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Sweden, Stockholm
1 Level
460 Review
0 Karma

Review on 🎧 Renewed Plantronics Voyager 5200 Wireless Bluetooth Headset - Compatible with iPhone, Android, and Top Smartphones by Laura Thompson

Revainrating 2 out of 5

Refurbished Not as new

This is my fifth Plantronics Voyager, the earliest was the original Voyager. The first three Voyagers, including the last Legend, did an excellent job until, like most headphones, they met an untimely end. Noise cancellation has always been best in class. My last two Voyagers, the newer 5200's, were from this supplier and have been 'Refurbished' which means they have been fully tested and look like new. I am a Cell Phone Refurbisher (on an industrial scale) and I understand how difficult it is to find latent or temporary defects in returned goods, no matter how much testing is done. My first refurbished 5200 had poor mic sound that got progressively worse and eventually became unintelligible after a few months. The replacement worked flawlessly for about a month, and then there were obvious problems with the software, to the point where no button press triggered the standard audio prompts like "pairing" or "Phone 1 connected", even though the Default sound "Beep" was ".Signal". The manual states that this can happen if the sensors are not calibrated. So if you plug in the charger and place the headset on a non-conductive surface for 10 seconds to recalibrate (several times), the headset behaves the same way. Maybe the sensors are defective? The microphone sound works fine for about 30 seconds during a call and then degrades to the point of incomprehensibility. Also, the "Call Initiate" button doesn't work, although the headset beeps. On my Note4 I tried Google and S-Voice with no improvement. Even disconnecting and re-pairing to restore the Samsung Android Bluetooth stack only seems to work once and only for a few minutes. A friend's Voyager Legend works great on the same phone, by the way. Plantronics call center was very helpful even though refurbished units are out of warranty. I asked for a desktop software flashing download to try as a launcher and unfortunately they don't have that option. Meanwhile, Revain prices for a genuine NEW Voyager 5200 are only about $20 less than post-refurbishment. You can guess where my next one will come from.

Pros
  • Useful beyond its intended purpose
Cons
  • No paint required