Plantronics have a reputation for making quality telephony gear. We’re glad to see some of the features of their high end products making an appearance in their lower end kit.

The under the ear design is very comfortable, and thanks to the lightweight design you can wear it for long conversations easily. The speaker fires to the front of your ear, instead covering it, and as such it’s easy to hear what’s going on around you. It’s not a high quality speaker, but it works very well with voice.

The boom microphone is actually a hollow tube, with a wind reducing tip. It’s very effective at reducing noise, because it’s based on the same design used by fluffy boom microphones used in the film and TV industries. Voice travels up the tube to the microphone embedded in the ear-hugging base of the unit, but wind does not, providing your mobile or VoIP software with a clean signal.

The headset itself terminates in a 2.5mm plug; which will plug into compatible mobile phones. Be aware that the headset will make you look either very serious or like a theatre actor.

Between the headset and plug, there’s an inline volume control and sliding microphone mute switch. A window in the control displays a red or green piece of plastic to indicate the mute status. There’s also a little microphone gain switch that you can adjust with a paperclip.

An inline USB sound card is included which terminates in a 2.5mm socket. This replaces your default sound device, which isn’t an ideal solution but is an effective one. You can select between the headset and sound card through the control panel.

Looking at both its performance and versatility, it’s actually good value for money. We would have liked to have seen a button on the control box to end mobile calls, but nonetheless, it still gets our recommended stamp of approval.