I’ve always been an early adopter in a late adopter workplace. When I brought my Mac SE into work from home so that I could use Filemaker to develop my own databases and phone lists, it was the first PC in a company of 200+ employees. And it remained the first PC (well, Mac actually) for five years after that. My boss still has his email address forwarded to his secretary for her to print out and put in his in box. One of our divisions actually had rotary phones until the turn of the millennium. I once got a phone call from a division manager who said he was standing in front of  The Birth of the Computer exhibit at the Smithsonian and noticed he had the same green-screen DEC monitor gathering dust on his desk.

So imagine the uproar a decade ago when I decided to buy myself a Plantronics headset to allow me to work hands-free at my job in customer service for a large wholesaler of industrial products. The Lily Tomlin/Ernestine the Operator jokes ran rampant at my expense. That is until the rest of the denizens of my cubicle farm noticed that I didn’t walk around with a crick in my neck all the time like they did. I never had to worry about the phone slipping off my shoulder while I reached for a price book, probably deafening a potential customer with the crash of the plastic headset against the Formica desktop. I didn’t have to install one of those huge prosthetic devices to cradle the phone and prop my head up like the victim of horrible car accident. The clincher was when folks realized that if they got a headset they could smoke while they worked and still have a hand free to write orders. This was years ago, remember.

Even though I paid for my own Plantronics back then, it wasn’t long before they became standard equipment for most of our operators. The purchasing manager never forgave me for adding the expense of that particular good idea. He’s still bitter about my opening the PC floodgate.

I used my personal headset for about five years. It wasn’t particularly cutting edge back then, but it worked well enough for me. The only big drawback was that I occasionally forgot to take it off when I left work because it was fairly comfortable. In those heady days before Bluetooth earbuds made everyone look like they were talking to themselves like a crazed hobo, it was pretty unusual to see a guy walking around with a tie and a headset on. Plus, people could never tell if I was on the phone and would come barging into my office in mid-profanity-laden rant unaware that I was on the phone with a purchasing agent from a Baptist church.

And then there was the wire. Although it had a quick connect between the headset and the phone, there was a two foot wire which hung from the headset and served as the world’s ugliest tie clip. It reached about belt level which, how can I put this delicately, necessitated care during trips to the urinal. The last straw was when I was cutting some paper on the trimmer at work and somehow managed to cut off the bottom three inches of the cord including the connector. $120.00. Thank you for playing. Come again.

The aforementioned purchasing manager saw what I had done and offered a hearty guffaw and “screw you” to my request for a replacement headset. The upshot is that I have returned to the world of the wired for the past few years and my neck is none the healthier because of it.

That is until the wonderful folks at Plantronics offered the Plantronics CS70N Wireless Office Headset System and HL10 Handset Lifter Accessory for me to review. Praise the Lord and pass the AAA batteries, I was saved!

I tore into the attractive packaging like it was Christmas morning. It included the ultrahip headset, three gel eartips, two foam eartips, a charging base and the optional handset lifter. Assembly was simple enough to accomplish that I was able to complete it without cracking the instruction booklet, which is always my preferred method of gadget discovery. My fat fingers had a little trouble performing the requisite phone cord hookup, but I chalk that up to user defect more than a design deficiency.

After everything was plugged and assembled, the whole system took up very little of the precious real estate of my messy desk area. And boy, was it worth it! I was a little unsure of how the Handset Lifter Accessory was supposed to work, but as soon as I removed the headset from the charger, the arm upon which my handset rested rotated and lifted the handset from the cradle. The satisfying mechanical noise of the robot arm doing its job was so positively “Star Trekkian” in its coolness that I spent much of the morning inviting coworkers into my office to watch it work. So much for improving my productivity.

At that point, it was time to discover how the headset actually worked. You can set the lifter to engage automatically whenever you take the handset out of the charger or to open the line only when you push the Call Control Button on the side of the headset. There is a microphone on the Handset Lifter which picks up the sound of your extension ringing and sounds a soft alarm in your ear if you are working remotely from the base unit. My particular phone system still requires me to hit a button or two to answer most calls, but I can see how this would be a very useful feature for many people.

The 1.9 GHz headset promises a 300 foot range with 64 bit digital encryption security. I can attest to the fact that CS70N allows me to roam all over the building I work and even outside to the parking lot if I find myself trapped by a particularly verbose client. Sometimes it makes me wish I smoked so I could at least get some sun along with my smoking coworkers who have finally been banished to the front porch of the building. As far as the security goes, I can say that I have never heard any chatter from the nearby airport and nobody has been making suspicious purchases lately on my Visa, so it’s good enough for me.

The sound quality has been excellent. After a week of asking callers if they could hear me, I have decided that most have no idea that I’m even using a headset. The volume controls on the headset are a little bit small for my (again) fat fingers, but they are responsive once you get used to them. There is also a mute button which is difficult to engage and be certain that you have been silenced, so be forewarned if you intend to make any snide comments about whoever you are on the phone with. On my old headset I could just put my finger over the end of the microphone tube for a makeshift mute that was just about foolproof. The fidelity on the boom microphone on the CS70N is too good to get away with this. Again, you’ve been warned, so don’t crack jokes about your mother-in-law’s moustache or how many Aggies it takes to screw in a lightbulb.

Battery life is an acceptable 6 hours. With the ease of storing the headset in the charger base, I can’t imagine ever being within 300 feet of my desk but not actually at my desk for an entire work day anyway. While the headset is comfortable to wear, it is a little bit awkward to take it on and off for every phone call, so I usually just leave it on and recharge it during lunch.

The Plantronics CS70N is a little steep with a retail price above $300.00. But between the cool factor of the wireless capabilities and handset lifter and the freedom it offers with its range and performance, I would say it is well worth the money if you use a PBX phone system or IP telephony. Plus, nobody calls me Ernestine anymore.

Now it’s Lt. Uhura.

But that’s my problem.

The Plantronics CS70N can be bought directly from www.plantronics.com or from many online retailers.
MSRP: CS70N Professional Wireless Headset System $329.95
CS70N Professional Wireless Headset System with Lifter $399.95
What I Like: Cool factor. Ease of use. Range and fidelity of wireless system.
What Needs Improvement: Controls are difficult to use with large hands.

Product photos courtesy of Plantronics.

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