I just got my ioGear bluetooth headset.
It's charging and I have not used it yet. First impressions:
It's small and light. A little smaller/lighter than the Cardo Scala 500
I've posted some pictures that I took from my Treo camera. The pictures kind of suck, so I appologize, but there are posted here nontheless. They speak for themselves.
http://www.hively.com/reviews/iogear/
I'll post in a day or two when I've had a chance to use it.
Update 4-15:
The headset is fully charged and I've done some initial playing around with it.
Folks, this is the same headset as the Cardo Scala 500. Well not exactly, but I'm convinced that the inside electronics are made by the same company.
-Operation of both headsets is idenical, although all bluetooth headsets are pretty much the same in operation.
-Both take 5 seconds to begin ringing.
-Both have ringers that escalate in volume
-The tones (beeps etc.) on both of them are identical except the ring tone is slightly different. But the way it rings is identical. Give me the Pepsi challenge and I wouldn't be able to tell you which one was on my ear from the beeps alone.
-Leds, flashing, indications in modes, etc. are all identical.
-Loudness/volume is similar.
What's different?
-IoGear is slightly smaller and lighter.
-IoGear fits snugly in the ear (almost don't need the ear loop.) The Cardo has a large speaker that rests in the ear, but not down in the ear.
What do I prefer? I couldn't tell you, both are very comfortable in their own way. I alost lean toward the Cardo Scala's way as it doesn't pick up nasty ear wax.
-IoGear's speaker tone is much lower (more bassy.) The Cardo lacks the bass but is more loud in the higher frequencies.
The end result is that you can (and need to) turn up the volume much louder on the IoGear and not make yourself deaf as it's a bass tone. It also masks any higher pitch static which is still there, but you can't hear it because the speaker doesn't have higher fequency response. The Cardo scala reproduces mid range voice tones at lower volumes, but if you're in a noisy surround it's hard to turn it way up without going deaf.
-By the way, both have identical loudness if you disregard the frequency response of the different speakers
-IoGear has a 'normal' ring. The Cardo has that annoying "My country tis of the" tone (WTF?)
-Later I'll have my wife tell me which one sounds better for the call recipient's end.
Jury is still out, but expect identical performance to the Cardo Scala 500.
If I had to chose one or the other, I can't tell you which I would chose at this point. But if you're going to buy an inexpensive one today. 6 of one, half dozen of the other in minor physical differences, accessories, and chargers. I'll get to all of that later.
Bottom line is that so far it's a good cheap headset just like the Cardo Scala 500.
