I’ve never been a huge believer in Bluetooth headsets, but I’ve recently been converted. Upon receiving the BlackBerry Wireless Headset HS-700 I was skeptical about how to go about a review and not being too harsh. It isn’t easy reviewing something that you’ve already got your mind made up about. Regardless, I broke open the packaging and lo and behold, my concept of Bluetooth headsets changed. I’ve had a few in my day, mostly for playing video games online, but a few months back I purchased a Plantronics Voyager Pro. While it was a nice headset, I never should have bought it. The long boom made me feel like an idiot out in public, and I would rather not use it outside of the house.

The HS-700 is different though. It’s sleek, slim, and barely noticeable to the wearer. Of course, I would still look funny wearing it in public (everyone does) and feel weird talking on it anywhere besides the comfort of my home or car. The difference though is the quality of it. Bluetooth headset manufacturers have made leaps and bounds in design over the past two years.

After getting through all of the packaging and finding the right earpiece to fit my funny shaped ears, I proceeded to pair it with my Torch. Pairing was painless, as it typically is these days. I turned on the headset and it went straight into pairing mode. If you’re unfamiliar with the pairing process, no fear, the headset speaks instructions to you and walks you through the entire setup process. Once paired, you should have the ability to answer calls, use your voice commands, and listen to podcasts, music, etc. through your headset. Up to this point, there was no real surprise, but I was still impressed with how easy everything has been made for someone who may not deal with Bluetooth a lot, or is unfamiliar with it. The next thing on the agenda was testing call quality, which turned out to be surprisingly great. I had no problem hearing the person on the other line, and they had no problem hearing me. I have since bought a Jawbone ICON and have had slight issues with people hearing me, but I’ll go ahead and claim that user error.

Simply put, the HS-700 works and it works well. Setup is easy as it talks you through everything and helps you straight out of the packaging. The help doesn’t end after the setup process, the headset will talk to you every time you turn it on. To some, this may be annoying, but I rather enjoy it. Before, Bluetooth had three functions, on, off, and pair. Now you have menus and other features built-in that extend what can be accomplished simply by talking to a tiny, battery-powered device that perches in your ear. To enter the voice commands, press the button on the outside rim of the headset. If you ever need help on a voice command menu, just say, “What can I say?” and it will give you all of the voice commands for whatever menu or submenu you are in. I found the voice commands very nice and simple to navigate and came in handy seeing as the headset has features that extend beyond the two-button hardware. Probably my favorite feature of the HS-700 comes with the AD2P capability (stereo Bluetooth, meaning you can listen to music via your headset), which is a voice command. Simply press the voice command button and say, “Play.” If you have a song that has been paused, it will simply resume. Unfortunately, if not, you will have to start up the music manually via the BlackBerry device. I was hoping that the voice commands would allow you to shuffle all or something like that if music wasn’t already playing, but no bother, it’s a cool feature nonetheless.

Probably my favroite thing about the HS-700 is how it turns on. Most Bluetooth headset are turned on by long pressing the talk button. When this is the case, sometimes you aren’t sure if you’re turning it on or off, or if you’re putting it in pairing mode. After dealing with Bluetooth devices for a long time, I’ve learned otherwise and learned the color-coded, morse code-like language from Bluetooth devices. The HS-700 is turned on by rotating the earpiece around. I really like this, it’s unobtrusive and just simply works without confusing you. The problem is, sometimes I’ve seemed to rotate the rubber fitting and find myself having to adjust that almost every time I put the device in my ear. Even still, I love the way this headset it turned on.

The downside to the HS-700 is it’s lack of features. In comparison to other devices in its price range, it has a lot of extended features with its voice commands, but some other devices offer more features and extended capabilities. With the HS-700 you can just talk to your headset, tell it to answer or ignore a call, etc. It can speak directions from a navigation application to you, or play your music. Now let’s look at the Jawbone ICON. With the ICON, I have extra easter eggs for using it with a BlackBerry. I can install an application on my BlackBerry that shows me the battery life remaining on my device. It also did not come out of the box with AD2P (stereo Bluetooth I was talking about earlier), so I couldn’t listen to music on it. This is one of the main reasons I wanted another Bluetooth, listening to Podcasts and possibly music was a nice selling feature. Since the ICON didn’t come with it out of box, I went to the website and learned that you can update the software on the ICON, change the voice that talks to you, and install applications that let you compose messages straight from the headset. All of this comes for $99.99 versus the $129.99 for the HS-700. Both are undoubtedly high-end Bluetooth devices with more capability than I would ever need out of that technology at the moment, but for the price, you’re not quite getting the same bang for your buck with the HS-700.

Maybe RIM can learn from Jawbone’s support for BlackBerry devices and really propel their own Bluetooth devices beyond the competition and offer something really cool and futuristic. Overall, the HS-700 is one awesome little Bluetooth. Personally, I love it. I give it 8 out of 10 stars. It’s sleek and slim, has amazing build quality, and just plain works really well. It’s much easier to figure out than most others, and offers great noise cancellation and excellent mic quality. If you’re looking into buying a Bluetooth to accompany your BlackBerry, definitely give the HS-700 a look over. Like I said, it doesn’t quite stack up to the Jawbone ICON with the applications and such, but it holds it own for someone who isn’t looking for applications and software updates on a device that is supposed to be plain and simple. The HS-700 works like it is supposed to straight out of the box, and I’ve yet to have a single problem out of mine.

For more information on the HS-700, you can visit the site, here. You can purchase your very own HS-700 at your local Best Buy or ShopBlackBerry.