Motorola HT820 Bluetooth stereo headset

DeMoBLiTzer · 07-11-05, 06:26 AM

I guess no one mentioned or went deep about this headset before.

I am thinking of getting one, its relatively new. Anybody who've already got it have any says on it?

http://www.slashphone.com/106/1677.html
http://sg.motorola.com/pcs/accessories.ASP

ironhelix · 07-11-05, 08:12 AM

-ooh baby

-stereo fer music, and you can take calls

-thanks fer sharing, i am sure this will put a lot of smiles around here

DeMoBLiTzer · 07-18-05, 06:43 AM

I just got some update on this baby, generally this headset is bundled free together with the motorola E680 music phone, which feature A2DP & headset play controls. Thats why we don't get many reviews on it online & is only largely available in handphone retailer shops.

The lowest price I came across for this baby is approx $99 SGD (Singapore dollars) so in USD it would roughly cost $70 or so.

Many handphone retailer stores in Singapore are selling it as an individual item, separate from the E680, marking the price ranging from $150-$210. $99 is the lowest so far, but seldom would they sell it so cheap to consumers.

DeMoBLiTzer · 07-22-05, 08:37 PM

*listens to fatboy slim whiole typing this post*

whee, got the headphones yesterday, paired it at first on my BT1.5 stack & it only allows standard audio headset pairing (no A2DP) so sound quality is on the low side then & as good on the BT monoheadset.

After upgrading BT stack 1.6.0600, redid my pariing on the high quality audio profile & WHOA!, sound quality is great!

running the A04 ROM.

Now I just have to install the HP BT patch to use the play controls. whee! :approve:

ttriple · 07-22-05, 10:55 PM

Originally Posted by DeMoBLiTzer

*listens to fatboy slim whiole typing this post*

whee, got the headphones yesterday, paired it at first on my BT1.5 stack & it only allows standard audio headset pairing (no A2DP) so sound quality is on the low side then & as good on the BT monoheadset.

After upgrading BT stack 1.6.0600, redid my pariing on the high quality audio profile & WHOA!, sound quality is great!

running the A04 ROM.

Now I just have to install the HP BT patch to use the play controls. whee! :approve:

Im interested in these headphones. Mind telling us where and how much did you paid for them? Also, how is the construction and comfort level of these babies? thanks in advance for your reply.

DeMoBLiTzer · 07-23-05, 03:01 AM

To answer your question (& future questions!) I've included a short review of this baby, my 2nd review in the forum so far

(read my 1st review on budget x50v VGA-out cable).

Here goes:

REVIEW of MOTOROLA HT820 BLUETOOTH STEREO HEADSET
I guess the main reason why people are pulling back on BT headphones currently are compatiblity problems & price. Personally I brought this headphone because of its build & looks, not to mention price too. The decision is very much uncharted as theres no searchable review of this on the net &/or news on whether its axim compatible. Well, I guess someone got to test it out 1st right? & hey why not be the first to write a review too!

Intro, some construction stuffs:
Its a moto so we can expect some quality over lower-profile brands such as sonorix, iphono, blueant or even icombi. My unit is made in china (I think so for most moto accessories). The headphone (speaker unit) is very well constructed & soild (no shaky, lose parts here), with a reflective plastic on the face. Personally speaking, I love the comfort of the ear sponges, soft & spongy. But the thing I worry is getting replacement sponges when they start to wear out- An inevitable problem usually faced by headphone users.

Price
I paid $100SGD (singapore dollars) for my baby, that includes the headphones in full box, manual w/warranty & an AC charger similarly used for the Moto Razr V3 & E680 phones. Actually you can charge this baby through USB too as the charging port is actually a mini usb port.

I got it at cost price thru a close friend of mine who owns a mobile-shop. Expected retail prices outside range from $150-$210SGD, converting to USD its roughly $85-$120USD.

Function
The Multi-function (MFB) buttons are located on both sides (left for handsfree, right for music play/pause/stop), together with the skip & volume control buttons all provide a good statisfying feedback when pressed.

There are leds on both sides of the headphones. The left side will slowly glow on & off every 8 seconds (yea finally no irritating flashes!) when taking calls & on standby. Leds on both sides will glow in alternate when streaming stereo music in A2DP.

The back-band is made out of smooth gray flexible plastic. Theres a thin wire running along inside it, which can be seem from a gap below, the bluetooth aerial I presume, a smartmove by moto. Reception is good & I can easy walk anywhere from 8-9m from my axim before getting radio distortions. The only cosmetic problem is a thin plastic edge running on the back-band, giving it an unfinished cheap look which kinda goes against it overall looks. But understandably this is pretty much a manufacturing problem & the nature of molding of plastics.

Battery life
Battery life is claimed by moto at 17 hours talktime & 14 hours of continous hi-quality music streaming, I have yet to test that out. There's no battery meter or whatsoever & its only programmed to bug you once it needs more juice. So the only thing I can share right now is that since my first charge yesterday afternoon, using the headphones about 5 hours yesterday & 4 hours this morning, battery life is still going strong. Even before I could go any further, my axim's battery died on me while commuting on the bus today...

