While the economy is in shambles and folks are losing their homes, Motorola is about to push the Bluetooth price point ceiling up to $159 with the HX1. The company claims – and Engadget seems to agree – that this is the best Bluetooth headset on the planet and perhaps the galaxy. The HX1 uses some sort of special bone conduction technology that eliminates external noise and produces amazing call clarity. But who would spend $160 on the bland looking Motorola HX1 when the sexy $129 Jawbone Prime, tiny and smart $129 BluAnt Q1, or $99 workhorse Plantronics Voyager PRO is available? Our answer is after the break.
No one. That’s who. No one will buy this headset at the current price point. Here is what will happen:
Besides a few unknowing rich housewives who don’t count, only geeks care about high-end Bluetooth headsets. If a geek is presented the $159 HX1, they will likely decline the offer and go home and jump online where they will discover that the three headsets listed above all received high marks. Plus they can be had for a lot less than the MSRP.
The HX1 might be the best BT headset, but I don’t have any issues with my mid-level Jabra. I would love to see sales numbers at the $159 price and after it eventually gets cut down to $129, which it will. But if you want the absolute best and don’t mind paying the premium right out of the gate, Sprint is reportedly getting the HX1 exclusively until the end of September.
TechCrunch keeps repeating the same mistake when it reviews Bluetooth products. You keep failing to mention with which version of the Bluetooth spec the product is compliant.
Big deal you say? Yeah, it is a big deal. The BT spec is moving fast, adding additional profiles, capabilities and additional security features. It could very well be that the “high” price you quoted is due to the fact that the headset is early-to-market with a BT 3.0 compliant product (unlikely, but possible), or at least BT 2.1.
If you’re going to compare two Bluetooth products, your starting point should be to state, up front, the BT spec version of each of the products being compared.
Pardon my ignorance, but how can a something like a headset be Sprint exclusive? I can’t buy it from Sprint and use it with Verizon?
most likely, it will be only available on Sprints’ website and corp stores only at first. After that its “game on”. And no, motorola wouldn’t make a BT headset that only works on Sprints phones…that would just be dumb…who do you know that even has a sprint phone…
(poke poke—>sprint).
I work for the big 3 letter fone company, hehe
Sure, but $600 for an iPhone was perfectly acceptable?
The price is for the HX1 is way too high. You can buy a BT from sprint and use it on any phone. I just bought a Motorola H790 , a sprint exclusive, from a sprint shop and am using it on my AT&T phone. I guess Sprint will carry it exclusively at first, MCO do get some of these new gadgets as soon as they are released.
Really one just sold on Ebay for 163.00. I think many including myself would pay 159. for a BT headset that work as advertised.
The Sprint store in Palo Alto has it in stock for $129.
eBay has it for 65.50 :)