Review of the Logitech H600 Wireless Headset for PC and Mac

Hi everyone!

One of the presents I have received from L this Easter is going to help me a great deal when I stay at her home, both for work and leisure purposes, and I thought I would review it for you today.

We use headphones quite a lot when we are together and at the times when we work with our computers. This is natural when two blind people are together, not because we want privacy from each other but we each use a screen-reader and if they are both talking simultaneously it doesn't necessarily make you productive when you are working with applications.

L has just purchased for me the Logitech H600 Wireless Headset for PC and Mac. I have not owned a wireless headset before and so I was curious as to its performance. Professionally, I work extensively with voice input/output technology and I know from experience that Bluetooth headset/microphones do not offer particularly good reproduction of speech output (such as when using JAWS).

The lightweight headset is comfortable to wear. The microphone can either be folded away into the headset when you are not using it or of course it can be extended to a position near to your mouth but not too close so as to avoid distortion.

A very small dongle plugs into the USB port of the computer from where the headset receives its wireless signals. "Small" is the operative word here; I nearly didn't find it in the packaging.

In addition, a standard USB cable is provided to connect the headset to the computer for charging purposes. The battery will give you approximately six hours of use when fully charged, however you can continue to use the headset if the cable connects the unit to the computer which is a nice feature.

Unlike many cordless headphones, there is no background noise to interfere with the computer's output and the audio quality is more than reasonable. The headset has a range of 10 metres (33 feet) and of course contains an adjustable headband.

This headset could have been made for us as blind people. A slide switch on the right earphone naturally switches the unit on when in the up position. It takes a few seconds for the headset to be enabled and this is indicated by an audible beep. Below the On/Off control is a press-button mute switch. When an ascending tone is heard, the microphone is active. A descending tone indicates that the microphone is muted.

Pressing the upper part of the right earphone increases the volume and pushing the lower part decreases it. An audible tone (different to those referred to above) denotes the volume has reached maximum level.

The USB socket to connect the aforementioned computer charging cable can also be found on the right earphone.

I did test the unit with Dragon NaturallySpeaking with excellent results after giving the software only 30 seconds of voice awareness which was impressive.

In summary, this headset is a really wonderful gift and I am absolutely delighted with it. It can be obtained through Amazon or other online electrical retail stores which you can consult for pricing in your country. Thanks very much L!