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While most Bluetooth headsets are small devices that sit in one ear, the Jabra BT620s looks more like a whopping great pair of earmuff-style headphones. Think Princess Leia as opposed to Lieutenant Uhura.
The reason for this is that the BT620s can be used to listen to stereo sound signals.
Phone conversations aren't currently conducted in stereo, of course, but this Jabra headset has been designed with music lovers in mind as well.
In order to listen to stereo music wirelessly, however, the BT620s needs to be paired with a compatible A2DP-compliant Bluetooth device.
A2DP allows for advanced audio playback, but not all Bluetooth devices support it.
None of the devices we initially tested, including a Microsoft Bluetooth 2.0 dongle, a brand new Bluetooth-enabled Mac and a Nokia 6680 supported A2DP, which was a pretty poor hit rate.
Jabra does, however, provide its own A2DP-compliant Bluetooth USB dongle at £29.99.
Once up and running, sound quality is excellent, both on mono phone calls and stereo music playback.
Range, too, is pretty good, although not up to the claimed 10 metres. We certainly got a good 7 metres and several walls away before sound started breaking up.
The only gripe we'd have performance-wise is that there's quite a bit of sound leakage at mid-to-high volumes.
Buttons to remotely control media playback (play/pause, next/back and volume) are built into the earpieces.
Once again, the paired Bluetooth device needs to be compliant with a specific protocol (in this case AVRCP) in order fpor these controls to work.
Theoretically, the BT620s can connect to two devices simultaneously, pausing music playback from one device, say, when a phone call is received from another.
In our tests, however, receiving a call from a mobile seemed to break our link to our PC-based music player altogether and the connection had to be re-established manually.
Wireless headphones will always appeal, but this offering from Jabra has its issues.
The bulky design won't impress those used to their white in-ear iPod headphones and, more importantly, if you want to listen to stereo music through your phone, you'll need an A2DP-compliant phone.
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