Plantronics UPCALISTO Bluetooth Headset
by Plantronics
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List Price: Category: Wireless See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Plantronics UPCALISTO Bluetooth Headset
Customer Review: Better choice for PC than Mac, unfortunately
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a truly lovely wireless phone with excellent comfort, portability, range and noise cancellation. I've been using it for several months in a very noisy server room environment. Having gone through multiple supposedly "noise canceling" phones, this is the first one that really passed muster with customers.
I had been using this on my standard phone line and integrated it with my laptop's Outlook directory. Simple, easy and excellent! Within 5 minutes I had 200 contacts loaded onto the phone. It's nice that you can manually edit the phone numbers and contact information before they're loaded onto the phone so you don't wind up with extraneous data.
I just switched over to using VOIP instead of a phone line, and decided to use this with my Mac instead of Windows. Honestly, it's not so good. Unlike other phones that are specifically designed to be VOIP phones, you can't dial the phone through the handset anymore - you have to use the softphone. You can answer and disconnect calls, but that's all.
The software for the Mac is not as mature as it is for the PC, either. The Calisto Pro utility for the Mac frequently loses connectivity to the Mac and doesn't show up in the utility bar that it's lost its connection. So, you'll be dialing away through the softphone only to hear your party answering - and you're not audible. It's not a very professional image to present if you're using this for work, as I do.
So far, the software for Windows is more reliable. No matter which operating system - once you have a successful connection, sound quality is excellent. The earpiece is very comfortable and the device has wonderful range.
I'd like to see Plantronics improve the quality, reliability and feature set of the VOIP offering for this device. Otherwise, it's a pretty expensive wireless USB headset - albeit one with excellent clarity and range.
Customer Review: Pleased for what I wanted out of it
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had my Calisto for a few weeks now and it does what I needed it to do. I have a home based business and like many of the other reviewers spend a good part of my day on the phone and in front of a computer. I've been using corded headset phones and the one drawback was always mobility. This solved it. I haven't used the outlook sync so I can't comment on that but here is the setup I use. I've tried Skyp and Vonage and right now I am using a Magicjack for my main number. I switched to Magicjack for my main number simply because the call quality was better than the others and extremely inexpensive. Magicjack provides a softpad so I use that and its contact list for most of my calls. So using the Calisto earpiece all I have to do is touch the on button and then select or input a phone number from the magicjack softpad. (this eliminates using the calisto handset which does have annoying and small buttons). By using this setup the handset always stays in the base so you don't need to worry about it going dead, and so far the earpiece has been able to stay charged throughout my working day. The call quality using the earpiece is very good but it seems like if I use the handset you do get some fuzz and static so go figure.
I figured I paid 209.00 bucks to have mobility and to me that was worth it. I think the handset is pretty crappy with the keys and display and you would think from a technological/ergonomic standpoint they could have done a much better job. But besides that it worked right out of the box and I haven't had to do anything to reset the earpiece to the handset. My only other beef, as mentioned by a few others is the earpiece itself. I wear glasses and when you have the headset on all day it does get a little uncomfortable around and inside the ears so I have to switch ears about every four hours or so. If they came out with a normal headset style bluetooth setup I'd buy one of those immediately.
Customer Review: Great phone, flimsy earpiece
Summary: 3 Stars
I've had the Calista since July 2010 and it's incredibly handy and makes my job a hundred times easier. The phone pairs with the headset very easily and the functions are very simple to figure out. (Except the speed dial... never did get that one down.) I appreciate that it beeps when there's a message, and while the buttons are small, they're manageable. The sound quality was far superior to my previous phone. My main beef is the headset. I've already replaced it once; the replacement is less than a month old and starting to show signs of the same problems. The boom is rather long, so it weighs the earpiece down and it drops away from the mouth. I'm pretty petite so I have small ears (like, I should be wearing kids' earbuds with my iPod if I could find such a thing) so the rubber insert just barely fits in my ear and doesn't stay put very well. May not be a problem for many, but it's worth considering. The rotating ear grip also became very loose after a while - so loose that the pin slipped out and the whole thing eventually started coming apart. It would just dangle off my ear if I didn't keep my head perfectly still, so I had to jerry-rig it with a string to wrap around my head just to keep the thing from falling off at the slightest movement. Ridiculous. Then the rubber insert broke completely off and I'd have to keep fishing it out of my ear (or off the floor) and sticking it back on the headset. I put up with this for about two months before getting a replacement through the warranty, but I can already feel the new headset getting loose. Such a disappointment after spending so much money on this. I'm probably going to end up getting a smaller plantronics headset to pair with the phone, but it irks me that I'll have to spend even more money to keep using this phone as intended.Customer Review: Poorly integrated and clunky
Summary: 1 Stars
I have been using the Plantronics CT11 & CT12 for years, I have them in my office and at home and love them, so I had high expectations for the Calisto Pro. But I was sadly disappointed.
My key problems were:
1. I could not make Skype phone calls from the handset. Outgoing calls could only be initiated from the PC. After the call was initiated I would have to pickup the handset. Aside from being able to hangup a call, the handset had not other functions during a Skype call. For example when I needed to enter numbers during a call to an automated system the handset would not work, and I needed to use my PC.
2. The bluetooth headset requires you to connect to it after you make a call. So after sitting in front of my PC to make a skype call, I had to grab the handset to see if the call was working through the Calisto Pro, then I had to press the button on the bluetooth headset to turn the headset on! And this was meant to be an integrated system!!!
3. The handset will not work with your cell phone at all. The bluetooth headset pairs directly with your cell phone, and the rest of the system does not integrate. So the handset does not show caller number information from calls on your cell or anything else. To be fair this lack of a feature is included in the fine print of the product description, but since it the product description says it is a "fully integrated system" I really didn't expect this. There are other products out there that claim to be able to make and receive cell calls through their handsets- so there is little reason why the Calisto Pro cannot do it - especially at the price.
It is not an integrated unit, but a clunky collection of different devices bundled together.
At over $200 I would look for something else.
Customer Review: Plantronic Calisto Pro
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased this unit to replace a similar home wireless headset phone (an RCA model - which died after just over a year of service, and after replacing both batteries). The Calisto Pro performs well, but the ability to switch between the Calisto Pro and my cell phone is a bit difficult - If I'm on a call on the Calisto Pro and one comes in on my cell it is difficult to end one call and pick up the other. The buttons on the handset are also not very ergonomically designed, therefore it is difficult to dial by touch - you have to check the screen to make sure you have entered the correct numbers. The included software to download contacts into the phone is also not-quite-ready-for prime-time. The phone does not have the ability to store your local area code so long distance numbers need to have the 1-(area code)-(Number) format, and local calls need to have the area code removed if your dialing sequence does not include the local area code. The other awkward part of the software is that once you have modified and synchronized the numbers into the handset, if you synchronize again the original numbers, and all of the contacts you have removed from the previous synchronization, come back and have to be eliminated again. Hence, the sync software is almost a waste of time. You can enter the names and numbers into the software without synchronizing with your contact manager program which might be a better option if you are only putting a few numbers into the handset phone book. I've also encountered occasional static in the headset for no apparent reason. Overall, the product performs as advertized for normal phone and cell phone functions. I do not have a Skype account and can't speak to that aspect. I'm satisfied with the purchase, but not exceedingly so.