Home > Consumer Reviews > Jabra SP500 Bluetooth Speakerphone (UK)

Maybe it's just me but I've never had a quality Bluetooth audio experience. I used to own a Nokia Bluetooth headset but ended up throwing it across the room because I got so infuriated by it's continual cut-offs and intermittent connectivity with my phone.
I bought this Jabra unit hoping to use it in the car and as a desk speakerphone for conference calls. The unit has a nice design, simple to use buttons, a clear instruction manual, and the set up was a breeze; managed to pair it with my mobile phone and also with my Apple Macintosh to use as a Skype headset with no problems.
The problems are performance and battery behaviour. No matter where I use it my phone calls are full of "Hello, can you hear me?" and "You sound like you're in the toilet." On the battery side, I found that charging was not reliable: the red light would go out quickly, indicating an early full charge, but then the battery would die quickly too. Then after a while it wouldn't switch on at all and I had to open the back up and re-position the battery contacts to get it working again.

This product promises a lot but for me at least has not really delivered.

This is a nice visor set, clear sound, battery lasts a long time before it needs recharging; a bit bulky now as there are smaller ones on the market.
The on/off notification sounds are still very confusing.

Our Jabra broke yesterday, 1 year and 12 days after the purchase. It happened when we tried to recharge it. At first, no charge light appeared and then it made a loud 'Pop' noise and sent itself to the place where the old Jabras go.

In the months before, we experienced loss of battery life, even after numerous hours of charge at home from the supplied charger.

To be honest, for this price you could expect more: the speech quality wasn't too clever either.

We would only give it 2 stars as it fits neatly on the sun visor in your car, but that's it.

I am now using a real noise cancelling headset for the car (jawbone.com), which really does the trick. Not looking back to the Jabra at all.

I ordered this via Amazon and after waiting nearly 3 weeks it finally arrived.
Set it up to my sony ericsson k700i, which according to numerous websites including Jabra are compatible, and found it kept disconnecting from the phone.
Went through all the customer helplines and even sent the phone away as recommended to sony to get it updated with software and it came back with still the same fault.
I tried the Jabra with a nokia and it had no problems, I also tried it with a higher spec sony ericsson and found the phone wouldn't even connect to the Jabra.
So buyer beware and I'm now sending it back to Amazon for a refund.

I was deliberating over this cheap option and that to have a hands free kit fitted that interfaces with the stereo. I'm glad I got the Jabra. It worked first time, pairing with my Nokia 6021 and with which voice dialling works great. It remains permanently on my sun-visor - mor or less out of site - automatically pairs with my mobile as I get in and, though speaker quality is not the best, converts my car into an effective mobile office. Big plus for me is portability between cars and also to use in the office or house as a speaker phone and for conference call. OK it's a just a bit bulky for when you want to use your sun-visor, but the clip is easy to change from one side to the other. Boom microphone, mute function and volume control make this fit for purpose without all the bells and whistles which aren't needed. Can't believe how cheap it's become. It's because it's so affordable it gets 5 stars for value for money.