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CTIA - New wireless wonders

11.04.2006
As usual, it was gadgets galore at last week's CTIA Wireless 2006 trade show in Las Vegas. Many of the new products are geared toward the home market, but some also sport features that are useful when it's time to get down to work.

Jabra's BT620 does double duty as a Bluetooth stereo headphone and a mobile phone headset.For instance, Jabra Corp. announced that it's shipping the BT620 (US$129), which does double duty as a Bluetooth stereo headphone and a mobile phone headset. When the phone rings, the music automatically pauses to let you pick up the call.

The company promises 16 hours of talking time or as much as 14 hours of stereo music streaming. (We'll see about that in a future review.) Phone controls on the left speaker handle answer/end calls, voice dialing, call waiting and hold, etc. The right speaker controls the music functions.

A companion Universal Serial Bus adapter, the AS320s ($34.99), allows you to stream tunes in stereo, transfer data from the phone to a PC and talk wirelessly.

Don't get excited and hit the "order" button before you take a close look at the requirements for this headset. It's not just enough to have a Bluetooth-enabled phone to use all of its features. Your phone will have to support the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) for listening to music in stereo and Audio Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) to work the music controls on the headset, as well as the Headset Profile (HSP) and Hands-free Profile (HFP). You'll find a compatibility guide on the company's Web site. If you're not interested in mixing business and entertainment, note that Jabra's JX10 ()Bluetooth headset ($129) won this year's CTIA Wireless Emerging Technologies Award. It's stylish and tiny (weighs less than an ounce), and features Digital Signal Processing technology to automatically adjust volume in noisy situations.

The Samsung t719 comes with a rotating 1.3-megapixel camera, camcorder, media player and speakerphone.There was also plenty of buzz about other wireless devices. Samsung Electronics Co. took the wraps off its t719, a flip phone sporting BlackBerry functionality, thanks to BlackBerry Connect, software licensed from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) that brings push e-mail to other manufacturers' phones.