The S9 is certainly one of the cooler-looking Bluetooth sets we've seen. Did it deliver the goods?
Review summary of the Motorola S9:
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 The Motorola S9's stylish, rubberized design looks tailor-made for the gym; sweat drips right off of them and if dropped, they won't damage easily. But another, less flattering reason that they work for working out is that the sound just isn't that good. The S9s will pair with almost anything you throw at it, and they perform all of their functions with competency. But the sound quality isn't up to snuff, so if you're looking for a wireless replacement for your Shures, this isn't it. Release: June 2007. Price: $45.
Pros: Easy setup, minimal drops of signal, attractive design.
Cons: Buds hurt ears after only 30 minutes, poor sound quality on music playback.
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Full review of the Motorola S9:
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Design - Good
The Motorola S9 is one of the more stylish pairs of stereo Bluetooth headphones we've seen. The rubberized surface that coated the entire device was nice, and it's obvious that these were made for exercise. The small headset snakes around your ears to meet at the back of your neck. The slightly bulky mass that rests on your neck contains the battery, power button, USB port and status light. It has a very low profile, and doesn't stick out awkwardly like some stereo Bluetooth headphones. But while the s9 may look pretty, the earbuds themselves are about as uncomfortable as we could imagine. Of course, all ears are shaped differently, but after about 30 minutes they became too uncomfortable for us to wear. It was severe enough that we couldn't imagine using them for any extended period of time.
The buttons were also problematic. The Play/Pause and Call buttons were surrounded by two touch buttons each, controlling FF/RW and volume up/down, respectively. We found ourselves raising the volume or switching tracks accidentally while trying to finger the button to end a call or pause the song. We're not sure how this can be corrected, but the size and combination of touch and mechanical buttons made the experience cumbersome.
Sound - Good
When using the headphones for stereo Bluetooth playback, we were disappointed with the way our music sounded on the S9. Playing tracks sideloaded onto our AT&T Tilt, we got a lot of fuzz, low volume and almost no clarity. From high-bitrate mp3s to DRM'd wma files, nothing we played on any mobile platform came through with any juice. The crunching guitars and booming bass on The Cool Kids' "88" was replaced by a tinny, synthesized-sounding guitar, with almost no bass to speak of.
We got much better sound when connecting to our desktop, and the occasional cut-outs of sound we experienced with the mobile phone were absent when using the computer. The main difference we detected was in amplification, so while the guitars returned some of their initial crunch and the volume on the vocals was louder and clearer, the bass saw noticeably less improvement.
When making calls on the S9, only the left earbud works. Callers reported an echoing of our voice, leaving a trail at the end of each sentence. Vocal clarity wasn't crisp, although we rarely had to repeat ourselves. Outdoor usage required us to raise our voice a little to be understood, and raise the volume a lot just to hear the response.
Setup and calling - Very Good
We had absolutely no problems setting up the S9 to work with either our phone or our computer. Each time the device recognized the S9 on its first try, and once connected we experienced only a few breaks in signal (only two total in about 5 continuous hours of connection). We liked that the S9 could connect with multiple devices at once, and the headset interrupts music when receiving an incoming call. Voice dialing, conference calls and switching between callers worked without a hitch, but the touch sensitive buttons do take some getting used to.
Price and availability
The Motorola S9 headset is available now for $45 from online retailers.
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