11. Sennheiser BW900 Bluetooth Wireless Office Headset

Sennheiser is a German-based company that's been in the professional audio products business for over 50 years. They include top-notch microphones and headphones for recording and broadcast studios among their products, so their telephone headsets come with a powerful pedigree. This technology base shines through in their BW900 headset, whose chief claims to fame include broad device support, sophisticated circuitry that adjusts the earphone volume and microphone sensitivity in response to ambient noise, and support for a wide range of mobile phones, office phone systems, notebook PCs, PDAs and Bluetooth-equipped audio electronics.

The Sennheiser BW900 is a monaural, over the ear Bluetooth headset with boom microphone, whose electronics reside in the earpiece.

The BW900's most essential feature is its outstanding operating range. Whereas most Bluetooth devices lose their signals somewhere between 30 and 40 feet away from a transmitter, the BW900 offers an operating range of nearly 330 feet (100 meters). Its specialized noise cancellation circuitry helps keep signals strong enough to be clear and audible to the headset user and other parties to a call, all the way to the end of its range. Likewise, the BW900 also offers outstanding audio quality for those who wish to use this unit to listen to music or other audio sources as well.

While most Bluetooth headsets ship with small, compact base stations, the BW900 includes a bigger, beefier unit that is the norm for such equipment. This probably accounts for its extended range and its ability to handle noise as well. The bigger amplifier also makes room for a second headset battery, which may be hot-swapped for the one in the earpiece at any time so that users can keep talking (and listening) without missing a call (or a beat).

The headset itself is small and light, and its lightweight boom microphone and earpiece are attractive enough that users need not be ashamed to show themselves in public while using the device. It can also manage multiple device connections simultaneously quite well, and even permits toggling between conventional and Bluetooth enabled phones, including office phone systems and mobile phones, as well as other Bluetooth devices with ease. For example, you can pair up the BW900 with a mobile phone, a Skype-connected notebook PC, and an office phone system, plus one or more Bluetooth-based audio devices, all at the same time.

At a price of $280 to $300, the Sennheiser BW900 does not come cheap, but for those students who are constantly on the phone juggling multiple calls, this outstanding headset is hard to beat. Anybody whose work or activity involves lots of telephone work should find this device irresistible.