Aliph has since updated the design and functionality of the headset, calling the new version appropriately enough “the New Jawbone” or “the Jawbone2”, the name I’ll use in this Product Review. When it first came out back in May of 2008, it was one of the single most expensive accessories that you could buy for your phone, with an MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) of $129. But you certainly got a lot of bang for your buck with this device: the inclusion of the new NoiseAssassin Technology and the new smaller footprint (earprint?) makes this version a must-have item for the Ultra Mobile among us, even a whole year later.

Thankfully, the price of the Jawbone2 has also been substantially reduced in the last few months, coming down from the original MSRP of $129 to around $59. This to be mostly a reaction to the release of other “bone” technologies being offered by other competing technology vendors, but Aliph is also making room in their line for the release of their next BT Headset: the Jawbone Prime, which was released back in May of 2009.

Additionally, since most states have enacted some version of a “Hands-Free” law, owning a BT headset is actually becoming less of a want and more of a necessity, especially for those who accept cellphone calls while driving. This, coupled with the afore-mentioned discounted pricing now available, makes this is the perfect time to buy into this model and brand, with it’s uber-cool features.

Out of the three weeks that I wore this headset, it was mostly good times, but there were some frustrations that came packaged with the Headset. Most notable was the ongoing battle to keep the headset in my ear, which proved to be exceedingly frustrating. A distant second was the lack of a dedicated volume toggle switch, but this was minimized by overall good “automatic” balancing of the volume in general by Jawbone2 itself.

So, let’s dig into the Technical Specifications of the new Jawbone2, there are quite a few of them to discuss!

Additional Technical Specifications:

• Invisible touch controls: Touch-surface technology allows the user to operate switches by lightly pressing the outside shield, which hides the underlying switches entirely.
• Voice activity sensor identifies and isolates your speech and subtracts the unwanted background noise to allow you to speak normally in any environment
• 50% smaller than the original Jawbone
• Military-grade noise elimination technology
• Eliminates up to 10x more noise energy than closest competitors
• Faster processing eliminates unexpected noise bursts
• Unmatched intelligibility – voices sound human, not robotic
• Sophisticated dual microphone array reduces wind noise

Talk Time

I found the talk time estimate to be fairly accurate, giving me approximately 320 minutes of Talk Time. Most of my time was spent on the ratio 70% listening, 30% talking, so I don’t know how much your time will vary if you are a serious talker. Accordingly, I found Talk Time to be accurate.

Standby Time

I was unable to get a good measurement on this, because I was always using this device (nothing like talking on the device to throw off any battery measurements)!

However, I can state categorically that I was able to go without a charge for almost six days during the first week of my review when the device was not used very much.

On the morning of the sixth day, the device would not power on, so I’ll say it was just short of six days Standby time. However, during average usage over the last two weeks, I found that I can get about four days of Standby time if I eliminate maintenance charges, so I consider Standby Time to be accurate or better than specified.

Weight

I won’t bother actually weighing the device to confirm accuracy. But I can say that this headset is super light! However, please note that this can actually be a bad thing, if you chose not to make use of the ear loops, as the device could fall out of your ear and you might not notice it. However, I found the weight to be absolutely perfect for my needs: just enough that I can usually tell when it’s in place and working, but not too heavy that a quick turn of the head would dislodge the device.

Range

With my device powered on and my phone left on a tabletop within the line of sight, I was able to walk approximately 40 Feet away. When I went into a different room with minimal wall shielding (light wiring, no electrical), I was able to maintain a perfectly clear connection up to about 15 Feet. On the other side of a wall that contained a Microwave and some other electrical wiring, as well as exterior grade siding, I had relatively good connectivity at 10 Feet, but there was some noticeable interference, mostly in the form of “static”. It should be noted that in this particular experiment, the other party could not hear me at all on an intermittent basis. So I would consider Range to be “better than specified” based on my findings.

Connection Type

The use of the newer Bluetooth 2.0 Standard instead of the older Bluetooth 1.1 standard will be a transparent change to the end-user. Some additional signal quality improvements are realized due to the new EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) specification, and overall improvements to the Signal Strength. No additional functionality is realized by the Jawbone2, so this particular feature is effectively moot.

