Qstik EVOQ Bluetooth headset review

20 December 2007 13:00 GMT / By Darcy Fairbottom

The Qstik EVOQ has a bold claim - that it's the "world's most advanced Digital Signal Processor (DSP) Bluetooth headset", but is this just the chat of the company, or really the truth? We get making calls to find out.

If it wasn't satisfied with the claim of "Word's most advanced" the Qstik also says that its integrated military-grade, don't they always, bi-directional noise and echo cancellation technology into the design to give you high quality stereo music streaming, sophisticated speech enhancement and wireless VoIP capability. Wow.

In practice and we have to agree the sound quality is great and if you can get it set up properly, it can be used to control the music on a receptive MP3 player like the Samsung YP-T10 for example.

But...

Well that's the problems, it might sound great, but there are unfortunately plenty of buts.

First off there is the size and design. It looks like a huge circular UFO attached to a clumsy ear bracket.

If you're trying to shake that "Your just another Borg" image this isn't for you.

At times I felt like I had a car air filter stuck to the side of my head with a silly plastic ear hook.

When you first get it out of the box, you think it's like any other headset and just needs the wire plugging into its socket and, eureka, it's charging.

But, that socket doesn't match the plug so I looked into it further to find that you need to put the headset into a crib that the plug goes into to charge it - there's then a crib holder (the crib has a magnetic back) that you can sit the crib into to charge.

How many accessories for one headset do you need?

Then, once it was charged, I did the usual, setting my phone to search but nothing happened so then had to read the instruction manual (I would not expect this for such a simple device) and it said I had to put my phone into search mode and at the same time press the function and volume button of the headset.

Not having 3 hands, this did take some co-ordination but I did manage it and after several attempts, connected.

Verdict

So what do we think? Well it might offer great sound and a plethora of options like being able to control the music functions on your mobile phone, but its looks so awful that you just won't want to be seen wearing one in the car or not.

For us, that makes the Qstik EVOQ Bluetooth headset one to avoid.