Catch 22: The feature I bought it for is its downfall.

I don't need a Bluetooth headset but am geeky enough to want one. I justified buying one because it would be better when driving (no hands-free law here yet but I'm sure it will come sooner or later), although with my phone's voice-dialing and speakerphone, that was a stretch. Still, I took the plunge.

I was so ready to love this thing. I had decided I wanted one that was very small, the less obtrusive the better. I have short hair and I wear glasses, so anything that sticks out from the side of my face is going to call attention to how, ahem, full, it already is. I got the one with the gold on it because my glasses and my earrings are gold so it would kind of fit in.

I was so pleased at first. It charged up quickly and then paired up on the first attempt, smooth as silk. I put it in my ear and was very impressed with how secure it felt without being uncomfortable in the least. It came with choices of ear hooks and earbud gels; the medium of each worked fine for me.

Then I made a couple of calls and things started to fall apart.

The audio I heard was fine, from the phones automated menus to the voices of the people I called - every bit as clear as on the phone itself. Sadly, that was a one-way street. They reported that I was hard to hear and, even when I spoke more loudly than normal and they could hear me, they couldn't always understand everything. So I left myself a couple of voicemails to see (hear) for myself.

In a word, dismal. When I spoke in a normal tone of voice, whole syllables dropped out. When I spoke more loudly than usual (and believe me, my normal voice isn't exactly timid), I could hear almost all the words, but only if I really listened. I hope that makes sense. I had to work harder to hear the words than someone should have to. And even if someone didn't mind having to do that in order to hear me, there's the issue of me on the other end, yelling to be heard. Fine if I'm alone in the car. If I'm in the grocery store, not so much.

From a physics point of view, this is not surprising since the mic is so far from the mouth, due completely to one of the things that made it so attractive to me - its small size. Catch 22.

I got it on Ebay, new in its sealed retail box for about $30 plus reasonable shipping, in August 2008. Since it's not defective, just unsatisfactory technology, it's not returnable, which is fair enough.

Now I'm on the hunt again, though, and am eyeing the BlueAnt Z9 and the Jawbone 2, which both claim to have superior noise-cancellation/voice-isolation technology. They're both considerably more expensive, especially the Jawbone, but I may have to go that route.