We’ve been playing with a few headsets from Plantronics .Audio range over the last few weeks. We’ll mention a couple more soon, but the 480 stood out here as a really interesting take on the portable headset. We’re basically talking about a set of earbuds with a mic attached on the left bud. A little weird, but the whole thing works a treat – good passive isolation, super portability, and good, reliable mic tech (the Plantronics speciality) so you can take calls anywhere. The boom is flexible, so it will sit comfortably wherever you want it. The cable has inline volume and mute, too.
The double earbud arrangement means it all doubles nicely as earbuds for music playback and phone headset, or even a really portable gaming headset. No device switching, of course, so the double duties part won’t work for most people, but if you have jumped to a combo phone that does both, this is a sexy little number. It’s just such a great concept in ultra portability for a headset, and you can get a standard jack connector version or a USB version, depending on your need. They’re priced at $119.