The New Jawbone Icon

Last week I was flying to Denver and lost my Bluetooth mobile phone headset on the flight. I travel a lot and more and more states are making driving with mobile phone in hand illegal, so I needed to replace my headset.

I've never owned a headset I've liked.

After doing some research on cnet.com, I walked into a Best Buy and picked up a Jawbone Icon.

It is by far the finest Bluetooth headset I've ever owned, including an earlier stint with a Jawbone 2, which completely underwhelmed me.

This time the folks at Aliph have gotten it right. The most impressive feature, and - of course, the most important - , is the quality of the Icon's sound outbound and inbound. The people with whom I speak have been impressed at the difference in sound when I turn off NoiseAssassin. NoiseAssassin 2.5, which was developed by the military for use in helicopters and tanks, does a great job at substantially reducing wind noise. The headset has a Voice Activity Sensor that gently touches your cheek and discerns when you are speaking. Inbound audio clarity is also noticeably superior to what I've seen in other headsets.

But the Icon has some other cool features as well.

The headset only has 2 buttons. One is an on-off switch and the other is a button that controls everything else. If you press it once when not using it, a voice will let you know how much time you have left on your battery. Press it 2x and it will redial the last number. Press and hold it down and my Blackberry prompts me to give a voice command to dial someone in my Contacts.

If you have an iPhone, there is a meter on your iPhone that will also advise the user of battery life. You can also connect the Icon to a webpage and download different applications and even different voices. There is a choice of 6 styles to choose from with the Icon. It has a USB cord for recharging which makes it more flexible. It only weighs 10 grams and has a number of different earbuds and an ear loop so that you can find the right fit.

Finally, the design of the headset is quite stylish.

Highly recommended.