A conference call using the inbuilt speakers and microphone in your laptop is a massive no-no. It sounds awful, both for you and the people you’re connected to. It’s not private, and it picks up ALL of the background noise. How can you possibly concentrate when all around you there’s noise and activity, whether you’re at home, in a coffee shop, or in the office. It’s not ideal. That’s why we at Litenet Ltd are producing a series of blogs trialling and testing headsets from some of the industry’s top brands to show you how a good headset can increase productivity, reduce frustration, and present a great image of you and your company.
This is our first product, the Blackwire 8225 from Poly. For those of you that are unaware, the Poly brand came about following the acquisition of Polycom (a well established and trusted manufacturer of VoIP telephones and Video/Audio Conferencing equipment) by Plantronics (a well established and trusted manufacturer of headsets in the corporate world).
The Blackwire 8225 is the top of the Blackwire range, a binaural (posh word for two earphones) wired headset featuring noise cancelling technology (more on that later), an adjustable boom microphone and a handy control panel about a third of the way along the cord. It comes in 4 different variants, a standard USB-A, a standard USB-C, a Microsoft Teams USB-A, and a Microsoft Teams USB-C. Don’t get too hung up on the Teams specifics, it still works with everything I’ve tested. In this case I’m using the Teams USB-A model.
Out of the Box
The neatly packaged box contains a simple neoprene pouch with the headset inside, a few safety documents, and a “quick start” guide. Upon opening the pouch you reveal the Blackwire 8225 headset, complete with it’s red cable, somewhat confusing as it’s called the “Blackwire”, but nevermind. There’s not much more to it than that!
Set-Up
Find a spare USB port and plug it in. My Windows 10 PC found it straight away and it was available for use within seconds. I made a few test calls, some through Teams, others through my SIP Softphone, all of them worked perfectly, with good quality sound for both participants.
Simple and easy to use with no configuration required. However….
If you fancy changing the settings you can download the Plantronics Hub software (yes, it’s still called Plantronics at the moment, that may change at some point). The first thing the Hub software did was check for updates, which were required, but that’s nothing unusual. Rather alarmingly the estimated installation time was 20 minutes. It actually took 4 minutes.
Once the hub software is installed and the firmware updated there are bundles of settings you can change, from voice prompts, language, and LED status, to the behaviour of the device when receiving a call while listening to music.
The Fit
Comfy. The Blackwire 8225 feels like it’s well built and high quality. The padded headband is adjustable for good fitment. The boom microphone adjusts up and down, and reverses so you can wear it on the other side. The USB lead is long enough to reach your laptop/PC or docking station wherever it is on your desk. I’ve used the Blackwire 8225 in excess of 20 hours over the last week, mainly listening to music while I work, with sporadic calls through Teams, Zoom and my VoIP Unified Communications client. This included a 4 hour online training session, whilst wearing my glasses.
There were no uncomfortable pressure points at all.
Audio Quality
Polycom and Plantronics are heavyweights in the telecoms industry, and their products have been a benchmark for headset and handset technology for many years. Whilst they are not typically known for high end consumer audio, I’m quite happy to say that the Blackwire 8225 sound quality is right up there with some of the best headphones I’ve used. Frequency response to music is very good indeed, with clear high end and weighty low end tones.
There is a bit of audio bleed when listening to loud music, so other people in the room can faintly hear what you’re listening too, but on calls it’s negligible.
In terms of call quality, the microphone responds well so that anyone on the other end can hear you clearly and concisely. The received sound can be quite bassy, but this can be trimmed out with the settings in windows if needed.
Fancy Features
The Blackwire 8225 comes with Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) and Acoustic Fence technology. The ANC feature is user selectable using a slide switch on the side of the wired controls. They control the amount of background noise cancelling you (the wearer) experiences. There are three ANC settings:
Off – Self explanatory, no noise cancelling
Mid – Some noise cancelling. This is the recommended setting and works very well, allowing you to be aware of some noise in the background, but not much.
High – Full noise cancelling. This setting trims out almost all background noise, enveloping you in a curtain of silence almost. It’s great for listening to music while you work in a busy house or office.
The acoustic fence function is always on and is a feature of Polycom handsets. It uses advanced echo cancellation to cancel out extraneous noises from busy environments, like offices. Whilst this feature can’t be turned on or off, it does work very well. It’s difficult to quantify, but with every call I’ve made using the Blackwire 8225 there have been no complaints about background noise. In testing with my colleagues it successfully blocked out a noisy keyboard from across the room as well as lots of background chatter.
Overall
Being cabled to your laptop isn’t ideal, but at the same time it does negate any issues around battery life. If you work in a relatively static environment the Blackwire 8225 is a very good headset. Excellent audio and call quality, great noise cancelling features and a very comfortable fit. Ideal for frequent use at home or in the office, as long as your calls are mainly made on your laptop or PC. Softphone users will be catered for particularly well with this device.
If you want to learn more about Headsets, Handsets, or our VoIP solutions, please see our website, or contact us on 01908 794 794 or info@litenetuk.com and we’ll be happy to help.
We’re not just a reseller.
