Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat noise cancellation, minor ergonomic issues
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2019
If you like to use voice recorder apps, you're probably familiar with how noise cancellation affects any silence skip features. You don't want dead time in your recordings, and so the headset's ability to cancel out background noise when you're not talking, and then not have to hear that during replay, is very important.
This headset seems to do a decent job of that. Generally it skipped most silence up into the 40-45 mph range on the road. It may be on par with the Sennheiser Presence (which generally didn't manage to cancel enough noise at highway speeds for silence skip to work). With any luck it will last longer than those, as usually those have died for me within 2-5 months after getting one.
Comfort is good--not as good as the Sennheiser, but close. It's not as easy to put into my ear, but not bad either.
The on/off button is inconveniently located on the inside of the headset, so it's awkward to press while having it in your ear to actually hear that you turned it on. And since you have to hold it for a few seconds, it's not as clear that you got it turned on. Of course, if your eyes are free (like not on the road) then you can just look at the indicator lights, which are placed a little too close to the power button.
Sound quality seems fine to me. This set does pick up a decent bit of background noise, but not too loudly. I have a Plantronics M165 that must have a full-on condenser microphone--if I'm not talking, you can seriously hear my socks walking on carpet. It's very hard to get usable silence skip out of the M165 for that reason. The Jabra Steele seems to pick up background noise more loudly than the Sennheiser, but after a little adjustment to the settings in my recording app (Easy Voice Recorder Pro for Android), it did a reasonable job.
I haven't tried the voice recognition yet. The battery life seems fine so far; it would be great if it had a voice indicator of talk time when you turned it on. All I get is a brief screen notification of battery level %.
Overall I think this could be the best Bluetooth headset I've had to date.
05-19-2019 UPDATE: A few things I've noticed in using this for longer:
In the car, it seems to identify the noise level and turn that to silence quickly, so after you get to highway speed, it only records 1-2 seconds and then stops. On the highway it won't pick up turn signals. However, while stopped, it often will pick up turn signals. Overall this is a step up from the Sennheiser on the noise reduction front, I think.
One minor annoyance is that the silicone earpiece comes off in my pocket frequently (a few times a week, probably). It's not too big an issue, but when I get into the car, I try to get the headset out and set it aside before I'll need it (which is a good idea anyway, especially if you're expecting a call). Again, it's a minor issue, just something to be aware of. Silicone stretches nicely so it's easy to put back on.
