B l u e t o o t h N e w s . c o m   

Almost everyone that has or is thinking about a Bluetooth headset wants to know why they can't listen to high fidelity audio with it. The problem is that the current Bluetooth audio profile assumes that the sound is a human voice over a telephone. Consequently, to save bandwidth and to reduce noise, the sound is heavily filtered to just pass the frequencies used in speech. The results for music are quite poor. While a new "audio profile" is in the works from the Bluetooth SIG, Sony-Ericsson came up with a solution that works today.

The New Headset and MP3 Player

The HBM-30 announced today is an MP3 player which also serves as a Bluetooth headset for your mobile phone. When a call comes in the HBM-30 mutes the audio and allows the user to choose whether to take the call or not. There is a display which shows the track information for the song that's playing and also doubles as a caller ID display when a call comes in. 

The one disadvantage of this device is that, due to the affiliation with Sony, it utilizes a Memory Stick Duo. I would really love to have this device when riding my bicycle, but Sony's insistence on thumbing their nose at industry standards such as SD in favor of their proprietary licensed Memory Stick is a real turn off.

The New Phones