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I recently purchased the MOTOROKR S9 headphones to use with my new Cingular AT&T 8525 (HTC TyTn/Hermes) Windows Mobile device/phone. One feature that attracted me to my new phone was BlueTooth A2DP support. I want to be able to use my phone as a music source when cycling. I figure that since I need to carry my phone with me anyway it might as well serve double duty as my portable music player. First Impression
Okay - I'm not a big fan of all of the unboxing videos that you can find on YouTube but the S9's packaging is just plain cool. Check out this S9 unboxing video. I'll try to get a better quality video up there... but don't count on it. Sound Quality
Nothing scientific here. I did a comparison to me Shure E2c headphones and yes, of course the E2cs sounded better but the S9s sounded very good. I almost couldn't believe my ears. The bass isn't very deep, but it is audible and sounds good. Definitely much better than most inexpensive ear buds that I've used. Phone Operation
In addition to playing and controlling music the S9 acts just like a typical hands-free BlueTooth headset. The only weirdness is that when using the S9 as a phone headset only the left ear speaker is active. I've seen reviews that make a huge deal of this. It is truly not a huge deal! The odd feeling I get is probably magnified by the fact that I normally wear my BlueTooth headset on my right ear. I'll get used to it, I'm sure. People at the other end of my phone calls typically could not tell if I was using the S9 or my normal Plantronics Discovery 655 headset. While the S9 does not claim to be the next JawBone it seems to do a damn good job of canceling out ambient noise while in the car. I have not had a chance to use it as a phone headset while cycling. I'll have to perform and write up that test in a separate post. Battery Longevity with Music
First I charged the phone and S9s all night at home
Then at work the next day: - 7:30 - 8:30AM topped off the charge on both the S9 headphones and the phone
- 8:30AM - Soft Reset Phone to make sure all apps were closed etc.
- 8:33AM
- Unplugged S9s from USB cable and turned on. Confirmed BlueTooth link.
- Started Media Player on shuffle-play
- 8:34AM - Unplugged USB to S9
- 3:14PM - S9s ran out of battery, BlueTooth connection was lost and the built-in device speakers took over. The 8525 was still at 50% battery.
6 hours 40 minutes of battery time for the S9s. Not too shabby! Of course I would rather get 10 - 12 hours out of the headset but at least it beats Motorola's claim of 6 hours. Controls
The controls on the left side of the S9 are the typical BlueTooth headset controls - the phone button (answers calls, hangs up, allows you to long-press to activate features like voice dialing) and volume controls. The right side of the device holds the music controls, a pause/play button, a skip track forward button and a skip track backward button. Nothing really special to note here. I do always seem to press buttons while putting the headset on and sometimes while taking it off. I'm sure this will end after a few more uses and I train myself to not accidentally press the buttons. Oops
My S9s unfortunately developed a flaw before I could complete my testing. Now when playing music there is a high-pitched noise on top of the music coming from both speakers. It sounds kind of like ripped paper cones on full-sized speakers - almost a rattle... but too high pitched and consistent to really be a rattle. This makes me worry a bit about the reliability and durability of the headset. Customer Service
A quick note about customer service. I first went to Motorola's site and I am extremely disappointed with their customer support. First, I would have to call them during normal business hours (I was trying to get this done at midnight during a fit of sleeplessness one night). Second they seem to have no notion of cross-shipping. Idiots. I would have to send the headset back to them at my expense and then once they received the defective unit Motorola would then ship out a new pair to me. That is unacceptable. Amazon to the rescue. My original purchase was through Amazon.com so I was able to request a replacement unit from them right from the web. Nice. Amazon rocks. Unfortunately the S9s are out of stock and will ship sometime between June 28th and July 11th (which at the time of my request was 4-6 weeks away). Bummer. I did get a very nice email from Amazon stating this fact and letting me know that I could request a refund if the wait was unacceptable. Again, killer customer support. Conclusion
So far I'm very happy with this purchase - errr... well at least I was happy until the headset became unusable. Now I'm pretty disappointed with the purchase. I wanted to do an evaluation of the product while cycling since that is my main intended use. That will have to wait so I guess I will have to officially delay a conclusion until I receive my replacement headset. Other Resources
A pretty good review of the S9
Interesting post regarding the technology inside the S9
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