Plantronics Savor M1100 Bluetooth headset

Weighing in at just 9g, the NZ$149 Plantronics Savor M1100 is the lightest Bluetooth headset I’ve seen. It is also the most comfortable. The headset is so light there are times when you can forget you are wearing it.

Savor M1100 is small enough to carry in your pocket when it isn’t in use and its elegant triangular design doesn’t make you feel like a prat if you’re seen in public with it stuck on your ear.

Plantronics has done a great job with the audio quality. I’ve not used a better sounding headset.

Crisp and clear sound

Although the three built-in microphones are a long way from your mouth, the sound quality at the other end is crisp and clear. When asked, people I spoke to heard me better than when I use my phone’s microphone. Plantronics says the three microphones provide better noise reduction, although there’s no active noise reduction circuitry.

Listening to music from a smartphone on the headset is possible – in mono. I found the quality is good enough for, say, a short bus ride. The headset comes packaged with a charger and its own USB cable.

Connecting to a smartphone is straightforward – a robot voice tells you when you are connected. There is a limited set of voice activated controls, you click a button and have ten minutes to utter a command. There’s also a volume control and an on-off button.

Vocalyst software

Plantronics has packaged its Bluetooth headset with a cloud-like service called Vocalyst. The basic service is free for two years, while a pro version costs money from the outset.

Vocalyst allows you to connect to information services like news or weather reports and have information read out to you. Each time you contact a service you make a phone call.

Plantronics’ sales pitch is that you’ll have plenty of call minutes on your mobile phone plan. This may apply overseas. Here in New Zealand where we pay through the nose for mobile calls that is not a great argument, especially when you can get the same information via mobile data at a fraction of the cost.

Vocalyst is an innovative and interesting idea. It just doesn’t cut the mustard at the moment. Still it is early days and this is just the first iteration.

Verdict

Putting the Vocalyst service aside, this is the best Bluetooth headset I’ve seen. I recommend it.