Sound quality
Out of the box A2DP, treble was excessively dominating over the mid & lows frequency sounds. Unless you are a classical or treble fanatic, this can be easily fixed with some equaliser adjustments in your given music player software. Personally I am a bassy-dance person, enabling bassboost on GSplayer by abit (from 0 to level 3) gave reasonably adequate good low bass. Sound quality is comparable to an average Sony $50-$60 street-style headphones.

Problems
Running x50v A04 & Broadcom BT v1.6. Initial pairing came at a headache- The device would just disconnect halfway after pairing. But connection is a breeze after pairing & turning on the headphones will initalise auto-pairing with your axim. One thing to note is a slight increase in lag on my axim during music streaming. Furthermore, occasionally (& annoyingly) music will sometimes skip, (similiarly experienced when shaking your discman with esp or shakeproof off). After some troubleshooting I found out that the problem can be remedied by increasing processor speed, resulting in fewer skips & eventually no skips at the "maximum performance" (624Mhz) setting. I can come to conclusion that this is comfirmed a software/BT firmware problem, since a Moto E680 running an xscale 300mhz can feed A2DP music with headset function & play controls on simultaneously. Why can't a 624mhz Axim X50V do so?

Till dell addresses this bluetooth problem with an official support for A2DP, this is the best we can do. :rolling:

Final words
Overall, this is headset is definitely value for money. A good mix of features, built & price, whats more it WORKS with the axim! I would definitely recommend this headphone to anyone who yearns quality wireless music without the hassle of tangled/messy headphone wires, dying turn heads in crowds

or just simply out of the plain love of technology. :approve:

I guess pictures are worth a thousand words, I had my digicam lying around anyway, so why not share some shots with you happy people here... (see attached images)

Regards
Shaun
www.shaunchng.com

:exc: UPDATE: some additional info.
Mmmm, I overlooked & missed out an additonal neat feature this headphone has - a 2.5mm jack on the right speaker unit. I haven't read or tried out much of it though. But the manual states it being some inline jack and nothing on whether it being an input or output jack.

Speculating, if is an output jack, then maybe it serves to output analog audio from whatever BT audio source it feeds from (e.g to play music on your hi-fi, etc... or anywhere within range of your home). If its an input, then we can feed in a wired audio source (e.g CD player, iPod, etc). Or use wires if your axim's batt is too low to activate bluetooth...

But its a stereo 2.5mm jack, & a converter is needed for 3.5mm conventional jacks. So I can't test it out atm... Dang gotta get one of those converters...

p1cturehause · 07-23-05, 11:08 AM

hey where do I go to get that bt stack upgrade?

from Singapore too can you tell me which Shop it is?

ttriple · 07-24-05, 09:04 PM

Hey thanks for doing a review for the headphones. I like how you gave us examples that we can relate to. How does it feel when you are laying down while using the headphones? One of the things I love about my Sony E888's earphones is that they are comfortable in the ears even when im laying on my sides and listening to music.

DeMoBLiTzer · 07-24-05, 10:52 PM

Originally Posted by p1cturehause

hey where do I go to get that bt stack upgrade?

Check out this thread here, you can get hold of the bt stacks thru links provided by SolSie.

Originally Posted by p1cturehause

from Singapore too can you tell me which Shop it is?

I would like to highlight again that I brought my headphones thru a close friend selling close to cost price (headphones + charger) at $100SGD. I don't think you will be able to get it at the price I've got outside. & in his benefit I am sorry to highlight that I WON'T be taking orders for anyone interested to order thru him. But at least, even if you were to buy them outside, the costprice guide will roughly guide you on your potential savings.

But, fret not, as I've did some homework pior to my purchase, here are some of my recent findings of prices (HS + charger) last week: Shops in funan (inbox-5) are selling them at $168 & simlim square around $150-$210. But do avoid this store called Pacific Mobile @ square in simlim #4-24. They are real tricksters stating $95 retail price (my eyes lit up at that point), but later gave a different story that they must bundle a charger together with the headphones, jacking the price to $150++

Originally Posted by ttriple

Hey thanks for doing a review for the headphones. I like how you gave us examples that we can relate to. How does it feel when you are laying down while using the headphones? One of the things I love about my Sony E888's earphones is that they are comfortable in the ears even when im laying on my sides and listening to music.

The band sticks out a little from the back when worn normally, like what most street headphones do, & they usually get in the way of headrests or lying on your back.

However, you can wear them lower (yet comfortably) till the band sits in the back grove or valley of your neck, then everything would be flushed with your back & head. :)

tallshorty · 07-25-05, 02:33 PM

Did you end up getting the buttons on the headphone to work? I recently purchased (and returned) an icombi BT headphone because I couldn't get the buttons to work (even with all the patches) and the music would temporarily cut out every 5 seconds. I never tried increasing the processor speed though...I wonder if that will fix it also.

tuxsg · 07-25-05, 07:55 PM

Originally Posted by tallshorty

Did you end up getting the buttons on the headphone to work? I recently purchased (and returned) an icombi BT headphone because I couldn't get the buttons to work (even with all the patches) and the music would temporarily cut out every 5 seconds. I never tried increasing the processor speed though...I wonder if that will fix it also.

