The Best of Both Phone, and Tablet
Entered CNET Catalog: 05/12/2009
SKU: 0635753470550
Manufacturer: Samsung
Manufacturer description
Enjoy a premium quality wireless listening experience with the Samsung SBH600 Stereo Bluetooth Headset. Control and listen to your music in stereo sound, play, forward, rewind through your tracks. When you receive a call the music will stop and your call will automatically route to your SBH600's, when you end the call your music re-starts.Product summary
The good: The Samsung SBH-600 stereo Bluetooth headset fits very comfortably on the ear and has excellent audio quality. We also like the 3.5-millimeter headset jack that lets you use it with non-Bluetooth devices.
The bad: The Samsung SBH-600's call quality could be improved.
The bottom line: Though it doesn't have the best call quality, its comfortable fit and fantastic audio quality makes the Samsung SBH-600 one of the best stereo Bluetooth headsets for listening to music.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 05/12/2009
Samsung is no stranger to stereo Bluetooth headsets, with the SBH700 debuting a few years ago. But the SBH600, its most recent model, is possibly its best yet. The soft padded SBH600 is comfortable to wear and has excellent sound quality thanks to hi-fi audio fidelity and noise-reducing technology. Though it's not quite meant for sport activities because of its size, the SBH600 is an excellent headset if you care about fit and performance. The Samsung SBH600 retails for $149.99, but you can get it for around $100 online if you shop around.
The Samsung SBH600 looks like a pair of over-the-ear full-size headphones, except just a bit smaller. Measuring about 6 inches wide by 7.5 inches tall by 1.2 inches thick and weighing about 6.5 ounces, these headphones are for serious audio listening either at home or on the bus, but definitely not in the gym because of its size. It has an adjustable padded headband and two smallish ear cups that sit on the outside of the ear. Both ear cups are padded in a soft cushy material. Also, the two ear cups can fold inward so that the entire headphone lies flat, which makes for easier portability.
The headphones feel nice and snug around our ears and are definitely one of the most comfortable stereo Bluetooth headphones we've tried. Though the SBH600 doesn't have any active noise cancellation, it reduces ambient noise quite a bit when you have the ear cups securely sitting on your ears.
A small power toggle is on the front of the left ear cup while the multifunction call button is toward the back. At the bottom of the left ear cup are the volume rocker and a 3.5-millimeter headset jack. The jack is useful when you want to listen to tunes on a player that doesn't have stereo Bluetooth. As for the right ear cup, it has a sound mode toggle on the front (Normal, Wide, and Bass), and the Play/Pause/Stop button toward the back. At the bottom of the right ear cup are the track shuttle keys and the charger jack. The multifunction call button and Play/Pause button are both just a tad thin and slippery for our tastes, but they're at least raised above the surface and easy to find by feel. We especially like the feel of the volume rocker and track shuttle keys, as they're very tactile and easy to access.
When you first power the SBH600 on, it'll automatically go into pairing mode. We paired ours with the Samsung Trance, which has stereo Bluetooth enabled. It also supports AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile), which means we could manage the music player using the headphone's controls. To our surprise, because both the Trance and the SBH600 are Samsung products, the devices paired automatically without us having to enter in a PIN code. Usually you would have to enter a four-digit PIN (like 0000).
We were very impressed with the audio quality. The SBH600 promises high fidelity audio, and it delivers. We were pleased with the bass booster and widening surround sound modes too--in fact, we would recommend using the bass booster most of the time to bring out the rich and full sound of your tunes.
Call quality, on the other hand, was a mixed bag. Though we could hear our callers loud and clear, callers said that we sounded on the soft side, even when we were in a quiet environment. In a noisier environment like on a busy city sidewalk, they had to strain to hear us and we had to raise our voice a bit more. We could still carry on a conversation, but it wasn't ideal.
Other features of the SBH600 include the typical capabilities to answer, end, and reject a call; last number redial; voice command support where available; placing a call on hold ;and transfer a call from the phone to the headset and vice versa.
