Layman’s take: Nokia BH905i – How serious are you about music?

I guess my readers wouldn’t have forgotten that I was reviewing a Nokia BH905i unit lately and the early impressions post was the initial sign of a good review coming soon. So, here I am, back again with the same weird look.

After giving me the opportunity of reviewing the Nokia BH905 in past, the great people at Womworld/Nokia decided to give me the treat of its successor, The Nokia Bluetooth Headset Flagship, the BH905i. And, it was obvious from my side to compare it with my past experiences with the Nokia BH905. Here’s a picture! (BH905 in left and BH905i in right)

Though personally I found both of them similar in looks, it wasn’t very difficult to spot some of the improvements in the package, quality and features in the latter. Here are some:

1. A lighter but richer package: The four different shaped adapters are still here but it was interesting to spot more wires than the last package. More interestingly, you can see a wire for the 3.5mm iPhone Type jack with a 1.2 m long cable along with another additional wire for VOIP calls via your PC.

This is definitely premium.

In comparison to the last package, the packaging was more niche with the inclusion of a new small bag to contain most of the goodies inside, rather than hooks to hold them. Neat looks I would say.

2. More light feel, more quality: While the size looks exactly same, the new version of the flagship headsets is lighter than earlier, say by around 8gm. But somehow the design contains some tweaks that makes it fit really very well around your head (and that was a different case with older one).

While the product is targeting to the niche segment only, it is clear that this is the one those audiophiles wouldn’t want to miss. Nokia didn’t want to leave any spot loose and that probably is the reason to include Bass Boost and Stereo Widening in a much better shape this time. Maybe, the general public will find it as just another Bluetooth headset, but indeed, the audiophiles would understand what takes the experience to a higher level, almost close to a perfect one.

Coming from the last version, Nokia kept the good things about the headset just as how they were. You still get the same legendary battery life of 24hrs with Active Noise Cancellation switched off (works in Bluetooth mode only and needs to be switched off otherwise) and 15 hrs of juice with Active Noise Cancellation ON (which very very effectively removes the background noises).

We still get that rich set of adapters and I must tell you, they look so so royal in white than the black pieces I’ve seen in the  past.

Like other Bluetooth headsets, this one also requires charging and the charger(AC-15E) itself again reminds us about the premium quality as this one is not the ordinary 2mm one, but specially made for fast charging like the one included with  the Nokia N8. I should also remind you that the headset needs no battery, when being used in wired mode without ANC (for ANC, you need battery).

In the above picture, you can spot the headphones and also ANC [helps you suppress background noise] switch, Volume rocker, The jack and LED which goes green, blue and red indicating the current status.

Notice the beauty of the design that effective fits on almost everyone in the most comfortable way.

Also the stretchable designs helps to fit on all kind of head sizes!

The regular controls are already built on headset. There’s basically the Power/Call Multifunction key, Play/Pause, a Next track/FF key and a Previous track/Rewind key on the unit.

Experience: As expected, the experience was top-notch and it was super smooth even when I was testing it from a little more away than prescribed. Easy to connect with my Nokia N8 or Samsung Galaxy S, though one thing I noticed that it’s not possible two connect two devices at a time with this one, while the same was possible in the last reviewed Bluetooth headset Nokia BH-217. But this is not of the purpose of daily phone calls use anyway.

Sound Quality over the wires or without the wires is such awesome that even if I know the price tag, it was hard to resist the self. A wire free world with such a stereo sound quality with extra loudness is something that you can understand only once you would have experienced it.

I’ve already included the video to demonstrate most of the components in my last post and I guess that would be worth looking at , don’t miss it.

I still feel that the price is on the higher side, not with respect to the features (as they effectively compensate each bit of the price), but in the way the common people perceive the prices of headsets. But on the other side, I do know people who really are very serious about the sound quality of headphones and this sure is a sweet deal for them.