Hi.

I recently bought an I-Phono Stereo headset BT420EX wich comes with a BT430 audio dongle for transmit using Bluetooth from any wired device. It rocks, but I'm planing buy this Motorola HT820 for compare it and decide which is better for me.

I have just a question, as far as I know, motorola sets up their bluetooth handsfree/headsets for just use with motorola devices/celular phones, so, How do you get connected you headset with the axim x50v? Is technically possible to use this device with my nokia 6230 since is a bluetooth enabled device, so, I need to unblock the headset first? How can I do that?
Thanks all!

DeMoBLiTzer · 07-27-05, 08:42 AM

Ok, I guess I should post a few updates to this thread on the headset, at the same time, answer a few questions posted here.

Firstly I would like to highlight that this headset requires 2 bluetooth profiles to run on your axim for full ultilisation, 1st being the Bluetooth AV profile & 2nd the headset profile. Play Controls & High quality music stream comes from the Bluetooth AV profile. However, I did not able to get the play controls to work on the headset with the axim, only the volume & multifunction buttons work.

Why? The wildcomm drivers take up too much system resources to actually run (more of a memory related issue than processor). Even with 13MB storage memory & 25MB program memory free, I have to disable the headset mic profile to actually stream music, or my axim would just hang, therefore at the expense of the play controls too. Partly as I could not install the HP play control driver update as the installer restricts installation on devices other than their own HP products.

Furthermore, though music can be streamed continously on the headset from my Axim, music would constantly skip (approx 1/2secs) every 50 seconds or so while playing a song (tested using both GSplayer & Pocketmind Pocketmusic). Furthermore, high bitrate MP3 SOUNDS AWFUL, with cracks & distortion in the music. This is not only an axim related issue, but also a HP HX4700 - HP (logitech) bluetooth headphones issue too. Read more here at dave's Ipaq.
Discussion conclusion (Culprit)- Wildcomm drivers.

How am I comparing or benchmarking all these too you may ask? (read on!)
Haha you can say I am more of less fed up with wildcomm now. However, I was still NOT convinced whether the skipping problem was really a HT820 technical issue or an Axim driver issue & I needed to see results myself on actually conclude. So started searching for 3rd party drivers on the net. THEN of of pure luck, I came across this great site where you can download 3rd party AV bluetooth drivers, too bad they are all evaluation. It some taiwan or korean company I think called IVT crop. I dled 7 ran their PC AV drivers the results are like WOW! :approve:

Sharing my experience after testing out the HT820 with my PC (the IDEAL EXPERIENCE)
After test playing the same MP3 file on my PC (the same tested on my Axim too) the audio quality streamed thru my PC has the quality how the gods wanted it to be - PERFECT, no skips, no hiss, no distortions. I would also like to highlight that play controls (tested on media player 10/winamp 5.0) & mic works flawlessly too (tested on MS recorder/creative media recorder). Though the evaluation allowed only 5MB of streaming, its enough to convince me about the true experience this pair headphones can offer. (& yea, I junked my wildcomm PC drivers thereafter)

FINAL Conclusion: HT820 - 1

(whew! lucky I don't have to return it!), Wildcomm drivers - 0 :thumbsdow

This looks promising:
IVT have winCE bluetooth drivers available on their site, SUPPORTING High Quality AV PROFILE AS WELL. But, I could not get it working on my axim as it requires a setup which needs to be pointed towards the windows BT.dll in the windows folder (which is hidden) can any member help me on this? Even after unchecking "hidden" under "properties" in resco explorer, The windows folder content is still not showing & I can't choose the .dll in the setup.

More updates to come!

phasetrip · 07-31-05, 12:27 PM

Has anoyone tried these headphones with a x30 high?

kltye · 08-02-05, 07:51 PM

Can we ban JGDobbs? He/she seems to be posting this sale item all over the place.

On another note, I wonder if demoblitzer or p1cturehause or anyone else from Singapore knows if any stores in Changi airport sells this, possibly for a cheap price as well? I'm in Malaysia now, and will be passing through the airport to get back to Chicago in September...

DeMoBLiTzer · 08-02-05, 08:29 PM

Originally Posted by kltye

Can we ban JGDobbs? He/she seems to be posting this sale item all over the place.

On another note, I wonder if demoblitzer or p1cturehause or anyone else from Singapore knows if any stores in Changi airport sells this, possibly for a cheap price as well? I'm in Malaysia now, and will be passing through the airport to get back to Chicago in September...

You can try looking around the DFS electronics area, I think they have one in both terminal 1 & 2. Near some free internet surf booths I think, thats what I can remember or so. But I am not sure about the availability of handphone accessories though... it had been a long time since I've travelled or entered the duty free area... duh!