Plantronics

$65 – $125

with pen-clip AAA battery charger

up to 3.5-hr. talk, 80-hr. standby

Without question, the Discovery 655 is one of the coolest Bluetooth headset concepts I’ve seen. The headset is comfy and customizable, the charging options are clever and plentful, and the design is gorgeous. Of course, none of that has anything to do with whether the thing works.

Does it? Hard to tell. The process of wirelessly linking, or “pairing” a Bluetooth headset with a phone varies with different phone models, and I’ve got just one phone – the BlackBerry Pearl – on hand to test.

This makes for a very tricky review. I can tell you how the 655 feels on me, and sounds with the phone I’m using – but if you want a fuller sense of the product, you’ll have to scan a few more user comments.

To help you get that perspective, I’m linking to CNET and Amazon.com, where some users have weighed in. For better or worse, they have widely diverging opinions. Some folks rave about the product; some others complain that the range of operation is short and that callers hear static and dropped words. It’s hard to know how to explain this. Is it an issue with the phones? A bad batch of Bluetooth chips?

Amazon.com user feedback

CNET user feedback