CES First Look: Joby Zivio Boom Bluetooth Headset

• Great industrial design--looks very cool, boom seems to provide good audio pickup
  

• Advertised 10-hour battery life would be an absolute godsend

• LOVE, and I mean LOVE the use of micro-USB; check out my buddy Anton Wahlman’s post on what to expect with micro-USB
  

• Nice slim charging block with 2 USB ports, enabling charging of a second device

• Great industrial design--looks very cool, boom seems to provide good audio pickup
  

• Telescoping boom may enable better sound quality; rather than requiring a physical connection to the cheek for noise canceling (a la the Jawbone), its proximity to the mouth itself may prove to deliver better audio quality on the other end

• Earpiece’s ability to swivel 360 degrees around an axis allows for great customization

That said, I haven’t found a fit that I like yet. If you’re a long-time reader (and if not, where’ve you been?), you’ll know that I’ve taken Aliph to task for the crap earpieces they ship with the Jawbone 2. However, once I put the Jabra mini-gel on my Jawbone 2 (about 10 seconds after I bought it), I was able to remove the earhook and use the JB2 by itself. Joby seems to have learned from Aliph’s shortcomings; they ship 6 different earpieces, along with an earhook that’s magnetic, allowing even further customization. 3 of the earpieces are rubbery eargels; the other 3 are thin rubber designed to fit in the ear canal itself, similar to etymotic earphones. I’m on my fourth earpiece in the last day-plus, now using the medium-sized thin rubber piece. Sound quality on my side has been good, with volume being outstanding. I’ve been limited time-wise in my ability to do much audio testing the last day-plus, but on a call today between two of us using Zivios, we were both very satisfied with the audio.

Of course, with the Zivio boom extended, I think I look like the 2009 version of Ernestine. But, since I have a face made for radio, one ringy-dingy may be an improvement.