For obvious reasons, I didn't try the wrist-flick action in the car; I just kept the Era in my ear at all times. You can also quadruple-shake the unit to put it automatically in pairing mode when the need arises. Bottom line: The shaking motion, whether double-time or quadruple-time, worked like a charm.

The Era bundles a generous amount of earbud covers and earhooks, which increase the chances of finding a solid fit. With or without the earloop, the Era felt snug and secure, even when I sauntered around.

When the Era was in my ear, I could accept calls either by tapping the outside of the unit twice or by pressing the slender Talk button atop the unit. I liked the tapping mechanism, although it took a few calls for me to get the taps down. I tapped too gently initially; for the Era to respond, you need to use a firm touch. I found that I needed to steady the unit with my thumb when tapping, to keep the Era in place.

I liked the Era's dedicated on/off slider knob. I also liked having to keep track of only one button--the Talk button, as mentioned above. The button fulfills a number of functions: You can use it midcall to adjust volume up and down, hold it down for 2 seconds to reject a call, press it once to end a call, double-tap it to redial, or press it once to hear how much talk time remains. In my tests the Talk button's feedback mechanism delivered a solid clicking response, but nonetheless it felt a tad too shallow for my taste.

Calls on the Era sounded mostly good: The other parties could hear what I was saying, but my voice regularly had a robotic or synthesized tinge. Even so, it wasn't off-putting, according to my contacts. Meanwhile, voices coming to me sounded up-close and clear. The Era did a superb job pushing background noise and interference out of the picture, even when I stood in a breezy area during a couple of calls.