inbound and outbound audio quality is good. It is maybe a bit heavy on the bass side of the sound spectrum, but it is not overly so and manages to sound reasonably "normal" in average conversation. I believe it is still obvious to the remote caller that you are not speaking directly into the handset, but it sounds better than any speakerphone I have used. Like the HBH-60 before it, I think the HBH-65 could benefit from a bit more high end pitch, but as is, there is little to complain about when it comes to the audio quality.

 

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