Special Technologies

The advent of the “Bone” and “Noise Assassin” Technologies by Aliph are the two main reasons to buy the Jawbone2.

The Bone Technology refers to Aliph’s patent for picking-up the transmission of a user’s voice as that vibration travels through their body along their skin to the Jawbone’s Voice Activity Sensor (VAS) pin, which you can see in the picture below. If this VAS pin isn’t touching some solid part of your body, then your voice will not be transmitted as clearly. This is because the Jawbone’s built-in microphone will be the only receptor to carry your voice, and it’s optimized to only carry the low-end portions of the sound spectrum, so your voice will sound muffled.

This use of vibration technology represents a definite improvement over the simple speaker which most BT Headsets employ. Even high grade speakers can pickup ambient noise around the speaker, so the amount of data being transmitted is greater, and the amount of distortion increases as well. But with Aliph’s Bone technology, the headset picks up the vibration of your voice travelling through your body, which greatly reduces the ambient noise being transmitted, and accordingly the overall distortion of the voice is decreased as well, making for a much cleaner conversation. I noticed repeatedly that anytime I was conversing with someone and they couldn’t hear me, it was because the VAS pin was not touching my skin, and a quick adjustment of the headset always resolved the problem.

The NoiseAssassin Technology refers to Aliph’s patent for reducing Wind and other loud background noise. According to Aliph, this technology reduces ambient noise 2 – 3dB, and was developed to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) standards for Military use. Part of the Noise Assassin technology is the built-in capability to automatically adjust the volume of your conversation based on the ambient noise around you. This worked exceptionally well in keeping the volume “just right” almost the entire duration of my review (I recall only two or three occasions where I would have liked to adjust the volume manually). Noise Assassin is enabled by default on every call. You may disable it during a phone for the remainder of that call, but it will be re-enabled on your next call. To disable it, press and hold the NoiseAssassin button for two seconds and you’ll hear the three descending tones that indicates it has been disabled.

Additional Functionality

Playing with the JB2 Quick Start manual, you can find several worth-while facts about it’s operation:

Special functions provide by the NoiseAssassin button:

• Press and hold will get you Voice Command. If your phone supports Microsoft Voice Command, then a whole new hands-free world opens-up for you.
• Press while a call is coming-in will reject the call.
• Pressing the NoiseAssassin during a call multiple times will cycle you through preset sound levels.
• Pressing and holding the NoiseAssassin button during a call will turn off NoiseAssassin for the remainder of the call.
• 3 Presses will dial the last number called.
• 5 Presses will turn-off the LED indicator light.

Let’s not forget the Talk button:

• Pressing and holding the Talk button when the JB2 is currently off will turn-on the headset.
• And obviously pressing the Talk button during an incoming call will answer the call.

But did you know that:

• Pressing the Talk button while already on a call will allow you to answer another incoming call.

One of the biggest shortfalls of this device is that there is no dedicated control button for volume control. While I do miss this feature, I never really suffered for it, as the NoiseAssassin technology did a superb job of keeping the volume more than adequate at all times.

Problems Encountered

Unfortunately, of the total three week time I spent wearing the headset; at least half was spent re-inserting the earbud, which was a significant frustration for me. However, I did notice over the last few days that a fair amount of the time the earbud was not fitting was actually due to the largest Ear Loop ring actually pulling the earbud up and out of my ear. The different sized Ear Loops (all smaller) only served to exasperate the issue further.

I found that simply removing the Ear Loop from the equation pretty much solved the problem for me in the short-run, but I dislike this solution in the long-run, as there would be nothing to keep the Headset from being lost entirely when it does eventually fall-out of the ear.

Pros

• Excellent voice quality.
• Excellent signal Strength.
• Very lightweight.
• Comfortable fit (when it wasn’t popping out of the ear).

Cons

• Bad fit for Ear Buds on outer ear canal: I found it hard to keep the earpiece in my ear. The Small Bud fell out too easily, and Large Bud kept pushing it’s way out of my ear until it eventually popped-out.
• Use of the Ear Loops can exasperate a problem with the Ear Buds not fitting.
• No Standard Volume Control: there is no dedicated volume control on the headset. If you have NoiseAssassin disabled, then you can then use the NoiseAssassin button to click through a preset series of volume settings.

