Microsoft LifeChat ZX-6000 wireless headset

Can Microsoft get you chatting?

Reviewer: Stuart Miles
Review Date: 26 June 2007
Manufacturer: Microsoft
Price as reviewed: £30
Latest price: £33

Our score

4/10

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Reader score

3/10

Reader review

User: Jalida (profile)
Location:
Date Posted: 24 August 2007
Review: For anybody looking for information regarding the Microsoft ZX-6000 headset, I hope that you find my little mini review here and take it to heart before wasting your money on this unit.

I bought one of these from an office max store for the price of $69.95, and it did include a mail in rebate (but we all know why companies use mail in rebates, right? If not I'll tell you... It's because far fewer consumers take the time to send in the rebate by mail then there are units sold, you can also lump into this group those that send in the rebate but didn't cross their T or dot their I's) in the amount of $10.00 effectively making the product a total of $59.95 plus local tax if applicable.

I got home all excited. Finally I had found a product that would allow me to use my voice recognition software and not have to wear a clunky 2 ear headphone, I was now free from wires and could roam as I dictate into this microphone. I was truly estatic about this find as I'd never seen these, and had remarked to my husband on numerous occasions that I wish somebody would create a wireless headset and microphone that would be comfortable to wear, light weight, have an excellent microphone for both voice recognition as well as voip and have a fantastic sound and clarity to for both voip, as well as being able to play games. It would be brilliant to have great sound in only one ear while leaving the other ear open so that I can hear when my husband has something to say to me, or for when the phone rings the baby crys, the dogs howl etc. etc. etc.

So, when I came across this headset and it had the Microsoft name on it, I was absolutely thrilled about making the purchase. I mean, I love my Microsoft "Natural wireless Laser 6000" ergonomic mouse, it's been absolutely brilliant since I've had it, I loved it so much that I bought a second one to use with my laptop. So I made the purchase.

I returned home and immediately plugged the unit into the computer and bypassed any recommended installation of software (ahem, the included software it is not needed unless you are going to take advantage of the "FREE" computer to computer voip. Or wish to use the Computer to landline phone calling to which there is a charge to sign up with Verizon of about 1.9cents/minute as of this review that can be purchased like those pay as you go cell phones, where you pay xx amount on a virtual card and then use that to pay for your computer to landline calls. That's all fine and dandy and not an issue. Im just mentioning it because the instructions included with the headset indicate that is suggested that you install the software on the CD, but it's not absolutely necessary at all and windows xp sp2 recognized this device just fine without installing any software and just another ploy to get you to install Microsofts Live Messenger software.

I immediately plugged the unit in, and put the headset on the charger. The unit remained on the charger for a minimum of 4 hours as that is what is written as to taking a full charge in the unit. When all 4 LED lights flash simutaneously the headset is fully charged and ready to go.

Once the unit was fully charged, I turned on my computer, fired up my voice recognition software (Dragon Naturally speakin version 9.5) and decided to give it a go. Of course I needed to configure the microphone to work with DNS (Dragon Naturally Speaking) so I did that with a bunch of hassle. DNS kept telling me that the input of voice quality was not good enough to use this device as my microphone. Surely a $69.00 headset/microphone must be of high enough quality to be used when a generic $14.00 headphones/microphone unit can be used!?! Well, as it turned out I had to "boost" the microphones volume all the way to the maximum amount that I can before DNS would recognize it as being sufficient for use, and even at maximum amount it only scored a "16" quality on the scale for DNS which is quite poor and my cheapy $14.00 headphones/microphones scores a "24" quality.

Never the less, a 16 quality rating is still sufficient for voice recognition for the most part so I continued on and trained DNS again with the new microphone which is not absolutely necessary but since it's a new microphone and my voice is going to be different sounding to the VRS (Voice recognition software) than it was using the old microphone I felt it to be a worthwhile endeavor.

This is where I noticed it's first problems. There were certain words that DNS just refused to recognize when spoken such as the word "Next", I had to bypass any page in the training that had the word Next on it. I didn't think much of it at the time.

Once fully trained I turned my adventures to actual real life usage and with this "noise cancellation" microphone it must have been cancelling more than just noise because it was misrecognizing many many phrases and individual words with the most likely cause being that the quality of the microphone being too low.

I put down the microphone to go and make dinner for the family and returned to my dictation aproximately 3 hours later to continue on. I put on the headset and started speaking, but DNS wasn't recognizing anything. I noticed then that the headset must have shut off and turned it back on, only to see that the 4 LED lights were flashing in unison (I've later found out that is supposed to indicate that the units has a full charge when it's plugged into the AC cord, but the headset wasn't plugged into the AC, anyway the unit shuts off when it's plugged into the AC cord.

