Like many people out there, I too thought I would never become one of those headset people. I never wanted to be the guy walking around with a silly blinking piece of plastic in my ear pretending that I was someone important. But about six months ago I started having to drive a lot more. Along with this came all my talking while driving tickets. After I got three tickets in New York City, my wallet and I got together and decided it was time to get a nice legal headset. To make sure that I do not fully become one of the headset people, I have one rule for my headset: it does not leave the car. It has a nice little storage place right on my dashboard (also known as a crevice) and it stays right there until I need it and goes right back there when I am done with it or I get out of the car.

When I was first shopping around, I figured that if I was going to finally get one of these things, I might as well get one that looks and works pretty well. To that end I found the Aliph Jawbone. While most headsets look about the same and try to distinguish themselves with a piece or two of flash, the Jawbone is more like a muted art piece. The visible part of it is made of a textured plastic that is rather eye pleasing. Also, rather than having multiple flashing lights and the appearance of a spaceship, the Jawbone has just one intermittently flashing light at the top.

As I hoped, pairing the Jawbone with my HTC 8125 was exceptionally easy. The Bluetooth software in the phone and headset allowed the devices to discover each other instantly and a few clicks later, the pairing was made. I have never lost the pairing or had to repair for any reason. Pairing was also never lost during a call. The Jawbone has a slightly higher transmitting power than most headsets and I have many times left the phone in the car while I was working on the outside of the car and I have never experienced any static or other interference.

The call quality is what makes the Jawbone really top quality. It actually has three different speakers built into it. The first microphone rests on your cheek and detects the vibrations caused by your speech. The second microphone monitors sound near your mouth. The third and final microphone monitors the sound near your ear. The importance of having these three microphones is so that the headset can monitor the noise around you so that you can hear and be heard as best as possible. The first microphone provides a superior way to receive the audio from your voice rather than over the air, and this is correlated with the data on the mouth audio monitor. Any sounds that do not sync with your speech are not transmitted by the headset. This means that most of the background noise, even in a noisy area, is not heard by the person to whom you are speaking. The third microphone allows you to hear better in that it will adjust the volume of your earpiece based on the ambient noise surrounding you. If you are in a loud environment, the Jawbone will be louder, when in a quieter area, the Jawbone will readjust so that you can hear without being deafened.

Of course, all of the above is how the Jawbone works in an ideal situation - and even better, that is how it works in real life too. The Jawbone can really do everything it claims. I have used the Jawbone in the car and I can hear the caller with crystal clarity and the opinion of the person to whom I am placing is also that my voice is transmitted with crystal clarity. The only time I have ever used the Jawbone outside of the car I tested it in Times Square in New York. It was a Friday evening and very loud. I placed a call home to my father and began to speak with him to see if he would make his usual comment on the city noise in the background. To my surprise, he did not once mention the background until I asked him if he heard anything. He replied that he thought he heard the occasional click or low hum in the background but neither one was enough to cause hearing difficulty. I had much the same experience on my end. Despite the loud noise from one of the busiest places on Earth, I could clearly hear my father without any trouble. The Jawbone easily adjusted the volume such that he was comfortably louder than everything else around me.

Wearing the Jawbone is my only real problem with it. Since not everyone has the same shape ears, the Jawbone comes with a number of adapters. Unfortunately for me, none of them quite seem to fit me. I have always found that there is a little pinched area toward the rear of my ear no matter what I do. The Jawbone rotates on my ear and pulls down on the skin. In my case this isn't all that much of a problem since I don't use it for that long at a time, but I can see this being a nuisance if one is a headset guy.

Another minor issue I have with the headset is the charging. It comes with an AC to USB charger and must be used with that charger. Despite the USB end of the charger, I must have both parts with me and cannot simply plug into my computer as I do with my phone.

Overall, this is a great headset. It looks almost as good as it works and is worth every penny you spend on it. While the fit wasn't right for me, I have no doubt that the headset fits most people fairly well. And despite what it may do to that little piece of skin above my ear, it does wonders for the insides of my ear and I can forget about the other stuff!