Well, i lost my Urbanears Plattan, which I have been using daily for about 4 years, taking calls from a softphone on my notebook, or listening to music while commuting. Thus I need to find a replacement. There are a couple of options within my price range, but most of them are either bulky, headphone-only models, or tacky gaming headsets. Then I came across the Jabra Move wireless headphone.
The Move is an on ear bluetooth 4.0 headset, which can optionally be used as a wired headphone with the supplied stereo aux cable. The bundled cable lacks a mic, but supposedly you can use a 3rd party cable with mic to convert it to wired headset. If you’re familiar with Jabra’s lineup, consider it as a pared down Jabra Revo , with the Move missing a chunk of features, such as nfc and Dolby-approval stamp.
The combination of stainless steel, plastic, and fabric on the build material is great, and seems to be able to endure the twist and turn of everyday use, although the faux leather on the earcups would probably wears of in 2 or 3 years. It’s very lightweight comfortable to use for a long period of time.
The left earcup of the Move houses the 3.5″ stereo port, a pair of volume buttons, which doubles as a track forward & backward button, and a play/pause/take call button.
The right earcup has microusb port for charging, and power/pair switch. Just like the Revo, The Move is usable in bluetooth mode even when charging. Very cool!
Just like any of the newer Jabra models, the Move support multipoint connection, so you can connect it to 2 devices as headset and A2DP at once. I tried it with 2 android devices, and it worked flawlessly. A combination of Ubuntu 14.042 box and a Galaxy S4 is somewhat working, although you need to manually switch the bluetooth profile on Ubuntu between A2DP and headset on the Ubuntu box. You will also probably need to install Blueman from the repository, since Ubuntu’s default bluetooth manager will not connect to the audio sink device on the headset, so you need to do it manually via the aforementioned Blueman. Alternatively put
pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
somewhere on you autostart script.
Now, if only someone could create a better looking icon set for Blueman 🙁 With a windows box it’s a different story. It connects and can switch between profile accordingly, but A2DP playback on the second devices choppy and practically useless.
Now, for some cons:
- The Move is strangely not collapsible, so storing one inside your backpack might pose a bit of a problem.
- The included rubber aux cable is flimsy and useless if you want to use it as a wired headset (headphone+mic combo). If you want to, you can get one of these to do that for you.
- The headband can be resized, but it lack notches to indicate sizes, which means if you adjust the headband after you put it on, it might get loop sided.
Am I satisfied? I am. Would I recommend you to buy one? Well, before you decide anything, take a note that for pretty much the same amount of money, you can get the cool looking Sony SBH-60 which technically has everything in the Move’s spec list, plus NFC. It does look kind of flimsy. Or optionally, you can step up your game and get the Revo, which has Dolby, NFC, and touch control.
Me? I would still get the Move, for the sole reason that it comes in red and black. HA! 😀 Anyway, if you’re on a budget, absolutely need bluetooth, prefer something durable, comfortable, and sounds great, the Jabra Move is a great pick.