SuperTooth Crystal Hands-free Kit review

By George Harding

These days, we realize that driving and using our mobile phone to talk or message can be dangerous. Arizona has no laws forbidding cell phone use while driving, although both Phoenix and Tucson has laws that prohibit texting while driving and impose fines if texting is the cause of an accident.

Here’s a tool that can help keep your attention on the road instead of the phone. Crystal is a device that connects to your cell phone by Bluetooth and allows you to talk without handling your phone.

The device is a sleek rectangle with rounded corners and has only a few controls: On/Off, Accept call, End call and Volume. That’s about as simple as you can get!

You first charge Crystal using a USB cable that’s included. It takes about 3 hours to fully charge the battery, which is lithium-ion type. After that, Crystal has 20 hours talk time and 40 days stand-by time.

Next, you must pair Crystal with your phone. This involves turning on Bluetooth in your phone, then searching for Bluetooth devices. When your phone finds Crystal, it forms a connection and may (or may not) ask for a pairing code. From then on, Crystal and your phone are in paired mode.

Crystal can be paired with two phones at the same time, so if you have a personal phone and a business phone, you can make and receive calls on either one.

To accept an incoming call, you press the multi-function button. When you are ready to end the call, you press the End call button. It’s that simple! Crystal has a noise-canceling microphone to minimize outside noise while you are talking.

If your phone is capable of voice dialing (mine isn’t), you can press the multi-function button to initiate voice dialing. You can tell it to call someone in your contact list.

When Crystal’s charge gets low, it will tell you that the battery is low. The kit includes a car-charging cable to make the process easy. The multi-function button serves as a charge indicator: red means low battery, orange indicates charging and green means charged. A flashing blue light tells you that Crystal is on and paired.

One other feature that’s nice is the ability to play your music through Crystal.

If you have a GPS device that gives you turn-by-turn directions and is Bluetooth capable, you can play the directions through Crystal.

This is a compact, efficient hands-free device that will help keep your attention on the road where it belongs.

Crystal by Supertooth               wwwl.supertoothstore.com                   Price $129