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It finally arrived. Paid $39.99 plus $4.99 S&H from a place called "bargain-collections" on eBay. Fast shipping, it arrived in perfect shape. Apparently the packaging is not of the blister pack type - so you could open it, test it, return it and no one would be the wiser - except for that chunk of ear wax attached to the earpiece. Please! DO NOT return items like this after you've put them in your ear.

On to the review...

I'll start with some obligatory pictures of the packaging and its contents. The performance reviews such as connection, voice quality, etc. is coming.

Here is the packaging in all its glory. Actually, it's "cheap" in appearance compared to many consumer electronics packaging nowadays..


Doesn't it look a bit like an amputated robot cockroach climbing its way from the waxy ear canal for a breath of fresh air?

With it open, here are the contents:
-Earpiece
-Rubberized ear spring in two sizes
-Charger
-Neck strap (this goes into the charging port)
-USB cable
-Manual
-Quick start guide


Note that this can be used in either ear. How it detects which button is which when positioned from left to right ear must have something to do with a sensor in the earpiece itself.

Let's take the earpiece out and see how it "fits" with the MDA:


As you can see it's still quite small as compared to many of the Bluetooth headsets out there. Their 5G model is way smaller and is 500% more expensive!

This is the length:


Width:


Thickness:


Here it is assembled with the rubberized "thing" that pushes against your ear lobe. It's actually quite comfortable - and given its weight, you could probably leave it on your ear with no noticeable fatigue:


(05/17/06)

With the headset/earbud charged, it was tested in open conditions and it passed with flying colors! The sound quality is excellent, it's light in the ear (the little black rubber springs - it's patent pending...) and you could almost forget it's there. But don't! You don't want to look too silly with that thing in your ear for no reason, would you? If you have long hair and it covered it no one would be the wiser.

Bluetooth integration/setup is a snap. You go to:
Start -> Settings -> Connections tab -> Bluetooth -> Devices tab -> New Partnership (at this point the MDA will scan for Bluetooth devices after which point you enter the code for the earbud "0000" to enter in and voila! you're off and running!)

To make a call you simply press on the button in the middle of the bud and your MDA will be prompting you to say a voice-dial-tagged name. That's it!

Here's a quick video of it in action.
Click here or the image below to view it


Notice towards the end of the video that the Wi-Fi detection screen pops up and note the number of networks the MDA detects. That's far more than my Fujitsu Lifebook 7010D detects! Impressive.

You'll know when the earbud is connected by the small headset icon that appears at the top right corner of the dial screen:


The first impression of this AX2 is that it's awesome! Now it's time to get the entire MDA voice-activated so that browsing Wi-Fi sites is also possible :)

(05/18/06)

Some folks have mentioned that ambient noises and especially wind can make the earpiece unusable. This is somewhat true. Walking in the heavy wind of SF yesterday afternoon, I placed a call to a landline from the outdoors and sure enough, the person on the other end mentioned that at times, they couldn't hear me! I will place some sound file samples here shortly so you can hear for yourself.

Here's another nice little diddy about the AX2 - if your MDA cuts out due to crappy reception, your AX2 will make little beeps "beep-beep" telling you that you have no reception. This will keep going until you get reception, so once you get wind of this, you may want to remove the earpiece from your ear, unless of course, you enjoy the little "beep-beep" :)

When you receive incoming calls, the AX2 makes a nice door-chime ring. It's actually quite soothing and I wish I had more incoming calls so that I can enjoy the sounds (sound file to appear shortly). Whether or not you can have the same ringtone as your MDA play on your earpiece is still in question since I haven't read the manual yet. But if this is do-able, I'll post the how-to.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for more of this review...

Or, on to the MDA review!