Plantronics M155 MARQUE Bluetooth Headset for apple iPhone

The Good The Plantronics Marque M155 is a fashionable and affordable headset that is comfortable in the ear. Audio quality is good. It comes with a free one-year subscription to the Vocalyst service and voice alerts, and you can answer calls with your voice. It also has a visual battery indicator when paired with an iPhone.

The Bad The Plantronics Marque M155 does not have good noise cancellation, resulting in poor call quality when outdoors.
The Bottom Line The Plantronics Marque M155 is an attractive and comfortable Bluetooth headset that complements the iPhone's style, and works well as long as you keep it to indoor usage
Plantronics is marketing the Marque M155 as a Bluetooth headset designed for use with smartphones. Indeed, we can't help but notice its silver sides and button design are very similar to the iPhone 4 (and the upcoming iPhone 4S). Features are decent--you get A2DP audio streaming, voice alerts, and a free one-year subscription to Vocalyst, a Plantronics service that will read your messages, let you dictate replies, and carry out other functions. It also has a companion application for both Android and iOS devices, and if you pair it with an iPhone the headset's visual battery meter shows up on the iPhone's screen. Call quality wasn't perfect, especially in an outdoor setting. For only $59 retail, however, you might be able to forgive that imperfection.

Even though Plantronics said that the Marque M155's sleek and svelte design is meant to complement most smartphones, we think it's quite obvious the company took major design cues from Apple when designing the Marque. The Marque M155 is thin and rectangular, with a glossy black or white finish on the front and back. It has squared-off sides covered in silver, which reminds us of the iPhone 4. Even the multifunction call button on the front looks very similar to the iPhone's home button.

On the back of the headset is an earpiece clad in a clear earbud cover. The Marque M155 comes with three different sized eartips, and each of them has a loop attached so the headset will fit securely without an ear hook. Still, it does come with an optional plastic hook if you feel the need for additional stability--we didn't. To us, the Marque M155 felt very comfortable in the ear, fitting neither too deeply nor too loosely. We were able to wear it all day without feeling like it was going to fall off.

Also on the back of the headset is a hidden notification LED that lights up when the headset is powered on or when it's charging. There are a sliding power switch on the left spine and a volume control button on the right. There's no volume rocker, so you have to cycle through a few volume levels before getting to the right one. Plantronics seems to want you to use your smartphone's volume control instead if you want more refined control. It's a little annoying, but not terribly frustrating.