The title of 'world's smallest Bluetooth headphones' is a mantle that has been passed around quite frequently over the last couple of years, and it comes to rest for the time being with the Jaybird JB-200.

We don't doubt that the company is technically correct in stating this, but the size reduction isn't significant enough to turn over any tables. What is clever about the design is that the battery and Bluetooth chip are all crammed into a pair of light, over-ear 'buds that are only a tad chunkier than the typical rubberised supports you'll find on conventional earphones. They offer 6.5 hours of talk time and 5.5 hours of music playback, and take two hours to charge through the docking adaptor supplied.

Designed primarily to work with AD2P compatible mobile phones, as with all Bluetooth devices of this kind they'll connect to anything that offers similar support. You can also connect them to media players that don't have Bluetooth built in using either a dedicated iPod or generic MP3 player dongle, which can be picked up separately and currently cost an extra £29.99 each.

Fitting the earphones over your ears for the first time is certainly not easy. Jaybird seems to have realised this and put a clever bit of spin on the marketing for the product, with a decent chunk of the manual walking you step-by-step through effectively positioning each earpiece for optimum sound. To quote the how-to guide, “The Jaybird is designed and built for performance fit under extreme conditions, so it is like putting on tightly fitting performance clothing for the first time”.

There should be a Christmas bonus winging its way towards whoever chose to glamourise the process in this way, and although you're provided with three different sized buds, we did struggle to get them fitting snugly as described.

Moving on, you'll find the pairing process to be simple, with this and the rest of the functions of the device controlled via one of three buttons on the right earpiece. These are quite small and, because they are rubberised, can be awkward to operate quickly. They also require quite a bit of pressure, which can nudge the earphone out of position. Which, if you've established a perfect fit, is a bit of a pain.

As well as pairing, the on-board controls can adjust volume, skip tracks and play and pause music. They also control the other main function of the earphones, namely handsfree calling. If connected to a mobile you'll hear any calls that come through while you're listening to music through the earpiece, at which point you can answer or reject the call and even use one of the buttons to redial the last number.

The microphone is actually buried in one of the earpieces but because it's omni-directional, it can still pick up your voice fairly well and we were impressed by the sharpness and clarity through the Jaybirds when taking a call. It's worth noting that this does deteriorate in a busy environment, so although you can hear the caller well enough it would be far more difficult to have a clear conversation if you were, for example, walking down a busy London street.

When using a mobile phone for listening to music we were pretty impressed by the quality, though you may find that it's not up to par with a decent set of wired bud 'phones. The end result really depends on how good a fit you can find for the earpieces since it improves things drastically if you use the right size and perfect the positioning. We also tried the Jaybirds with the iPod adaptor and, while you lose the ability to skip tracks from the earpieces (you can still adjust volume), performance is a fair bit better here thanks to the dedicated dongle.

One neat additional feature of note is the ability to simultaneously pair to both an iPod and a mobile phone, so you can listen to tunes through your player and still pick up incoming calls. The JB-200 is also sturdily designed and comes with a behind-the-neck cord as well as being sweat and water resistant, making them well suited to extreme sports and other strenuous activities.

Verdict
The Jaybirds aren't perfect, but as Bluetooth earphones go they are impressive. We were pleased by how clear calls were in most situations and even if you don't get the fit spot on, sound quality is good enough to listen to tunes in comfort. Overall the JB-200 set is well designed, easy to use and, though sometimes awkward to fit snugly, can offer extremely good sound quality for a device of this nature. While not quite deserving of an award, we're happy to say that this is the best Bluetooth headset we've seen to date.

Company: Jaybird

Contact: 0131 273 4387

Tags: bluetooth headphones ipod london mobile phone digital audio player christmas wireless