Review of the BlueAnt Q1 bluetooth headset and DRINC

Received my BlueAnt Q1 yesterday, and after playing with it for a day I'm afraid I can't strongly recommend it for use with the DRINC. On the positive side, it is a reasonably well designed device that sits comfortably in my ear. Call quality is good, on a par with my old Plantronics V510. Controls work well, and the unique voice interface that allows you to talk with the phone is, in a word, adorable. The key feature of the headset is its ability to enable true hands-free dialing with the INC, and this is where it falls short. Unlike other bluetooth headsets, the Q1 allows you to store up to 8 speed dial numbers in the headset itself. You can then instruct the headset to dial those numbers on the INC hands free. This feature works well enough, but the only way to input speed dial numbers into the headset is to wait for the desired number to call your INC, and then tell the headset to store the number after the call. With this absurdly awkward system, you can’t program your voicemail number into speed dial, or any other number that doesn’t call you first. That, plus the limit of only 8 speed dial numbers, makes this a replay of the old Yiddish joke: The food is terrible. Yes, and the portions are so small. :dry:
All that said, if you don’t already have a bluetooth headset, there are other units on the market (such as the Plantronics Voyager Pro) that are reputed to offer better call quality. You can balance that against the Q1’s very limited hands-free capabilities with the DRINC for yourself. But I can’t recommend that a DRINC user who already owns a working bluetooth headset switch to the Q1.

 

Just for a different opinion:

I've had the Q1 since it came out (replaced my JB Prime) and while I never had any use for the "hands-free" dialing you are having issues with, the selling point for me is that it is the ONLY bt headset that reliably works in a true multipairing environment (multiple phones connected at once).

For me that is the most important feature and only the Q1 actually works as advertised.

I don't use VM or speed dial, so I never ran into any issues.

 

I love my q1! My speed dials work great. I don't see why asking 8 of your fav people to call to set it up would be a problem. At least it works good once it's set up unlike any others out there. To each his own though.