The Jawbone ERA is the latest contender to the Bluetooth headset market. The ERA sports a slim, funky design and has two ways to control it, by the built in accelerometer and the conventional button. It has 5.5 hours of talk time and a range of up to 10 meters.
Check out the review after the break.
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Score:
9.0 / 10
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The Good:
Fantastic noise cancelling, automatic volume control, easy to use
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The Bad:
Expensive, accelerometer hit and miss
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Bottom Line:
Great Bluetooth headset.
Hardware & Design
The ERA is a reasonably small headset, Length: 51.3 mm by Width: 14.5 mm by Height: 24.1 mm and weighing it at just 10.2 grams, it’s not the smallest headset but certainly not the biggest. The physical controls on the ERA consist of the On/Off button on the ear side, the multi-function button on top and an accelerometer.
The box contains a number of different configurations the ERA can accommodation. Including 4 round earbuds, 4 “sprout” earbuds and an option Binaural earloop to assist with keeping the ERA in your ear, however, it wasn’t needed in my case. The box also contains an A/C adapter, a car charger, a Micro-USB cable for charging via computer, a protective case and a very small user guide. Even though it’s small, it was to the point and told you everything you need to know.
Audio features include a 10mm wideband speaker which has HD audio, automatic volume control controlled by the surroundings, NoiseAssassin 3.0 with wind reduction and voice notifications. The ERA has a range of 10 meters. It can store up to 8 paired devices and handle two simultaneous connections.
The rechargeable battery will last for 5.5 hours of talk time, or up to 10 days of standby time. It also charges to 80% capacity within 30 minutes and a 100% charge in 60 minutes. The ERA can be charged by the USB port on your computer, an A/C Adapter or the car charger (all included).
Features
Pairing the headset is dead easy, simply shake it 4 times and open the bluetooth settings on your device and pair them! It look under 10 seconds to do it and it was quick and easy with my HTC 7 Mozart. The headset worked with both Calls and other Applications such as Zune or YouTube. However, we did test pairing on an iPhone and it was just as easy. One feature that’s great with the iPhone is that it shows the battery capacity in the corner. This is also possible with Android and Blackberry operating systems with an app.
One of the great features of the ERA is the noise cancellation feature called “NoiseAssassin 3.0”. Which automatically changes the volume of the microphone and blocks out noises when they happen. I called a number of people and tried a number of situations. For example. in a quite room the caller could hear my fine, I then turned some music up loud and the ERA automatically adjusted and cancelled out the noise. This is also the same with the speaker volume, in loud situations the speaker will also turn up and when it’s quiet, they will turn down.
The built-in accelerometer was a hit and miss. It sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. It appears the only built in use for the accelerometer was pairing, however, you can download Motion applications off the Jawbone website.
Concluion
The Jawbone ERA is a new and funky Bluetooth headset with a built-in accelerometer, great noise cancellation features and automatic volume control. Even though it’s a bit pricey, i’ll be recommending this to anyone who needs a Bluetooth headset.