Today I was in the right place at the right time, and with the right colleague who had a box full of Plantronics products. And so it came to pass that I got my hands on a Plantronics Voyager Legend UC. We make good use of this stuff – within the Microsoft campus there’s no phones on the desks because a headset plus Lync on our computers handles the telephony. At home the same applies, although I tend to use a speakerphone.
The Voyager Legend headset itself is not very big, so why the big box? The answer: it’s stuffed full of bits (which I’ll explain). This is an upgrade to my current Voyager Pro headset in many ways. The Bluetooth adapter is smaller. The buttons on the headset are far easier to use, especially when it’s actually sitting on your ear – the new design of a slighted extruded rocker switch means that you can change the volume without hard-pressing against the headset. And it has some intelligent features, most notably that a call is answered when you place the Voyager Legend on your ear – no buttons required, it just senses it’s in place and you’re ready to talk.
Charging has changed too, and this accounts for the box full of stuff. The Voyager Legend doesn’t feature a micro USB port – instead it features a charging contact. Contained within the box are:
- An assortment of plug adapters
- A USB cable with an adapter to fit the charging contact
- A desktop charging dock
- Finally, and this is the best bit, a charging case
Let’s talk about the charging dock – it’s tiny and can draw its power from a USB cable (this is great, because I’ve run out of plug sockets on my desk at home). The headset snaps magnetically onto the dock in a way which is impossible to get wrong. Fabulous simple design – if you can forgive switching from a USB port to the charging contact (I have) then you’d have to say Plantronics got this absolutely spot-on.
And what about the charging case? It’s a little plastic box which can house the headset and the Bluetooth adapter… but that’s not all it is. On one end is a micro USB port, and if you look inside the box there’s a charging contact which meets the contact on the headset itself. So the case is, in effect, another charger.
But it gets better – the case has an internal battery, which adds more power to the headset when it’s stored within. Plantronics claim that the case’s internal battery can recharge the headset twice for up to 14 hours of additional talk time. That means if you walk out of the door with the case and headset fully-charged, you should have up to 21 hours of talk time. That, in my humble opinion, is pretty impressive.
For more information it’s worth reading Volker Weber’s write-up. He likes it too.
