World's smallest, lightest earpiece tips up

Product: INVISIO G5
Website: www.nextlink.to/g5
System Requirements: Ear, Phone and Power for Recharging
Price: £79.99 , $129.99

ALL TOO OFTEN we see press releases landing on our desk boasting it’s the fastest this or the largest that. But when one shows up claiming it’s the smallest and lightest in-ear Bluetooth headset our ears prick-up for more reason than one. One, we’re surprised companies still make those claims these days and another, we’re all about refuting those bold stances and taking them to task on the matter. Or not as the case may be, read on...

From the company that designs head pieces for SWAT and Special Forces teams across the globe, comes the smallest and lightest in-ear headset – or so claims Nextlink.

INVISIO G5

The G5 does come in at just past 6 grammes in its over-all weight, making it in the company's reckoning 'the lightest in the world'. Although Nextlink claims it’s just under 6 grammes in the spec, it looks like they haven’t factored in their detachable soft spring which is used to hold the device in the ear.

Seeing as one can’t be used without the other you really have to include it - no pulling the wool over our eyes there Nextlink. It is, however, currently the lightest headset we’ve seen around and therefore that statement does stand up in our most humble opinion.

In saying that, the key word here is current and we expect to see it bypassed any second now, as that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

As to the 'smallest' claim, the documentation on the website, in the manuals and elsewhere all mention it’s just 3.3cm long and 1.6cm wide. It’s true that’s the size of the top of the G5, what isn’t stated is that from the furthermost base to its top it is 3.3cm tall and 1.4 cm wide around the stem. All of which makes it rather hard to quantify as being the world’s smallest as it’s not a regular design of sorts, but we’re happy to let that one slide for the time being as it is rather smaller than most other earpieces.

In terms of charging, here’s where the novelty lies – it’s ultra portable too. The INVISIO G5 is packaged with a charging unit that’s rechargeable itself from a micro-USB socket or its own power adapter. This in turn is capable of recharging the G5 when you’re out and about with up to five times that of the initial charge the ear-piece can hold.

The headset is capable of 4 hrs talk-time/20 hrs stand-by, or 150 hrs talk-time and 30 days stand-by all-told. Initially, the recharger takes 6-8 hrs to be fully powered – that’s for the unit and the G5, after that just 4 hrs if completely drained.

The headset takes 60 mins for 30 mins usage and 3.5 hours to fully, fully charge – all of which, including the rechargers charge time, isn’t too shabby. What’s more, the Protective Charging Case, as it’s known, isn’t troublesome to carry around with the size just being under half that of the common household box of matches – with a nice Moleskin feel to it. [Oooh, err - Ed]

Its built-in indicator lights flashes akin to K.I.T.T. showing the charging/charge levels in an very cute way. The only downside is, there’s no way to recharge the G5 direct from USB – the case always needs to be in play, which could be irksome to some.

INVISIO G5 + Charger

It fits in the ear quite well with one of the two accompanying soft plastic moulds plugging into its base, designed solely for in-ear use with an antenna of-sorts to make doubly sure it’s firmly in place. The patented soft spring ear piece with a one-size-fits-all creation designed initially for SWAT and Military Forces has an antenna to be cut down according to each ear for comfort factor/size. It actually feels almost unnoticeable in usage and very secure too, gone are the days of clip-around ear-pieces we say.

The only thing we’ll say on its look is that it does protrude a little with its long stem, coming off looking a tad like the spark-plug Uhura used to sport in her ear from the original Star Trek series. Live long and prosper!.

The usual functions of tapping the headset to answer a call and then tapping to hang up are all present and correct. Mute, along with the up and down volume, by pressing either side of the G5 being there too and even holding down the TALK button to reject calls also are available.

Call Waiting and Conference Calls are also features spoken about, but let’s face it those are really dependent on your network and contract to really be of use. Voice Dialling is enabled, but once again this depends on the phone itself.

We synced the G5 headset with a number of phones; Nokia E90, HTC Touch and a BlackBerry all on different networks and made some calls. The reactions varied across the range from we 'sounded like a robot' to 'it's so clear, it doesn’t even sound like you’re using a hands-free device' – depending on network, phone and signal strength.

The best reaction however was from the BlackBerry Pearl on the UK T-Mobile network. Overall the outcome was positive; the clarity from our end was good and strong with a mixed reaction from the receivers but overall very good indeed.

In Short
There are others around by the likes of Motorola, ADTEC, Samsung and Sagem that are anything from a gram to a few grams heavier, with dimensions being more if not just widely different on the market today. None have the possible talk time and standby life of the INVISO G5 that we’ve seen or the practicality offered by the portable recharge case.

The Good
Size, weight, portable recharge case

The Bad
Looking like Uhura

The Ugly
No USB direct power charge

Bartender's Report