The third headset we’re checking out for Bluetooth Headset week at Symbian-Guru is the Nokia BH-903. This is a fancy little number that sports a small OLED display and A2DP support for a superior music experience. The BH-903 is also the first Nokia accessory that I’ve seen come in an Nseries-branded package, which I thought was interesting. It’s clad in a shiny piano black color scheme with silver accents, so it looks stellar next to the black N82, but the important thing is how well it works.

The Nokia BH-903 consists of a small medallion, which houses the hidden OLED display and several buttons. The earphone cords come out of the bottom of the medallion and have a padded cord between them, which goes around your neck and protects you from having your earphones painfully ripped from your ears. The cords are wrapped in a non-tangling nylon braid, and I find that it helps the cords not get all twisted, as well. The headset ships with 2 sets of foam earpiece cushions and a wall charger, pretty simple setup.

This medallion, however, is the key to the whole headset, so I’m going to spend some time walking you through it. The power button is on top, and the standard small-barrel Nokia charging port is on the bottom. The front features the hidden LED, a control pad, small ‘menu’ button, and the talk button. These aren’t labeled, though, so you’ll want to check out the first few pages of the manual, just to find out what everything does.

The four corners of this control pad are dedicated music playback buttons, and the left/right directions allow you to navigate through the limited menus, in conjunction with the center button. Up and down do not offer any functions, but the whole thing is also a touch-sensitive NaviWheel, allowing you to move your fingertip in a circle around the controlpad to change the volume. I found this to be slightly unresponsive, though, and would have much preferred hardware volume buttons.

The menu has only a few selections, the first being the music player, which connects to an external music source. The second option is for the integrated FM radio, with the headset autoscanning for FM stations, and showing the frequency on the display. The third menu option allows you to browse through the recent calls made on the device, if paired with a mobile phone. Last but not least is the settings option, and here you can change the brightness of the OLED display, as well as manage connections and initiate pairing mode.

On the cord with the right-side earpiece, there is a small call control remote, containing a talk button, and best of all, a dedicated mute button on the side. The headset’s microphone is logically located in this small remote, as well. The earpieces ship with these oddly-shaped rubber covers, but they actually fit very nicely in my ear.

Audio quality for music is pretty good. The earphones, which are permanently attached, are not noise-canceling, which means that I can still hear outside noise rather well, and others nearby can hear my music slightly, as well. Callers reported crystal clear sound when used indoors or in the car with the windows rolled up. However, since the microphone is exposed on the wire to the earpiece, any amount of wind (save for a slight breeze or something) created quite a bit of background noise, and full-on wind or a busy supermarket would render conversation impossible.

Nokia themselves aren’t sure of the music/talk time of the BH-903. The Norway product page shows 9 hrs, while the general Europe page says 11 hrs, and the press release from when the headset was announced stated 15 hours (Update: Apparently the difference in the Norway page and the Europe page is that the headset gets 9 hrs of use after only 20 min of charging, and 11 hrs after a full 45 min charge). So which is correct? I was only able to squeeze about 10hrs of full-time music before the headset starting beeping for the juice, and at about 11hrs it shut itself off completely. The good news, however, is that the Nokia BH-903 charges fully within about 45min, so you’re only down for a bit before you can pick up the tunes once again.

So, it looks pretty, and the music is great, what scenarios does this headset rock in, and where is it not the best? Glad you asked. If you’re listening to music around the house, or in some other non-active situation, and want to dump the wires, the Nokia BH-903 is a rockin choice. It would also be a great choice for someone like me, who works at home on a computer most of the day, but still makes calls and listens to music constantly. Paired with either my phone or my computer, the BH-903 works great cause I can get up and go into another room without cords, and I can participate in conference calls, that sort of thing.

However, if you’re in the car alot, or use your phone in a noisy environment, the BH-903 isn’t the best choice. Even if you’re looking to replace your iPod with your phone, and need a stereo Bluetooth headset, I would only recommend the BH-903 if you’re not planning on making a ton of calls, due to the poor wind performance, you just never know what type of environment you’ll need to take a call in (though I suppose you *could* just use your handset in that situation).

The Nokia BH-903 is out of stock in most online places I checked, though there were 2 on Ebay, priced around US$200. It’s certainly a sleek number, and if you’re not planning on using the phone function much, I’d recommend it.

Categories: Accessories
Tags: a2dp, bh-903, bluetooth, features, nokia