A wireless headset is a necessary evil. Have you ever tried using a wireless headset? I'm positive that you are looking for the same features as I am namely quality, comfort and design. I find that many wireless headsets on the market today focus on design and style, yet completely miss the boat on quality (i.e. Nextlink AX).

Give Me Power!

Charging the Flamingo to 100% takes roughly two hours. Cellpoint touts an eight hour continuous talk time with 180+ hours of standby time. I made this comment with the Audiovox SMT-5600's battery and I'll say it again, the Flamingo's battery is legendary! I burned through over four hours of continuous talk time on Saturday morning and a couple more hours that afternoon. The SMT-5600 went through two charges while the Flamingo kept on going with only one charge the night before. I couldn't believe the headset still had juice when I placed it on the charger. There's a red light on the left and a green light on the right hand side of the desk charger. The red light is on during charging and when the battery is at 100%, the green light switches on. A USB and car charger is expected to be release at some point in the future. It'll be pretty handy for folks who are always on the road.

The Design

The Flamingo's design is timeless and pure genius. It blends into the jawbone for an integrated look and feel. As you can see in the picture above, the Flamingo is hardly noticeable.

The EarClick allows for eyeglasses to be worn without interference.

Ladies, the Flamingo's unique-form factor won't interfere with your ear rings.

The plastic molding of the Flamingo is similar to the material on the SMT-5600. It's durable yet extremely light weight. There was a single scratch resulting from an accidental drop onto a ceramic floor (roughly 4 feet).

The call answer/end button is intuitively located at the very tip of the headset. The placement of this button is very important. I've lost count how many times I accidentally redial the last number on other headsets. If you use the Bluespoon AX or Cardo's Scala, you know what I mean. The answer and end button is large, making it very easy to accidentally depress when the headset is in your pant pocket. I also experience this problem with the headset kept in my shirt pocket. I find that when I cross my arm, the adding pressure to the button will redial the last number.

Cellpoint eliminated this problem. It's worth noting that there's a loop for neck strap towards the end of the headset. The microphone is nicely hidden deep inside the call answer/end button. I assume the intent of this design is to help block the wind. Despite the effort, the headset is near impossible to use outdoors if it's relatively windy. The Flamingo isn't the only one that's plagued with this problem.

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The volume rocker is thoughtfully placed towards the front, allowing easy access.

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You'll be delighted to know that the annoying, blue blinking light is placed on the back side near the speaker.

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I took the Flamingo to the street to get an idea of what people thought of it. Since the Flamingo only works on the right ear, there are folks who either don't hear well out of their right ear or just don't like to use it for this purpose.

Quality

Everything from the material to the construction of the Flamingo oozes quality. The sound out is the best I've ever tested. I was able to hear the person that my wife was talking to when the volume was on the highest setting.I tested the headset in various environments such as a busy coffee shop, inside my old loud truck with the window open, a diesel tow truck and outdoors. Thanks to the noise cancellation technology, the Flamingo performed exceptionally well everywhere, except in a windy environment. A slight breeze won't render the headset useless, but does make it more difficult for the person on the other end to hear you. However, there was no problem hearing them.

I want to thank Russell over at MobilePodcast.org for helping me create this pod cast.

The Flamingo passed the 'rattling' noise test with flying colors! There's nothing that annoys me more than a headset that rattles or make odd noises. The Bluespoon AX miserably failed this test.