REVIEW: Motorola H17 Bluetooth Headset

Upon receiving the Motorola H17 Bluetooth headset, you can’t help to notice its stunning packaging.  Motorola let out all of the bells and whistles when they designed this little beauty.  The casing is made of hard clear plastic on the front and back and is surrounded by wide metal.  The headset itself, which appears very small in size, floats in the middle.  I just hoped that using the H17 was just as impressive happily I found it was.

While it took a while to finally free the H17 and the rest of the contents, I couldn’t help but notice that this was a really sharp looking device.  It’s extremely small measuring 2.2 (L) X .67 (W)) x .40 (H) inches and light, weighing about 9 grams.

What comes in the box is the Headset, micro USB wall charger, 2 ear gels in different sizes, 3 ear hooks in different sizes and the user guide.

The Headset is sleek black with the classic silver “M” medallion on it.  A large oval button sits on the front, which is used to make, answer and drop calls and a long thin silver volume up and down control rocker is on the side.  In the middle of the volume control sits a really tiny multi-color status indicator LED.  Even though the volume rocker is extremely thin, I didn’t have any problems switching the volume up or down.  The boom is on the bottom, and it folds open and closed; this is used to turn the unit on and off.  When the boom is closed, it also makes the H17s length to be even smaller (1.65 in).

Having two microphones, one by the boom, the other below the oval button and Crystal Talk technology which provides echo cancellation and noise reduction, I found the sound and call quality to be very good.  My callers heard me with little problems and I heard them extremely well.  I found the volume at its maximum level to be very loud which I liked, especially if I was driving with the windows open or standing in a noisy or windy area.

The different ear hooks and ear bud sizes allow you to find the perfect match for your ear.  They also allow you to wear the headset on your left or right ear as well.  Additionally, all of the ear hooks rotate very smoothly around the ear piece, so once it’s on your ear; you can move it accordingly for a better fit.  However, only the middle sized one will swivel back and forth which makes switching to the right or left ear easy.  It’s not difficult, but to switch the other ear hooks from the right to left or left to right ear you have to take off the ear hook, turn it around and then snap it back on again.  My ears in general don’t seem to hold any ear buds in place too well and these ear buds were no different so for my personal choice, I liked using the ear hook.  I found it to be comfortable and it sat perfectly even when I moved my head all around. 

The H17 has a quick 15 minute charge feature where you will get about 2 hours of talk time.  If you go for the normal 1-1.5 hour(s) charge you will get about 5 hours worth of talk time; standby time is about 168 hours (7 days).  To me the talk time isn’t that great but it’s acceptable and the quick charge is a nice option.

When you open the flip boom or turn the H17 on, you will immediately hear a very clear female voice prompt which will announce that the headset is ready to pair with your phone.  There are easy instructions in this prompt which makes opening the user guide for the directions unnecessary.   I had no problems pairing my phone and once the process was completed, the voice prompt let me know; it also let me know about the battery status.  In fact, every time the H17 turns on you will be notified by voice if you battery level is low (less than 1.5 hours), medium (between 1.5 to 3.5 hours) or high (more than 3.5 hours). Also, while the H17 is sitting in the on position, you can momentarily press the middle of the volume rocker and the voice prompt for battery status will come on as well.  The voice prompt will also let you know if a call is muted or unmated. 

The H17 allows you connect two phones to the one headset and will give you a voice prompt to let you know which is phone 1 and which is phone 2.  The voice prompt will let you know when either phone is connected or disconnected and will be specific to each phone to announce when there is a call coming in as well.  I thought all of the voice prompts were very helpful, however if you don’t like using them, they can easily be disabled.

The Motorola H17 has a feature called “Rapid Connect,” which allows you to quickly answer or end calls by simply opening or closing the boom.  This does work well; calls were answered very quickly once I opened the boom.  This is a nice concept in theory if you want to save battery life or if the headset is not being worn on your ear, however wearing the headset and opening and closing the boom was difficult and awkward.  It was much easier to just leave it on and press the oval button to answer or end calls.

Bottom line: Although it was difficult to get the headset out of the box, I liked almost everything about this product.  Call and sound quality was good, it was easy to use, looked nice and was very light and comfortable on. I do wish the talk time was longer however the quick charge feature made the talk time more acceptable.