Sony Ericsson Hi-Fi Bluetooth Stereo Headset with FM Radio

The MW600 is a wireless Bluetooth unit with a built in display and FM receiver. The device looks and feels very light. It has a rubberized and a glossy black design, with an integrated display and clip, which secures the unit fairly well. The display is really great; it shows caller id, battery indicator and the sound track. When playing FM stations, it displayed the name of the station and name of the song. However, because the unit is so small (about the size of a AA battery, but much lighter), it was hard for me to hold the device without pressing any of the buttons inadvertently. After some practice I got used to it. The play/pause button is normal click button, but the volume control button is unlike I have seen before. It is essentially a slider; you slide you fingers to increase or decrease the volume. It took me a while to get used to its response, but after some use, I adjusted well. Though I think, if you have large/stodgy fingers, physically handling this unit could be a frustrating experience, especially early on.

The MW600 has a 3.5 mm jack, which allows you to use personal headphones, a big plus for me. The sound quality was excellent, and the Sony in-ear headphones that came with it reproduced wireless stereo sound very well. It has multipoint feature, because of which I was able to pair up to three devices as it claimed; my HTC Magic phone, Toshiba laptop and a Mac Pro. It allowed me to take calls from my phone seamlessly, the music stopped when a call came in and faded in again as I cut the call. Pairing with all three devices was seamless and without any problems, although I had to enter passcode “0000″ with Mac Pro and PC as it mentioned in the instructions, but strangely not with my phone.

The unit has a built in battery that lasted for about 12 hours of continuous playtime , an hour more than what the manual claimed. The black glossy polished display showed the battery indicator and beeped intermittently when the battery was low. It took about two hours to fully charge the unit. One disadvantage is that you cannot use the unit while it is being charged, but this wasn’t a big deal for me.

When used for calling, the other person could hear me very well, without any problems. The device has a bunch of features under the hood, which seem to contribute to the overall great experience. For example, it has some degree of noise cancellation, echo cancellation, whisper mode, SSP, eSCO, etc. It claims to have Voice Activated Dialing (VAD), but I haven’t used this feature.

Overall, I think this product is great; buy it for simplicity, elegant design and internal features that work without much hassle.
Rating: 5 / 5
Sony Ericsson Hi-Fi Bluetooth Stereo Headset with FM Radio

I almost posted under a false 2 star rating so that the skeptical might see this early in their search and thereby save time. May your search end here. Most, if not all, 2 and 1 star rated reviews of this product are petty complaints about design and don’t address the high quality of performance.

As stated in an earlier review, there are different factors that determine the performance of a blue tooth device, having tried several types on 3 different brands of phones, I can agree with some degree of certainty. My review is from my use with a Casio G’zOne Brigade 741 (outstanding phone/music player).

I’ll address “connectivity” first because, let’s face it, without connection, their is nothing.

-Out of the five or so bluetooh devices that I now unfortunately own, this device by far out-performs all the others. It remains seamlessly connected, most importantly for me, outdoors with my phone in my pocket. None of the other devices could do this rendering them frustrating to useless to me (sound familiar?). I can’t thank,thank,thank Sony Ericcson enough. For this reason, my review is actually a five-and-a-half star review!

-Love the radio! Having radio capability is what led me to this product. The guys at work said their phones had radio capability while mine did not so it was “must have” for me.

-Easily discovered/paired

-The sound quality (the brigade does NOT have an equalizer) for music is tremendous because the bass is rich and full (I test all devices with Flo Rida’s “Jump”) without drowning the mid-range or highends creating a WELL balanced blend. The headphones provided were sufficient but had better performance with another brand (SkullCandy). By “adequate” I mean “just about too loud” and the volume is adequate for most songs, more than adeqate for others, and not quite enough for a few by fault of the quality of the file I’m sure but that’s made up for by the excellent sound reducing headphones provided. I sometimes work around heavy equipment and can hear my music quite well with little disturbance during soft classical music.

-”Ease of use” is a little tricky but not a problem because I believe if one goes through a given set of tasks enough times, those tasks will become second nature. I happen to like the “slide” volume, love the display. The device can be easily secured making it exceedingly difficult to damage the screen. It’s light-weighted and won’t jerk the earphones if dropped.

-There is no cover for the charge port however. I believe this design oversight to be the device’s only drawback worth mentioning.

-The delivery time was AMAZING! I received it in about a day or two. It really caught me off guard being accustomed to receiving packages from China through e–y. Never again

-I find the price to be reasonable considering what I’ve spent trying to find what is the conclusion to my search for a viable bluetooth device.

Rating: 5 / 5
Sony Ericsson Hi-Fi Bluetooth Stereo Headset with FM Radio