Jabra Cruiser 2

The Cruiser 2 was purchased as a replacement for my older handsfree kit, which wouldn't talk with the more modern phone on the bluetooth "media" channel, thus it was limited for playing music from the phone and also some systems such as Skype, wouldn't work through the standard voice channel. The Cruiser 2 was bought to solve these issues.

The unit attaches to the sun visor, which is a problem when you need to put the visor down. The previous system had a double sided metal clip so it was possible to remove the unit with a quick pull, detatching the magnetic grip, then flip the visor down and re-attach the hands free kit to the other side of the magnetic bracket. Not so the Jabra. You're stuffed because it is too much hassle to do while you're driving.


Voice quality is much improved as, due to the position on the visor, it is almost directly over my head. I'll have to try with other positions. The previous unit made me sound like I was in a goldfish bowl, but the Jabra is a solid improvement, even in my noisy car.

The unit also has an FM transmitter which allows it to be tuned in through an analogue FM car radio. It speaks its actions and the frequency; which you can change relatively easily. My own choice is the top setting as Radio 2 is on the lower end, 88-91 FM.


In an ideal world, car stereos should have a USB or SD port as standard, because playing music from the mobile phone, through the Jabra and then to the car stereo is, although good quality, quite wasteful of power and controlling the music through the standard mobile phone interface is messy; not the fault of the Jabra, but manufacturers really need to think about the environment and work together, IMHO. If the Jabra had a next/prev track, it would be a worthwhile addition, but that would probably mean more cost.

It also suffers an occasional drop out (on a 15 minute journey in to work, the music "drops out" for a fraction of a second, on five or six different occasions. I can't tell whether it is the phone or the Cruiser 2.) which means that music delivery through the Jabra wasn't an ideal long-journey solution.

Having shop bought CDs in a car is a waste because temperature eventually gets to them; and temperature cracks the home burn CDs even faster. Having a solid state solution is superb and less wasteful of CDs, but although the sound quality through the Jabra is great, it isn't an ideal solution.

It did, however, prove that having a conversation with someone, over the car speakers, through the radio, worked beautifully (though I think that while the music came over in stereo, I believe that the voice call came over in mono, on the left, leaving a hiss on the right - I have to do more testing on this)

Conclusion - good unit for the money, well built, good voice quality and the ability to put the caller on FM radio is a nice bonus even though it does seem that the caller might end up being mono. The unit speaks what it is doing clearly and gives vocal instructions for first pairing. Using it as a media player from the phone is possible and good quality, but a waste of power; car stereos should have USB or SD card input as standard. Also, if you need to flip your car visor, you could have problems as the Cruiser 2 ends up against the window.