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Wow, a keen-looking pair of dual-purpose headphones for review, and a Motorola branded one, as well.

The MotoRokr S9 Stereo BT hands-free headset

Upon unboxing these headphones (see Chris’s unboxing or Radimus’s unboxing), my first impression was that they looked pretty good, and that they were quite light. That’s always important for something you are potentially going to be wearing for hours at a time. You don’t want a weighty albatross sitting on your head while you rock out to your tunes. The package included the headphones, a charger, manuals, and two spare pairs of earcups. These come in two sizes: Medium (two sets of the smaller size including the ones on the headphones already) and Ginormous. I tested the flexibility of the headband and am happy to note that they are very flexible without being too flimsy. My older BT headphones have a problem with being rather brittle and have split at the middle; you will not have this problem with the S9. The controls are: on the left, Phone hook, volume up, and volume down. On the right, Play/Pause, track forwared and track back. Unboxing, I noticed one of the information cards that came with the S9 says that you should operate it with the sending device (we’ll say phone, for simplicity) above your waist. Hmmmm!

More after the break….

Rear, Top, and Front 3/4 views of the MotoRokr S9

Trying the headphones on, I noted how light and comfortable they were, but just a little awkward for me to adjust the band about my ears. The earcups didn’t make a seal, so I switched to the largest size. These didn’t seal either; I feel you should be able to do so in order to isolate yourself from noise. Perhaps this was by design, a safety concern. In comparison, they are more comfortable than my heavier, tighter Logitech headphones, and better suited for hours of use.

After charging, I took it to my LG CU500 and it was quickly recognized and connected easily, using the pack-in instructions. Then I played some music (The Offspring, of course) to test them out. The sound was good. Not the best, it lacks a bit in bass response (phone equalizer settings didn’t help much), but the music was clear and audible. The earcups did a passing job of isolating outside noises, but would have done much better if they had been allowed to seal against the ear canal. In the extensive tests, I did find that you could leave the phone on your hip most of the time, but sometimes it would skip a bit for no particular reason. Pity, it seems the “above the waist” restriction would have to be adhered to. I always got sound with the phone on my desk at work, though.

Next comes the test of the S9 as a phone headset. When in use as a phone headset, you hear sound in the left earpiece only. The sound I heard was always good. I used it both while driving, while outside, and while inside. Inside, with relatively quiet environs, I had no complaints about audibility, but when background noise rose even a little bit, my callers had great trouble understanding what I was saying, even when I broke down and spoke slowly and loudly.

Now come the compatibility checks. I succeeded connecting with my X50 with A2DP, thanks to this thread on MobilitySite (upgraded BT stack required). I also tried to connect with the BT transmitter bug that came with my Logitech BT headphones with no success (so, no use with my iPod Touch). Setup with my CU500 was quick and easy; Motorola has a nice bluetooth phone compatibility list that you might want to visit, listing phones with A2DP that work with the S9. Use of the controls (play/pause, track forward and back, volume, and cell phone answer) worked quite well with both devices.
Strengths are:

• Attractive
• Light
• Comfortable, even for longer listening times.
• Good (not great) sound.
• Durable and flexible.
• Rechargeable through USB (works with not-included USB cable).

Drawbacks are:

• Sound isolation could be better.
• Not usable as a hands-free device with your phone. Sorry.
• Range is severely limited.
• Compatibility (as tested) is limited; this is designed to be used with a cell phone that has A2DP.

In summary, you would do well to purchase these as stereo BT headphones, especially for exercise or desk work or anywhere you would be encumbered by wires. But buyer beware when using as a cell phone headset.
If I were to redesign these, I would make it possible to seat the earcups in your ear canals for better sound isolation, I would attach a small, retractable boom mike for better voice pickup, and finally I would increase their range.

5 out of 10.

Limited range and hands-free operation make this potentially awesome headset into something rather average. Good as a stereo headset, but the price has hands-free built in.

- PocketBrain -

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Chris Leckness (3571 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.