In Conclusion

I found the Jawbone2 to be quite a remarkable device. When the device fit in my ear snugly and stayed put, it was absolute heaven. The signal quality and signal strength were both top-notch, making this device entirely worthy of a perfect score. Every other headset that I have ever tried allowed me to hear the other party fairly clearly most of the time, while my voice was typically harder to hear all the time. But with the JawBone2, I carried on long duration conversations while at the wheel and felt quite literally like the other party was in the seat next to me, mostly notably because of the absence of the word “what?” or commonly heard phrase “what did you say?”. And the only time I experienced audible interference was when my actual cell-phone signal was poor, so I do not attribute any loss to the headset itself.

I also enjoyed the JawBone2’s ability to automatically regulate the volume of the connection, so that I really did not experience many situations (two or three at most) where I wanted to manually adjust the volume.

So, even though I experienced a great deal of frustration with this Bluetooth Headset, the quality of the conversations was a real plus, and that part will continue to inspire me to keep adjusting the Ear Loops and the headset position until I find the right combination! A lot of other JB2 users that I spoke with never experienced the Ear Bud issue, or problems with the Ear Loops either, so your Mileage may vary!

Final Score

4.85 out of 5.00
Price: MSRP of $129, but sales can be found online for $59 including shipping.
Warranty: 1 Year.

I was very impressed with the packaging when I unboxed my BlueAnt. It’s clean and clearly shows you the complete product without having to open the box. You can clearly see that this headset is an in-ear with a hoop to that goes over your ear to hold it in place. Some pictures that I’ve seen online had removed the hoop, so it wasn’t clear how the headset would work.

Opening the package proved a little more difficult than I had expected. You actually open the product from the bottom, but the metal cap was taped and glued in place. If it wasn’t for the sticker telling you to open it from the bottom, I would have thought that I was going to break it.

Once open, you’ll find all the cables and manuals are hiding in the bottom. The Z9i comes with a USB cable for charging directly from your computer or just about any other device with a USB port on it. It also comes with a standard electrical plug that allows you to plug this unit into the wall for a complete and quicker charge.

The headset itself is small with a couple volume buttons on the top side and one big “ant” button on the back. Below the ant button and before the ear piece, you’ll find a small proprietary port for charging. The port almost looks like miniUSB, but sadly, it’s not. The buttons on the top are used for volume and the ant button is the main function button. The hoop is allowed to freely swing and rotate making it really easy to put on. The Jawbone, my previous headset, was always a pain to get on your ear. I have broken the hoop on that headset 2 or 3 times and on top of that, it just never felt right. With the Z91, it’s a very different story – easy to put on and light weight.

When it comes to performance, the Z91 doesn’t hold back despite it’s small size. The in-ear volume – the volume that you hear in your ear, when they talk, can be adjusted. In most bluetooth headsets, I have found this volume to be too low making it really hard to hear the person that I called. What good is noise cancellation if I can’t hear what the person is saying because it’s too noise where I am. Don’t get me wrong, noise cancellation is great and really helps to make sure that the person I’m talking with can hear me, regardless of the background noise that surrounds me, but I still need to be able to hear what they say. The Z91 is great in this department. In fact, I have even had to turn the volume down on occasion, especially when I’m not in an overly noisy environment like my car.

So how does the BlueAnt Z9i compare when it comes to noise cancellation? Well… you be the judge! I’ve called my voice mail and recorded a message from the BlueAnt Z9i and then again using original Jawbone. Take a listen to the following WAV files and then you can be the judge on which headset performs the best when it comes to noise cancellation.

So what’s the final word on the BlueAnt Z9i? Well, if you’re looking for a small Bluetooth headset that is easy to put on with strong in-ear volume, then the BlueAnt Z9i is a great buy. If top-notch noise cancellation is a key requirement, then you might not want to get the BlueAnt. I found the background noise on the BlueAnt to be very surprising. I never had anyone complain about the background noise, but I was surprised to hear how clearly the radio noise came through. It did manage to stop the sound of the car’s engine, the snow tires, and the hole in my muffler. For me, I’ll will continue to use the BlueAnt headset as the size, battery life, easy/quick installation, and in-ear volume are worth much more. I can always push mute on the car radio or pause on my Zune if need be.