The BlueTrek Bizz Bluetooth Headset

This is a basic headset, as reflected in the price, so don’t expect it to compare with the likes of Jawbone headsets. However, it does have some novel features which make it worth considering. As far as call quality goes, I’d say it’s adequate. During testing, I found that the person I was talking to sounded slightly muffled, compared to my handset’s speaker, and the same applied to my voice quality too. There was sufficient clarity there, but it could struggle to cope with lots of background noise. I think this is true of many Bluetooth headsets that lack noise cancellation though. Build quality is good, it’s completely plastic, no metal, but feels solid enough. It only has a single button, which you hold down for different lengths of time to switch on and off, and to initiate pairing.

BlueTrek Bizz being worn

Moving on to its novel features; the first is that the ear piece will slide away to reveal a USB plug. This is so that you can plug the headset directly into your computer’s USB port for charging. I think this is a really nice feature as I hate having loads of cables hanging around. Although, be aware that the ear piece is tethered to the device via a plastic wire which has to bend out of the way when you connect to a port. Therefore, you  need to have sufficient space around your ports, or that wire will start to lever the device out of the port. You may need an extension cable, just as a spacer. Fortunately, the Bizz comes with a short USB extension cable, although I didn’t like it because it was made of a very rigid plastic, making bends or twists impossible.

Recharging the BlueTrek Bizz is as easy as plugging in a thumb drive

Saving the best till last, this is the first Bluetooth headset that doubles as a Micro SD/SDHC card reader. When you remove the ear piece, you can see a small slot above the USB plug, which your Micro SD/SDHC cards slide into. It’s a spring loaded push-eject system, like on most mobile phones. Being a combined device doesn’t compromise it’s performance though, as my own testing showed. The test consisted of writing an identical set of files to the same class 2, 16GB Micro SDHC card, on both readers. The file set consisted of 26 MP3′s, averaging at 48MiB each. As you can see from the chart below, the difference in read and write speeds were negligible.

Micro SDHC Performance

Now for the negatives, the Bizz only has one button, there’s no volume controls. You have to adjust volume via your handset. I know any volume control isn’t hands free, but not being able to completely control a call via the headset is disappointing. As mentioned earlier, there is a plastic wire tethering the ear piece to the main body, so you don’t loose it while connected to a USB port. This is fine, although it gets in the way when you’re plugging it, creating a fragile connection between the device and whatever it’s plugged into.

Conclusion

If best possible audio quality is your top priority with a Bluetooth headset, then this isn’t the headset for you. However, if you want something that combines two accessories into one device, then the BlueTrek Bizz is definitely worth a look. Just think, no would suspect that you have up to 16GB of data stowed away inside your ear!

If you want to see more of the Bizz, including the packaging and contents, see my photo review on Flickr, and watch my video review below.

References:

• BlueTrek Bizz [MobileFun.co.uk]
• BlueTrek Bizz English Manual [PDF Download]
• Bluetrek.com
• My photo review [Flickr]
• My video review [YouTube]
• Bluetrek Bizz: The spork of Bluetooth headsets [CNET UK]
• Bluetrek’s Bizz Bluetooth headset improves your memory [Engadget]
• Review: BlueTrek BIZZ Bluetooth Headset [Pre|Central.net]

An Eye-fi card

If you’re really into photography and sharing your work on the web, then you’ve probably heard of the Eye-Fi SD card, which not only stores your photos but transmits them to the web via Wi-Fi, all from within the SD card itself. It really is a very smart solution.

Micro SD card with a Micro SD to SD adapter

Although, if you don’t want spend the money, or you know you’ll be  beyond the range of a WiFi hotspot, I have a simple alternative for you. You’ll need a mobile phone with a Micro SD card slot and a reasonable data plan.

Rather than using the standard SD type card in your camera, buy yourself a 2GB Micro SD card, along with a Micro SD to SD adapter. Using this adapter, loaded with a Micro SD card, makes no difference to your camera. When you’re ready to post your photos, simply take the adapter out of the camera, and  the Micro SD card from the adapter and slot it into your phone, then connect to the internet via your 3G connection. Once you’ve done all that, simply locate the files from your camera in your e-mail or browser, and start uploading!

I have been testing my class 6 Micro SDHC card with a file-copying application called “TeraCopy“, and I have always had a consistent and sustained write speed of 15 megabytes per second. That’s two and a half times faster than it is guaranteed to run. Just to give you an idea of what this means in practice, I copied about 5GiB of music onto this card in less than 5 minutes.

Now for some pictures:

This is the packaging the card came in. On the left is the card itself in a protective case. On the right you find the tiny USB adapter, and below is a lanyard attachment for the adapter. The USB adapter was the other attractive parts of the package. If you don’t have any SDHC capable equipment, this lets you make your Micro SDHC card into a tiny USB drive.

Here is a size comparison the adapter. Top to bottom order: Micro SDHC USB adapter, Logitech VX Revolution dongle, Sandisk 4GB Cruzer.

Here’s how the USB adapter looks plugged into my laptop. Again for size reference, you can see the mouse dongle plugged in beside it, and another SD card in my laptop’s SD slot.

Finally, here’s an extreme close up of the card, just to try and show you how small these things really are..