Review: New Headsets Let You Shoot The Breeze

The contenders were:

— The $100 Voyager PRO, from Plantronics Inc. of Santa Cruz, Calif. This model is sort of a throwback, bucking the trend toward smaller headsets. Most of its bulk sits behind the ear, like a hearing aid. A long boom brings the microphone close to your mouth. That helps with the audio pickup at the price of making you look like you escaped off the bridge of the starship Enterprise. (By the way, I've thought of a way to make a detachable microphone that comes closer to the mouth, for even better sound. It attaches to the nose like a bull ring. Interested manufacturers should contact me.)

The Voyager is heavier than the other headsets, but sits comfortably on the ear. General noise suppression is excellent. Wind suppression is not that good, but the Voyager has a very smart feature that makes up for that: It connects the microphone to the earbud, so the wearer can hear when the microphone is picking up the wind. Often, just turning your head away from the wind will get rid of most of the noise, and the Voyager lets you figure out how to do that.

The Voyager yields 6 hours of talk time before needing to be recharged, compared to 4 to 4.5 hours for the other models.