Plantronics makes some excellent high-end Bluetooth headsets, but the Plantronics M55 is the company's latest entry in the budget-Bluetooth arena. The M55 is largely similar to last year's Marque M155 ($59.99, 3 stars), though poor background noise cancellation meant we could only give that headset an average rating. With the M55, however, noise suppression has been greatly improved. In fact, at $49.99, the Plantronics M55 gets you better call quality at a better price than the M155 . It also boasts a small, stylish form factor and excellent battery life, making it our Editors' Choice for budget Bluetooth headsets.

Design, Fit, and Call Quality

The M55 is one good-looking headset. The front and back are made of shiny black plastic, with a silver band around the middle surrounding matte black buttons. There's a power switch on the bottom of the device, a volume control button on the top, and a multi-function Call button on the outside.

Fitting the M55 is simple. The headset comes with just one clear eartip, along with an optional clear plastic hook. While the hook adds a sense of security, I found that even without it, the M55 fit me just fine. After placing it lightly into my ear, I pretty much forgot it was even there.

For this review, I paired the M55 with a Verizon Apple iPhone 4S ($199.99-299.99, 4 stars), a Motorola Droid 4 ($199.99, 4.5 stars), and a laptop PC running Windows 7. The pairing process went smoothly for each device. The first time you turn it on, the M55 is automatically set to pairing mode. But pairing another device is simple. Hold down the Call button for a few seconds and a light on the side of the headset will flash red and white to indicate it's in pairing mode.

 

Once connected, you can use the Call button on the side of the headset to trigger voice dialing. Tap the button and you'll hear a beep; hold the button down and wait for the next beep to initiate voice control. The M55 offers a lot of volume for a tiny headset. I found it easiest to leave the volume turned all the way up on the headset itself, and then control it on whatever device I was connected to.

Call quality is good on the M55. Voices sound rich, full, and easy to understand through the earpiece, if a touch muffled. Calls made with the headset are somewhat thin and grainy, but perfectly intelligible. Noise cancellation, while not excellent, works much better than it did on the M155, and better than many other budget headsets in general. I was able listen back to a call made on a busy street corner without missing a word.

Streaming A2DP content sounds surprisingly clear, though there's practically no bass response at all. It's fine for YouTube videos or even listening to piano-based standards, but it lacks oomph.

Other Features and Conclusions

If you have an iPhone, the M55 features a battery life indicator next to the iPhone's battery icon. Battery life was great; at top volume, the battery was good for 8 hours and 28 minutes. But top volume is really loud. At a moderate level, this headset shouldn't have much trouble reaching the 11 hours of talk time quoted by Plantronics. To help preserve your battery, the headset features DeepSleep mode, which automatically puts the headset to sleep when you've been out of range from your paired device for more than 90 minutes. Once back in range, just tap the Call button to wake the headset up. This worked well in testing, and Plantronics claims the headset can last for up to 150 days in DeepSleep.

You can answer a call on the M55 by saying "Answer," rather than tapping the headset's Call button, which is great if you're behind the wheel. You can also pair the headset with two different phones and answer calls from either one.

The M55 comes with one free year of Vocalyst Basic, which is an automated assistant from Plantronics that offers voice email, news, reminders, and weather. It also allows you to record audio clips that can be automatically uploaded to your Facebook account. Vocalyst costs $2.49 per month or $24.99 per year after that.

The Plantronics M55 is small and stylish, but it manages to pack in some great battery life and good call quality. The M155 is equally svelte and sleek, with better A2DP sound, but poor noise cancellation means you can't really use it outdoors. The Samsung Modus HM6450 ($99.99, 4 stars) has a much higher list price than the M55, but can actually be found for about the same price. It comes with a pair of headphones for stereo sound and features much better A2DP quality, but suffers from poor noise suppression in mono mode. So if calls are your main priority, the M55 is your best bet for a Bluetooth headset under $50, and our Editors' Choice. If you're willing to spend more, the Jawbone Era ($129.99, 4.5 stars) offers a killer mix of noise suppression and A2DP sound. The Jawbone Icon ($99.99, 4 stars) comes close, and costs $30 less than the Era.

Benchmarks Continuous talk time:

 8 hours 28 minutes

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