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.