Jays BlueStreamer 2: Bluetooth widget of the King

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who use the cheap, nasty, uncomfortable, crappy-sounding earbuds supplied with their phone or MP3 player, and people who upgrade. If you fall into the first group, stop reading now and go back to your musical purgatory. For people in the second group, the Jays BlueStreamer 2 is a widget weighing just 12g that lets you use your favourite headphones with your Bluetooth phone.

Charge the BlueStreamer via USB, pair it with your phone, plug in the 3.5mm jack of your favourite headphones and start tappin' those blue suede shoes -- until your phone rings and you're all shook up by the music cutting out and the BlueStreamer doubling up as a hands-free headset. Hang up the call and you're back to being lonesome tonight (or not, if it was your big hunk o' love calling to confirm).

We had no trouble pairing the BlueStreamer with our top phone of 2007, the Nokia 6300. It comes with both a lanyard and a detachable clip, for your choice of around-neck or shirt-collar attachment, plus a USB cable for charging. You'll need this, because it uses micro-USB, rather than the mini-USB you'll already have.

You also need a phone that supports stereo Bluetooth (aka A2DP). All being well, you can stop, start, skip forward, skip back and adjust the volume from the BlueStreamer. Jays offers an unhelpful footnote stating that, "Some host devices may not support all these functions," but they all worked for us. This means you can sling your phone in your bag as you head off to the Heartbreak Hotel.

Our phone seemed to break and remake the connection at the end of each track, producing an annoying 'pip' as the BlueStreamer took delivery of the next song. Otherwise it worked well, and it's good to have the function you really don't want to mess up -- answering a call -- associated with the biggest and most obvious button.

The BlueStreamer comes in black, white and pink, costs €53 (about £40) and can be ordered on-line from the Jays Web site. -Mary Lojkine

• Share:
• 
• 
• 

• Tags:
• Nokia,
• Jays,
• Nokia 6300,
• headset,
• headphones