Sony Ericsson HBH-IS800

For a long time Sony Ericsson (and before that, Sony) has been producing devices with an emphasis on music, with both portable music players and then mobile phones using the Walkman brand.  Logically enough, the manufacturer also its own range of Bluetooth in-ear headphones.

Design: Efficient, with everything in its place

There's not much else to say about the build quality of these headphones: they're finished well with clean lines.  Once you've got them in your ears (there are three different sizes of earplug), the headphones themselves don't stick much further out of your ears than any other semi-in-ear phones.  That's a sign of how good a job Sony has done of miniaturising this product: don't forget that there's a Bluetooth receptor and a battery in there too.

When you try and find the controls though, you'll notice that's just one button, and you use it to do everything: pairing, turning on the power, accepting calls and so on.  But where's the volume?  Well, you'll just have to adjust it on your phone.  It's not very useful for a pair of headphones designed with music in mind.

The final problem is that the cover that protects the connection with the charger is particularly lightweight and didn't give us the impression that it would last for a very long time.

Audio Quality: Bluetooth doesn't do well

It's not that Bluetooth is responsible for producing worse sound here than on any other of the wireless headphones we've tested, but for a high-end product such as this, we would have preferred better sound.  Here, we're up against the kind of quality provided by perfectly standard in-ear headphones that are two or three times cheaper, and obviously, that left us disappointed.

The sound is, of course, better than on standard headphones, but we would have still hoped for more.  If you've already got one of Sony-Ericsson's wired hands-free kits, then this wireless version isn't necessarily a wise investment.  You'd be better buying some decent in-ear headphones and connecting them to the hands-free: you'll spend less and get better quality sound.

The HBH-IS800 aren't exactly bad headphones, but they cost quite a lot and don't provide enough quality to justify the investment.  And when you factor in the fact that they only work with Sony-Ericsson devices, they're even less tempting ...