No other gadget is appreciated more by office-bound/PC-bound/phone-bound toilers – and arguably used more – than a telephone headset. And as I mentioned Tuesday, no one makes better home/office phone headsets than Plantronics.
This week, Plantronics is celebrating its 50th birthday with several new office headsets, including two fascinating models that each solve problems suffered by anyone who works on a laptop all day and uses a PC-based phone system such as Skype or some other Internet-based phone system.
The first problem is: you get a call, but would like to walk around the office or if you're working at home, perhaps tend to some household chores while continuing to chat. A wired headset keeps you tightly tethered and a Bluetooth headset only allows you to wanted around 30 feet away.
Enter the Savi 440 ($280; pictured). Instead of wires or Bluetooth, this lightweight 21 gram cordless headset uses DECT 6.0 Plus technology, just like the long-range cordless technology used by the Panasonic landline phones I told you about a month ago. You get a tiny DECT 6.0 dongle that you plug into one of your PC's USB jacks, and now you can wander up to 300 feet away from your PC and still continue to chatter.
Savi's on-board battery lasts seven hours, but if that's not long enough, you can buy a second battery-plus-charging cradle ($55) – the second battery is stowed in a clever side compartment on the cradle. If power lags in the middle of a call, you can swap out the spent cell for the freshly charged one in the cradle. As long as you make the switch within five minutes, you won't even lose the call.
You also can get a portable charger ($50), which also has a second battery in a flip-out side compartment.
Mono, stereo or both
Being able to stray the length of a football field and still carry on a PC-based conversation is nice, but what if you want to privately listen to music while you work, and still be able to take an in-coming Skype call?
Hook up the Blackwire 435 ($100, available mid-June). This wired headset plugs into a USB jack on your PC and, in its natural state, supplies a single earpiece. But the Blackwire includes a second earpiece/cable. When connected to the single earpiece, the 435 now turns into a stereo headset.
In either configuration, the 435 includes an in-line call answer and volume control so you don't have to scramble and find the controls on your PC.
Both the Savi 440 and the Blackwire 435 come with hard-shell carrying cases to keep them safe as you transport your laptop office from place-to-place.