Ok, I’ve had em’ for a few days and here are some more notes:

I’ve noted that if I slip my iPod in my front pocket I get serious drop outs. If I move it to my back pocket and point the rear of the iPod toward my ass, I get decent coverage.

Another note though. In urban areas with lots of RF sources I note more drop outs. I think that’s because in the U.S. bluetooth is allocated the frequencies from 2.402 GHz to 2.480 GHz. WiFi in the U.S. runs 2.401 GHz to 2.483 GHz and cordless phones run in the same ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band. That adds up to a lot of potential interference to something like the S9’s that only has a maxium output PEP (Peak Effective Power) of 100mW. Why the hell couldn’t they have stuffed Bluetooth in around the DECT band. There are far fewer DECT phones out there.

Once you’re indoors they work great. That’s because the walls in your home offer some attenuation to the outside signals.

Battery life is somewhere around 3 hours which isn’t bad, and isn’t particularly good.