All right, All right … so you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, who starts a review of what is obviously a professional product with a title like that. Well, for one – I do, and for two, it got your attention didn’t it?

If that didn’t then maybe this will:

That device you see above is the Plantronics CS70N Wireless Headset System. That’s not everything obviously, but those two items are the real bulk of the product and the pieces that are going to mean the most to us as we check out this latest release from Plantronics.

Admittedly I’ve never been a big fan of using a headset until I started my latest job. Something about holding on to a phone, trying to work out the problems on a tape library that’s gone offline with an onsite engineer half way around the world, and 400 backup jobs queued up just doesn’t work out too well. I’ve literally been on the phone for 4+ hours straight and had the crick in my neck to show for it. So, naturally when my boss offered to buy us all wired headsets from Plantronics I was quite happy. When Plantronics offered a review unit it took me about 1/2 a second to figure out I wanted to see how it could do.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to use it for very long and I’m back on my wired setup (not a product flaw but a job flaw). So, my wife has been using it for a couple weeks now making this is almost like two reviews in one.

So what’s special about the CS70N?

• Wireless
• Noise Cancellation
• Single button call control
• Up to 300 foot effective range!
• 6 hour battery life
• Easy to use and easy to setup

 All right, let’s get this rollin! Read on for the rest!

Installation

Setup for the CS70N is fairly simple. There’s really not a lot of components. Plantronics did a nice job of making sure the manual had decent images and the product had labels that made it quite fool proof. Honestly I really think you could give anyone from the receptionist to the IT person this package and say go to town. Given 15 minutes or less they and would have it working. The pairing between the headset and the base unit might take them a couple minutes to figure out so call it 20 minutes to be safe.

I know it really doesn’t look like much, but short of a power supply that’s the entire setup right there. The base unit is on the left, the gray/black item roughly in the middle is the "optional" HL10 handset lifter, and the actual headset is on the right.

So anyway, as I was saying the CS70N really is nearly fool proof when it comes to installation. The image below shows all the connections you have to make –

My biggest complaints with the installation fall with the connection setup. Not that they are hard to figure out, but the way Plantronics designed the system and the type of cable they included. Notice the bottom left corner where I have it labeled as the headset connection. The place where you plug in the headset cord is actually sunk down into that well on the wall facing the body of the device. So in order to get the cable to plug in you have to bend the wire right at the phone plug then two finger it down there and sort of half pray/half blindly slide the plug around until you line it up. It’s a lot like trying to a light into a wall socket in the dark.

The second complaint is the cable out to the phone. In the above diagram you’ll notice the recommended distance from the base to the phone is 6 inches. Well that’s a little hard to accomplish when the cable they give you is only 6 inches. so what you end up with is something that looks a little like this:

Last time I checked my measuring ability it was pretty bad – but that is definitely not 6 inches. The problem lies in the base of the phone.  The phone routes the cables through a certain way so that the base fits properly. Well, when you have to route the cables and you only have 6 inches of cable to work with you end up falling short. Either you pinch the cable (bad) or you have the base too close to the phone (also bad as we’ll mention shortly). Both the Samsung shown above and the Avaya I tested on had the same cable shortening problem.

Using the CS70N

They call it optional – I call it a requirement. First tip of the review is : BUY THE HEADSET LIFTER!! This thing is super cool. Yes, I know not it isn’t very professional to say "super cool" but hey, the HL10 really is. The first time you click the button on your headset to answer the phone and the lifter whirs into action … see if you don’t find yourself saying "cool"! Anyway, seriously this is a have to buy. The HL10 Handset Lifter really takes the wireless concept to the next level by allowing you to be that (up to) 300 feet away from the desk and answer the phone. True mobility starts when all the pieces work together and this is one place where Plantronics nailed it.

My lovely wife with her new found headset.

Once we got her all setup it was minutes before she was in love with it. It was also minutes before she figured out that the earpiece (soft rubber that goes in your ear) was too big for her, and she was using the smallest one. It took a few hours but she finally adjusted to it and the discomfort seemed to have went away. She now uses the same earpiece but doesn’t put it down into her ear – it sort of hovers just above the ear canal without really making contact. Small ear people be warned, it will take a bit of getting used to. Wearing the device however hasn’t been an issue and it remains on her ear for the better part of the day. I found the same initial discomfort with all three included "gel" ear pieces but found the discomfort definitely faded over the course of a couple days.

The volume controls on the top of the unit are a little difficult to locate and press if you have bigger fingers. But you figure it out pretty quickly and it stops being an issue after a short while.

My wife works in the worst possible environment for wireless – a basement of concrete walls. According to the documentation the CS70N uses a 1.9Ghz DECT frequency and should be good for up to 300 feet. In our tests this wasn’t true but it definitely was close. I was able to get almost 300 feet in my office building, she’s able to get about 200 in hers, but by that point she’s walked past a few interfering walls and quite a few steel based storage shelving units (these things are huge – not the you have it in your garage to store chemicals type) and so I can respect the loss of signal in that environment. Moving between floors is also a bit of a problem so don’t expect to get that 300 feet in a vertical motion. I think 1 floor level would be the max. As for having to worry about your conversation being "intercepted" in that 300 foot range, worry no more as the CS70N uses 64bit encryption to keep those overly interested parties out of your business.

We both found call quality to be excellent for both the user and the person on the other end of the line. Without any fiddling right out of the box in my setup the people on the other end had no idea I was on a headset let alone a wireless one, and in the few calls I’ve made to my wife I honestly couldn’t tell if she was using it or not. The first time I had to ask just to make sure. The noise canceling microphone really shines with this product and background noises (and sometimes even background people) are simple unheard on the other end of the line.

The only major problem we found during testing was a sometimes very noticeable echo within the headset. The person on the other end of the phone doesn’t hear it, but you can hear yourself talk. We followed every step in the user guide and while we were able to get it to a manageable level we finally came to blame this on the short connection cord included with the unit (see installation section above). It seems to come and go, and isn’t a deal breaker, but I think this a simple fix for Plantronics if they choose to do it.

Conclusion

If you have the money (Retail of $329 direct - $399 with lifter) the CS70N is a great headset and definitely the best one I’ve ever used. Plantronics has an excellent reputation in the business space and if the CS70N is anything of an example, that reputation is well deserved. We had some problems during the review mostly stemming from a shortcut in cable length, something that can and should be easily remedied by Plantronics but overall the headset performed very well under all conditions. Battery life was great, call quality was excellent, and the ability to cut the cord and move away from your desk while on a call is worth its weight in gold.

Scale of 10 my wife gave it an 8.5 – mostly for the initial discomfort of the ear piece and the echo problem. That said, she’s definitely recommending to friends and co-workers and so am I.

You can read more about the CS70N on the Plantronics website and if you so desire it can be purchased directly from Plantronics as well.

[tags] Plantronics, Plantronics CS70N, justanothermobilemonday.com, Plantronics Wireless [/tags]