Goondu review: Jabra Motion

Bluetooth earpieces these days range from the real cheap to the fancy. Costing a princely S$198, the Jabra Motion is the Ferrari of the pack. The premium Bluetooth earpiece is billed as “the only headset you’ll ever need”. Does it live up to its promise?

I’d say very much so. For starters, the Jabra Motion pairs up to eight device and can even connect to two of them simultaneously. If you got a tablet and a laptop and want to speak through both, you can.

The star feature, however, is not that. It is the motion sensors in the headset that enable it to detect if you’ve picked it up to answer a call. When you do so, it automatically answers an incoming call. When the headset is placed on a table, it goes into power-saving mode.

The motion sensors also help the headset adjust to the ambient noise when you’re moving, say, pacing around a room. I didn’t walk that much during the few calls I made with the Jabra Motion, but when I did so, no one I spoke to on the phone had any issues hearing me.

While I didn’t go running with the Jabra Motion, I did manage to make calls from it while connected to my HP laptop as well as my Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone. The sound quality, as I had expected, was flawless, thanks to the advanced noise cancellation technologies today.

I had placed several important calls over Skype and I’d say the parties on the international teleconference heard me loud and clear each time. For phone interviews which I do very often, a high-quality headset such as the Jabra Motion is invaluable.

First of all, it makes sure I hear clearly what the other person is saying on the line – I won’t want to misquote him. Secondly, the headset frees up my hands to jot down my notes as well as scroll through Powerpoint slides or meeting notes on my PC screen.

It helps that the headset is very comfortable to put on. The ear-shaped design is reminiscent of early Jabra designs and it’s clear why the company has retained it – it feels very natural.

The material used here is easily shaped to fit your ear. At the same time, the extensible ear bud means you’re never trying to force it into your ear. It’s also reversible, so you can quickly change from using it on your left or right ear.

The volume control buttons are also intuitively placed at the back of the earpiece, letting you adjust the sound effortlessly. The ease of use extends to the flip boom design too, which makes the Jabra Motion compact and easy to pack away when not in use.

I have few complaints against the headset. One is that it does not seem to pair with my Android devices using NFC (near field communications). I tried tapping the Jabra Motion on my Galaxy S4 and Nexus 10 tablet, but no luck, I had to go by the traditional Bluetooth pairing method.

Small hassle, to be fair. And you only have to pair it once.

The other concern is price, of course. You can probably buy a few cheap Bluetooth headsets with the S$198 you’re paying Jabra for the Motion headset.

Having said that, chances are you’re pretty serious about your phone calls – I am, in my profession – to have looked up the Jabra Motion. If you want great audio quality, comfortable fit and a cool motion-sensing feature thrown in, you should be checking out Jabra’s latest.