Design, Fit, and Call Quality
The Plantronics Savor is about the same size as the BlueAnt Q2 ($129, 4 stars) and the Sound ID 510 ($129.99, 4 stars), but it's a little longer and pointier. It's made of darkened chrome plastic and black rubber. The bottom edge contains a hardware power switch, while the top edge has a volume toggle; the front panel contains two buttons.
Fitting the Savor was easy, although I've noticed that Plantronics headsets just tend to fit my ears better than those from other brands. That's purely a personal trait; the Savor comes with two extra ear buds in different sizes in case the default one doesn't fit. The clear plastic ear hook snaps on and off; wearing it is optional, though I preferred the fit with the hook rather than without. The Savor's hook also stayed put, unlike the Aliph Jawbone Icon's ($99, 4 stars), which tends to fly off at the slightest provocation.
For this review, I paired the Savor with a Samsung Captivate and an LG Ally. The pairing process went smoothly in both cases. Like the BlueAnt Q2, the Savor offers voice control, which you cue up with a button press. This lets you check battery life, pairing status, and other features on the fly while wearing the headset. You can also answer or ignore calls with voice commands.
In testing, voice quality was good overall in the earpiece. The volume button cycles between four settings; any of the top three were plenty loud enough. Callers on the other end said I sounded pretty clear, but it was still relatively easy to tell I was on a headset.
Noise Suppression, Other Features, and Conclusions
Most headsets feature two mics; one captures your voice, while the other analyzes external noise and then suppresses or cancels it with its own algorithms. The Savor contains three mics; the first two work as usual, but the third mic doesn't kick in until there's at least 65 dB of extreme external noise. Oddly, noise suppression still wasn't one of the Savor's strengths in practice. For example, it was easy for callers to tell I was in the car driving with the window down because of the excessive background noise, even though I was only driving at about 35 mph.
The rather expensive, Dial2Do-powered Vocalyst service is available in two tiers. The Savor comes with one free year of Vocalyst Basic, which costs $2.49 per month or $24.99 per year after that; it offers voice e-mail, reminders, Twitter updates, and news and weather. Vocalyst Pro costs $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year; this level converts your voice messages to text , sends text messages, plus some other less-useful services. You don't get a year of Pro free to begin with. I don't expect many people to spring for these; to cite just two reasons, Google Voice handles voice-to-text conversions for free, and Android devices (plus Bing and other apps) already offer voice-activated searches.
The Savor works with companion BlackBerry and Android apps, which let you set up auto-responders and listen to text messages (if you have Vocalyst Pro). If you have an iPhone, the Savor adds a headset battery indicator next to the iPhone's battery icon, just like the Jawbone Icon. The Savor also features A2DP, so you can stream podcasts, audiobooks, voice prompts from GPS apps, and other mono sources through it. Battery life was a little short at 4 hours and 17 minutes of talk time.
Longtime PCMag readers know that there are dozens of options for Bluetooth headsets these days. The Savor cuts through with its unique combination of style, voice-activated features, and A2DP streaming. But the latter feature is becoming more common on high-end handsets, and the Savor's noise suppression could be better. Other options include the Aliph Jawbone Icon, our current Editors' Choice. It sounds more natural, has vastly better noise suppression, and runs its own selection of apps, although it doesn't last as long on a charge. The BlueAnt Q2 offers a similar voice-controlled interface as the Savor, while the Sound ID 510 delivers top-notch sound quality without the voice control.
