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Review of Plantronics Marque M155 Bluetooth Headset

Package:

Headset
USB cable
Ear hook
Ear tips
Manual

This handset was designed exclusively for iPhone and Androids. What’s on board? Nice looks, an unusual cable, rich functionality and a reasonable price.

Design

The package is typical for Plantronics devices – a plastic cylinder and the headset within on a kind of a podium. It’s tricky to get it out of the box: you need to slide the cover forward and up. The designers apparently wanted to create something that would look great together with Apple devices and they managed to do so – the headset looks very stylish. It’s available in black or white and I personally would go with the white one. The crystal sharp white plastic looks very nice with the silver side. The ear tip is transparent and you can see the metal mesh of the ear piece inside. This is one of the most beautiful headsets I have reviewed recently. Too bad the silver parts are plastic but they really feel metal.

As you can see on the photos I scratched the button on the side. On the interior side there is a perforation under which the mics is smartly hidden. The back side hosts a microUSB slot without a lid. The headset does not have a loop hole for a stra eitherp.

The headset is rather small but still very noticeable when in the ear.

Comfort

I am very glad Plantronics did not make a non-removable ear hook so you can wear it any way you prefer. The ear tip of the ear piece is rather small but I had no problems wearing the headset without the ear hook. The bundled ear hook is thin and comfortable so you forget about it when you wear it.

Controls

The front panel features a big multifunctional button, the volume rocker and the power button are on the sides. The light indicator is hidden under a perforation on the back side. This last part was worth designing a headset for Apple and Android on its own. While other manufacturers got it a long time ago Plantronics were still putting the light indicator on the visible parts of their headsets. All the buttons are very convenient and you quickly get used to them.

Functionality

Besides making phone calls M155 knows a few more tricks. Firstly, it supports A2DP which allows you to listen to music, podcasts etc. Listening to music with only one ear might be useful at work when you are slacking off but don’t want to make it too conspicuous. Secondly, the multipoint feature: it allows pairing the headset with two devices (two phones, a phone and a laptop etc.). I succeeded pairing this headset with iPhone 5 and Blackberry 9900 simultaneously. I have not tried connecting it to a laptop though.

Battery

The headset is quoted to last for five hours of phone calls or nine hours in standby. In practice it could give me about 4h 20m of phone calls which not much at all. The USB cable is something special – it has a microUSB connector for the headset and an extra USB connector for charging/syncing your iPhone or other device. It’s very clever. It takes about two hours to charge the battery.

Pairing and Sound Quality

I have tested this headset mainly with iPhone 4S: they pair up very quickly. When you turn M15 on for the first time it starts looking for devices automatically. To connect a second device to the headset you need to press and hold the multi button until the LED starts flashing in red and white. The operational range is about six meters, it uses the Bluetooth 3.0 profile, the signal is strong and I had no connection problems. The noise cancelling works very well it even reminded me of the top Plantronics headsets: voices are very natural and on the other side people can always hear you. The best part is that regardless of the surroundings (in car, on the street etc.) the quality remains very high.

Bottom Line

I think Plantronics has made a very nice headset for about €50. Let’s now have a look at its main features:

Design: and though M155 could use a bit of metal it still looks great and the LED is finally in the back where it should be
It’s comfortable to wear both with and without the ear hook
The battery life is not impressive but sufficient
The bundled USB cable allows you to connect one extra device
iPhone can display the remaining battery charge of the headset
The controls are intuitive
Excellent speech quality
Multipoint: it can work with two devices simultaneously
A2DP

I have not found any downsides worth mentioning. I strongly recommend this headset if you have an iPhone and want something stylish, smart and inexpensive – M155 is then a clear choice. It’s been a long time since I have praised something by Plantronics but this time they did very well.

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Sergei Kuzmin (skuzmin@mobile-review.com)
Twitter Livejournal
Translated by Robert Mugattarov (mugattarov@gmail.com)