You see more and more people walking down the street talking to themselves now a days, and while they may look crazy they probably aren’t. I am sure if you look close at their ears you may see a Bluetooth headset on it with a little blue light blinking.

Almost every cell phone for sale now has Bluetooth connectivity and because of that, the demand for Bluetooth headsets is on the rise. We have reviewed quite a few headsets over the past few months and I have to say the Z9 from BlueAnt is one of the coolest and featured filled headsets we have had a chance to review.

The Z9 was announced at CES in January and just released on the 30th of July.

BlueAnt aimed to keep the Z9 stylish and they accomplished just that, while walking down the streets of New York City I was approached on at least 5 occasions asking me where I got it and that it was really cool looking. That gave me a little confidence as I was able to get a few numbers. Too bad I kind of got blown off when I called her, said she was busy.

So we know the Z9 looks good and can help you to pick up chicks but does it deliver the same features as other new Bluetooth headsets? The answer is yes.

The Z9 features dual microphones that capture your voice better and a voice isolation technology that isolates your voice and delivers it clearly to the person you are talking too by eliminating background noise such as wind.

I used the Z9 while walking around in NYC and the Financial District a very noisy area here due to a lot of construction and general traffic. I called a few people and not one of them complained about not hearing me clearly, they did mention they could hear the occasional jack hammer but nothing overwhelming.

You are also able to pair the headset with more than one device and with the push of a button you can easily switch between them. The Z9 is also very light weight. You barely notice that it is on your ear when you’re using it. One night I almost got into the shower with it on, good thing I caught myself in the mirror. But for those of you who don’t like to keep it on your ear it does have a little clip that you can use to clip on your shirt pocket.

I was able to get nearly 6 hours of talk time before the battery drained and it only took about 35 minutes for it to fully charge.

Overall I loved the Z9 because of the cool look it has and the features that makes it one of the best headsets on the market. It is also a lot cheaper at $99.95 than other headsets that offer similar features. For that we award BlueAnt and the Z9 our 5 Star Kick Ass Award.

For more information about the Z9 visit: http://www.blueantz9.com

Both are great Bluetooth headsets and we will be having individual reviews of both in the next week to two weeks.

Subscribe to our RSS feed so you know when they go live. Please click the link below for a picture. (Bad quality I know we save the good pics for the reviews)
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I had the pleasure of reviewing the SoundID Bluetooth headset and I was rather pleased with the experience.

The SoundID is an in-ear Bluetooth headset. I know it doesn’t look like it’s an in-ear but the ear piece actually goes inside of your ear and there is no need for an ear hook to hold the headset in place. (However it does come with one for added security).

The makers of the SoundID say the product offers clearer sound with a feature they call NoiseNavigation. Basically NoiseNavigation automatically adjust the headset for the environment you are in, so I put it to the test.

I live in NYC and this place is noisy. You have the subway, construction everywhere and crazy cabbies honking at you to get out of their way.

My first test was on the subway (above ground, no signal underground) and I called Indi (LaIndia on this site). Normally she would complain that she cannot hear me, and normally I can’t hear her with the clink clank clunk of the train. However, due to the headset actually being in my ear I could hear her clearly, and she didn’t complain once.

My second test took place in lower Manhattan, around 11:30 in the morning. There was a lot of traffic and cars honking around me, I was actually on my way to meet someone for lunch (arrived 15 minutes late). Anyway, I again called Indi taking advantage of the noisy background to again test the headset, and again it passed with flying colors.

I used the headset in a car with the window open purposely to get wind in my face and again no problems hearing or being heard.

The SoundID Bluetooth headset can also be used as a walkie talkie system, if you and someone else (just 2 people) have two of these headsets you can link them and talk to each other, perfect for a security detail that doesn’t stray too far away from each other.

I do have one complaint, the manual sucked and because of that I had some problems setting the headset up. I brought that up to SoundIDs attention and I was told that the manuals are being updated to be more detailed.

Overall I loved the headset and we here at CellRants award it our KickAss award. However, we don’t have awards yet (our designer is a lazy punk), so we are going to borrow our sister site HardwareGeeks.com’s KickAss Award.

The SoundID headset is sold for $129.99 and can be bought at http://www.soundid.com . A car charger will be available in the future.