So... I used the headset sporadically dictating (much like a phone conversation) for no more than 30 minutes, and it must have stayed on "standby" for 3 hours, or maybe it shut off after a certain amount of time, I really can't say for certain. And the battery is fully discharged. Huh? What? The product spec states and I quote: "The advanced battery delivers up to eight hours of talk time on a single recharge.". I don't recall where I read that the unit can deliver up to 200 hours on a single charge in standby mode, but Im most certain that I did read it in a product spec sheet somewhere on the internet. How can this be? I've used the unit for a total of no more than 30 minutes of "talk time" and I presume 3 hours of standby time. This doesn't even come close to eight (8) hours of talk time. My Ipaq handheld device lasts longer than this does and it's playing music.

So... I put it back on the charger and let it charge up until the 4 LED lights are flashing in unison again and try to use it again. I stand up to walk to the restroom, which is literally 10 feet away from my computer in my home office, and the bathroom door is left open and I get some kind of beep boop sound in my ear to what I would have to guesstimate is the sound of the unit being out of range of the receiver. To test it I saw a couple phrases as well as things like "open notepad" or "open calculator" a couple times. Figuring that when I return to my computer I will know for certain that the beep boop I heard in my ear was indeed the sound of the unit loosing connection to the receiver.

I return to my desk, no calculator is opened, no notepad windows are opened, and the phrases that I repeatedly said were not in the wordpad document I was dictating. This confirmed that the beep boop I heard must be that I have gone out of range. I then decided to test it, so I backed away from my desk by about 15 to 20 feet and got the same beep boop noise in my ear, and sure enough I was out of range again. Granted, I don't usually dictate to my computer while Im in the restroom or even from 20 feet away, but the product says up to 30 foot range and mine doesn't get anything close to that range, even in an open space with no obstacles between me and the receiver. That is problem number 2.

So I figure I can live past this since I won't be dictating from that distance anyway and so I turn the unit off and go to bed. Today I wake up, put the unit on my ear after turning it on and within 30 minutes I hear to beeps, then not long after that I hear 3 beeps, then it's dead as a door nail again. Total talk time: possibly 45 minutes at most!

Then there is the speaker which is supposed to provide quality, clear audio, the packaging of the unit indicates go from VOIP to gaming to this that and the other thing. Well, in my opinion after trying to use this unit, it is neither good for VOIP (people on the other end when talking computer to computer have indicated that I amn not very clear or loud coming in to them), it is Not good for gaming for the speaker is only capable of getting so loud. That "so loud" is not even loud enough to overcome ambient room noise (like a box fan) that I hear in my other ear. I've boosted the volume as high as it will go, both in the audio control panel of windows as well as the game and or application itself, yet it is not nearly loud enough for either, and when using VOIP, it's made even worse and I have to ask the other party to really speak up so that I can hear them. Im not deaf by anymeans, so keep that in mind.

The other thing is, that I don't know how this is possible, but when the headset is on, or even when it's just being charged up, there is intermittant interferance with my Microsoft natural laser 6000 mouse. I was unaware that my mouse is on the 2.4GHz band and it may not be, but yet as I said, the mouse gets interferernce when the headset is turned on and will jump around and not follow my hand movement. I suppose it might be something else in the room that causes this, but it's never done this prior to owning this headset.

So all in all, this has turned out to be one of the worst technological device purchases that I have made in many recent years and I can only hope that my husband has retained the receipt so that we can return it to the office max. Im more than willing to exchange it for another one if they have one, though I honestly dont expect anything to change with regards to the quality of input through the microphone. Perhaps I'll get one that has a longer battery life, but quality of both input and audio in the earpiece is highly unlikely to change any.

Wow, I guess my mini review didn't turn out to be quite so mini afterall. My apologies for that. But I hope that it makes anybody that is thinking about getting one of these for anything more than a novelty, really think twice before doing so.

Regards,

Jalida
Pros: Lightweight

Reasonably comfortable to wear for less than 2 hours at a time.

Doesn't look dorky when wearing it like a full size headphone/microphone combo

USB .
Cons: Poor battery life (specs state up to 8 hours talk time, I found it to be more around 1 hour of constant dictation)

Microphone boost has to be turned up to maximum for others to hear me on voip, and to use it for voice recognition software

Volume level can not be turned up high enough on ear piece, always feels as if it's too low in volume whether used for voip, music, or in game chat / ventrillo etc.
Score: 3/10
Rating: 27 people have rated this review helpful