First Look: Plantronics BackBeat Pro

Sharing is Caring!

BackBeatPRO plus Spill print cmyk 28MAY15 I finally decided to join the 21st century and get a bluetooth stereo headset for my mobile devices. Up until now I’d been happy with a wired headset and a bluetooth earpiece for when I just needed to make phone calls and nothing else, but with a recent job switch that focused a lot more on my mobile phone, and all-in-one device was going to be a better fit. Looking through the available options, I found a massive choice in products, and a ton of different feature sets to pick from. Luckily for me, several co-workers had gone through this process in the recent past, and helped me narrow down the choices to about 4 selections.

My required feature-set was pretty small:

– Long battery life, a minimum of ten hours of real-world use.

– Ability to activate Siri so that I could voice-control the device.

– Complete compatibility with iDevices (including volume, play/pause, all phone commands, etc.)

– Micro-USB charging. No adapters or other widgets that I’ll lose.

– Customization. Let me choose which features I actually want to use.

– COMFORT. I had experienced some headsets that were horrific on the ears over the years.

– Voice quality. Whoever I call has to be able to clearly understand me.

– At least a little style. This wasn’t the most important feature, but one I wanted on the list.

The combination of these features narrowed the choices down to two, and from that I went with the Plantronics BackBeat Pro headset. One quick browse of Amazon later and I was waiting for the package to arrive. A few days later, and the fun began.

So, how did the headset rank against my list of requirements?

— Battery Life: I never trust the battery specs on web pages and/or box copy. Every manufacturer lies. So when I saw “up to 24 hours of playback time,” I took it with a grain of salt. However, to my surprise, these cans do seem to go for quite a long time on a 3 hour charge. I can’t attest to the claim of 24 hours, but I have run them with music on constant shuffle for 8 plus hours and they didn’t seem to be anywhere near running out of juice. My guesstimate – based on the battery stats voice prompt and my use pattern, is that they’ll clear at least 10 hours with moderate phone use and constant music playback. About the same run-time as the phone itself, so that works well. Verdict: PASSED

— Voice activation and control: The BackBeat Pro works with both Android and Apple devices, and is configured to properly activate Siri on iDevices with a long-press on the Phone button on the headset itself. What I found interesting (and sorely missing from some other wired and wireless headsets I’ve tried) is that not only do you get an audible beep when you press the button, but a second beep to alert you that you’ve held the button down long enough to initiate voice activation. That second beep is critical for me, as otherwise I tend to hold the button down too long and end up confusing the phone or (if you pair two devices) switching to another device. Voice commands were clearly picked up by the phone, and Siri had no issues with my request, beyond it’s usual foibles that have nothing to do with the headset. Verdict: PASSED

— Complete iDevice compatibility. Nearly every headset I looked at has this nailed, and the BackBeat Pro was no exception. Various buttons and dials on the headset properly and correctly activated the associated features on the phone without any issues. This included full control over the audio playback (Play/Pause, Forward, Back, Fast Forward, Reverse, volume, etc.) and phone operations (answer, hang-up, redial, etc.). Verdict: PASSED

— Micro-USB charging. A lot of the headsets required charging stands/bases, or used a proprietary charger (even in this day and age), or otherwise made life for a guy who has a habit of losing chargers on business trips a living hell. The BackBeat Pro uses a standard micro-USB plug to charge, no issues. Verdict: PASSED

— Customization. Most of the headsets I looked at were multi-function, and have so many bells and whistles they could qualify as orchestras. The problem is, some features become downright annoying, and there’s no way to disable them. Case in point, the BackBeat Pro uses Plantronics’ motion-sensing technology to do things like pause the music when you take the headset off and lay it down. I find that unnecessary and possibly even totally annoying if moving the headset out of the way to pick up the phone triggers automatic call answering. Luckily, the BackBeat Pro comes with both Windows and Mac software that communicates via the USB charging cable to enable/disable features and install firmware updates, so you can just shut that stuff off if you don’t want to use it. Verdict: PASSED – plus easy firmware updates!

— Comfort. This is a mixed bag. The headset is big, and even a little heavy. It’s very well cushioned, so you don’t really feel it, and balanced well so that everything sits properly on your head, but it’s noticeable. The cushioning itself is well done, and in all the right places, and the headset isn’t a pain (literally or figuratively) to wear, but the size/weight could be an issue for some. Verdict: MIXED – I found it very wearable, but some will definitely feel it is too heavy.

— Voice Quality. I made several test calls with the headset, and the people on the other end of the line said I sounded clear and understandable. The BackBeat Pro has noise reduction and other features, so this wasn’t a major surprise, but since there is no boom-style mic I was a bit worried. There were no complaints from my callers, though, so I’m going with Verdict: PASSED

— Style. Another mixed bag. While not being ugly, they’re also not beautiful. Aesthetics aren’t my main concern when reviewing tech, so I was ok with it. Those looking for the streamlined style of a Beats headset or the ostentatious appeal of a Sennheiser kit won’t find much to love here, but they’re definitely wearable in public without fear of attracting too many stares. Verdict: MIXED, but passable.

There were some downsides to the BackBeat Pro, however:

They come with every feature enabled, so unless you use the software to turn off the annoyances, plan on learning how to properly handle/move the things without triggering stuff. Additionally, they did NOT play well with my desktop. Audio was choppy and unreliable when attempting to stream music from my 2014 iMac, which is a problem I’ve found with many different wireless headsets. It got even worse when I had the BackBeat Pro multipoint paired (paired with two active devices simultaneously). Although Plantronics claims that multipoint isn’t a problem the headset often had a hard time figuring out which device had “right of way” at any given time.

Finally, the audio tends to pull a bit to the treble side of the equation whenever the Active Noise Cancelling is turned on. Not so much that it really impacts casual listening, but there’s no bass boost, and if you are a connoisseur of very high quality audio you will definitely notice it.

Overall Verdict: PASSED

I’d recommend this headset for anyone looking for a true mobile headset to control, talk with, and interact with mobile phones and tablets. While the audio could be a bit better with the addition of a bass boost function – especially with Noise Cancelling enabled – the audio quality for the speakers and microphone is quite good – better than many other headsets and ear-pods I’ve used over the years. They’re not cheap, but they’re definitely not overpriced for what they do, and a solid choice for mobile stereo headsets.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.