The Samsung SBH600 has a rated battery life of 11 hours talk time, 11 hours music playback, and 12.5 days standby time.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11out of 11 user reviews
STOP GOING BACK TO THE PAST
Pros: SOUND SYSTEM IS GREAT BUT THE OLD DAYS ARE OVER. THEY NEED TO MOVE FORWARD
Cons: TOO HEAVY AND GIVE YOU A HEADACHE LATER ON . I CAN;T TELL HOW OLD THIS UNIT IS
out of 11 user reviews
The casing for these headphones broke!
Pros: Wireless and Noise Cancelling was great!
Cons: They broke right after the year warranty. A screw holding the earpiece to the headband seems to have loosened and perhaps stripped out so that the earpiece falls and dangles. I could "fix" them with ducttape or glue, I guess, but it really sucks!
out of 11 user reviews
I love these earphones.
Pros: Best sound
Easy to use
Have had no problems with anyone hearing me when I use them as bluetooth headset.
Easy to sync.
Compfortable Fit.
Bass Boost.
Did I mention great sound.
Cons: None so far
out of 11 user reviews
Nice sound
Pros: Nice sound
Cons: They are poorly made. I had two sets break in the same spot, right above ear piece. I have been waiting for over 3 months to get a replacement from Samsung.
out of 11 user reviews
Great sound quality. Better than more expensive sets!
Pros: Sound quality is excellent. Flat across the sound spectrum these things do the job very well. You don't lose instrument character at all. Voices, instruments, studio echos; it is all there. You can hear everything in the recording.
Cons: Bought them so that I could listen to my iPhone 3GS in the house and not miss a call, but they don't pair with the iPhone. I did get them to pair with my iPod Touch.
out of 11 user reviews
Breaks easy; clicks out frequently.
Pros: Easy to use, excellent sound quality, not too heavy.
Cons: I have a Samsung Impression cellphone. The headset clicks out for about 3-5 seconds on very call I make. It also broke between the left earpiece and headset band; I do have a large head size, but it is structurally weak at that point.
out of 11 user reviews
Overall Great Product!
Pros: You are now FREE of WIRES man!!! What more can I say?!? Sound quality in iPod/Music playback is great to excellent.
Cons: Forward and Rewind functionality not operable on iPhone (3GS). The "travel" bag or should I say pouch would've been nicer if it was like a zipper pouch or something similar. It is a pull-string pouch, but it's ok, I guess.
out of 11 user reviews
Good for phone use, not MP3 players and phone
Pros: It sounds great. Wonderful if my phone was the only product I was working with.
Cons: I thought noise cancellation meant the person on the phone would not hear my background noise, so it is not useful to me. I can hear people fine, it is very hard for them to hear me. Cannot use the line-in function and bluetooth at the same
time.
out of 11 user reviews
too uncomfortable to wear
Pros: good sound quality , good connectivity
Cons: too uncomfortable to wear.
poor built quality.
microphone is very weak
forget about comfort its too uncomfortable to wear .I can't put it on more than an hour.
Its really bad design .I stopped using it.ear hurts alot .total waste of money
out of 11 user reviews
Love this thing!
Pros: 1. Bluetooth wireless w/ control
2. Optional wired connection (especially for when battery run out)
3. Long battery (this may be subjective)
Cons: 1. Heard that headset function is not great but haven't really tried
Updated on Aug 1, 2009Tried the headset function while walking thru an airport and the other party said they could hear me fine... on my side the volume was a bit weak.
out of 11 user reviews
Excellent!
Pros: Sound Quality, Fit and Finish, Ease of Use, Included Accessories
Cons: Call Volume Sensitivity could be better
Bottom line is that these headphones are some of the best bluetooth units I have used for a cellphone or laptop, and are definitely worth north of $100. The fact that they can be had for only $100 is just icing on the cake.
Updated on Jul 25, 2009The battery life is better than I thought initially. I am able to go a full week of 3 hour use each day before needing a charge. These headphones have been abused decently, and they are still going strong.
