"Review": Nokia BH-505. The BEST Bluetooth Headset evaaarr! (updated with video)

WOMWorld sent over some Nokia original accessories last week but I didn’t get a chance to really share my findings with you guys due to exams.

Ha, I should really be revising. This wasn’t meant to be a review (haven’t used it long enough really- but best to get it done now than forget eh), but it sort of turned into one.

Video will be updated some other time. YouTube is currently giving me stupid “The upload failed due to an unknown error”

Somehow it’s appeared.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVYsjjBkZ_U]

In the mean time, I’ve taken some photos of the BH-505 which is now probably my favourite of all Nokia’s headsets. Wired or Bluetooth.

Prob my favourite audio accessory ever really. I was surprised as I didn’t expect this at all to be this good.

Why do I love it so much?

1. Design

• It is unbelievably comfortable to wear.
• It is light so it doesn’t drag your ears or squash them.
• It is extremely secure. Great for any sporty activities (I think that’s what this headset originally aims for) but even more so just for everyday use, so you can bop your head to your tunes without fear of it falling off.
• It feels invisible – you forget you’ve got it on.
• it is invisible (design is small, discreet, and hides away if you have enough hair :p).
• Very strong, flexible material (it’s somewhat very springy – bend it and it jumps back to original shape),
• has nice rubbery/velvety feel all over with metal music player control buttons. It feels great.
• This trumps the BH-214 for me as it kills all wires.

2. Well Placed Controls

• It’s great and all having music controls but annoying when it’s hard to use them.
• BH-505 has the easiest placement of buttons.
• Volume rocker on the right, skip/back rocker on left.
• Call/End button on right
• Play Pause Button on left.
• It’s such a breeze to use – even if you’ve got a big woolly beanie.
• Power button is at the curvy bendy bit. Very easy to press, good location as you won’t confuse this as the play button and turn headset off.
• Power button can still be accessed when worn
• You get three coloured light indicators to indicate connection. Green, red, blue.
• Green is when it’s just turned on. It may seek a previously paired phone and connect automatically.
• Intermittent blue when connected
• Flashing blue is when in pair mode (long hold of power button.
• Brief red when you’ve turned it off.
• Oh – it’s very easy to pair (bluetooth)
• THE CONTROLS WORK WITH PC TOO. ^_^ Very nice pausing movies with BH-505

3. Sound Quality

• Excellent sound quality
• VERY LOUD! It can get super, super loud if you want it to! Warning!
• Bass is fantastic. I’ve embarrassingly used “Candy Shop” over the years to listen out for that distinctive rumble and it can give my Ultimate Ears Super.Fi Extended Bass a run for its money.
• Excellent stereo separation.
• Videos sound great too. Very immersive.
• Connection over bluetooth is very strong. There are no disruptions in connections when phone is in pocket (does with BH-501) and I can be at some distance away from N900 with this.
• Calls – pretty good. Need further extensive testing but it’s clear on both ends (though being sound isolating, it sounds weird hearing your own voice dampened – eerie sensation)

4. Sound Isolation

• BH-505 uses passive sound isolation techniques, i.e. creating a vacuum with those silicone buds to prevent external noise affecting your music.
• Against the BH-905 (which has active noise cancelling with 8 microphones) the BH-505 outclasses it in terms of sheer noise blocking.
• That’s because the BH-905 sits over your ears so any gaps will let sound through (although it is still an excellent solution).
• The strength with the BH-905 is that you can achieve sound isolation at lower volumes due to that active sound cancelling, but with BH-505 you will need to ramp the volume a little bit more.
• That of course depends on how loud ambient noise is anyway. Outside traffic – 60-70% cuts it out completely. A little dangerous, haha.
• In doors, you could set it to about 40%.
• It’s not simply due to the silicone buds. Many other similar in ear buds do not produce the same sound isolations. E.G. my Shure E2C>Super.Fi (not advertised for noise cancelling) and I might even say the BH-505>Shure E2C
• Material/Fit is of course important. You need to get the right combination to fit you. The default buds were perfect for me.
  

  

5. Battery Life

• A really strong point in Nokia’s headsets recently.
• Haven’t ever had it die yet but so far >24h 60% volume with lots of standby time.. Will rigorously test this out after exams.
• Charging is really quick. Haven’t charged it that many times but it goes blue (full) in under an hour?

Charging Port

Charging port hidden. Bit fiddly to open but fortunately you won't be needing to charge too often.

6. Price

• It’s about 50GBP depending where you look.
• I feel gram for gram, for me, this is a superior product to the BH-905 (160-250GBP!)
• I’m not an audiophile (maybe Devin/thenokiaguide) can point out where the differences are in audio quality but for the majority of users this is an excellent headset.

Negatives:

• White. I don’t know how easily this may get stained.
• The battery flap is a touch difficult to undo if you haven’t got long nails
• It’s not mine. Ha :p
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Tags: BH-505, Bluetooth, Nokia, Nokia BH-505, Review

Category: Accessories, MNB, Nokia, Reviews