Wires are the real scourge of our times and I suppose that everybody look at them with disgust, but is there any good substitute for them?
The answer is Blutooth 2.0. If you’re curious if it really does the job, read this article.
Some time ago I ordered Nokia BH-503 headphones which I had on eye for almost a month. I bought it suprisingly cheap (yeah, I am lucky I bought the SU-8W paying the half of the price too 
)
Sales package contents
- Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-503
- Nokia Compact Travel Charger AC-5
- Carrying pouch
- User guide
First Impression
The good things:
- Headphones are done from solid materials
- The buttons are working flawlessly
- Easy pairing with my phone
- Good sound quality (however it could have been better – comparing to high quality wire headphones)
- The connection is automatically reestablished after you get too far (about 10-15 meters or behind a wall) and go back
The bad things:
- Seemed a little heavy
- After an hour of wearing you have to take a break because their weight is causing ear-ache
Following days
I’ve discovered several fine and bad things about those headphones. Firstly their not falling from your head while you’re cycling, running, standing on your hands or even doing backflip’s 
Another good thing is the battery- it lasts even 3-4 days if you’re listening for 3-4 hours, so Nokia doesn’t lie about the battery life telling that’s up to 11 hours. Moreover the headphones use the default Nokia charger, so you don’t have to carry any batteries- just your headphones, phone and really small charger (just in case). God, I wish Nokia could have done the external keyboard SU-8W in such way instead of making it on batteries! If we’re are talking about the SU-8W, the phone works with it almost perfect using the BH-503 headphones at the same time! Now that’s what I’ve been waiting for, I can now listen and code wirelessly!
Now the bad things: The phone works a bit slower while you’re using the headphones and if you’re using it too hard the music can become torn. Secondly the signal isn’t as good as it should while being outside, I mean it should be perfect but for some reasons, the signal do not travel well near the ground and if you’re far away you shouldn’t put your phone on your ground.
Btw. What we should be aware is that, that bluetooth is an electromagnetic wave and it interferes with every metal surface exclusively with aerials. -”Aerials… Ok I don’t have any aerials on my backyard…” – Unfortunetly every metal bar behaves as an aerial and this changes the bluetooth signal in very strange way. For example in one place you have an excellent signal, but doing a step in any direction can destroy your music experience…
On the beginning I alse had problem connecting the headphones to my laptop with Vista, although I managed to do that, if you’re interested in how to do that, please write me a comment. I’ll explain it there. The headphones are now configured in such way that I don’t have to re-pair the devieces and the headphones automaticly choose the available one and connect with it.
Conclusion
As a conclusion I can say that the bh-503 are much better that the traditional headphones for many reasons. If you’re kind of a mobile guy like me you surely should have them.
Filed under: Brands Prestige, Hardware Review, Mobile, Nokia BH-503, Nokia SU-8W | 38 Comments
Tags: 503, bh, bh-503, hardware, headphones, nokia, review
I interest with your information that you can connecting the headphones to the laptop with Vista. If you don’t mind please explain it to me.
Well it was some time ago however I think I remember it good
I will explain it to you this evening (now I have 11:32 on my clock and I don’t have much time)
what about waterproof ? I had once motorola s9 – it was great, but after some serious biking sweat went all over them and they broke.
did You test bh 503 against heavy sweating (sweat contains more salt and other electrolites than water, so it conducts electricity better) or at least water?
Sorry for such a long reply saut mp! I forgot about it
Here is your guide how to connect the headphones with Vista laptop:
1. Be sure that your phone has bluetooth turned off
2. Prepare your Vista bluetooth menu for new deviece discovery, but don’t turn it on. (you don’t want to waste time configuring your Vista bluetooth later)
3. Turn on your headphones, but hold on the power button longer until you’ll get rapidly changing blue light.
4. Start deviece discovery
5. After Vista found Bh-503 headphones pair them with your own number: “0000″
6. Now all you’ve got to do is to switch the deviece which is used for sound output. For example to hear music from wmp11 and vista in bh-503 you’ve got to go to wmp-> options->settings->devieces->loudspeakers and select bh-503 as default.
7. Restart wmp and there you go!
In similar way you can do it in every music player you have.
Feel free to ask questions.
g_ordon – if you’re from Poland you can talk with me in Polish. Although I didn’t check the phone water conductivity, but I have checked it water resistence while it was raining and they’ve done the job.
if we speak in polish, only polish-speaking people will understand. that’s not the point, is it ?
one more question about waterproofness – how do they fit to ears? if I’d sweat a lot, could sweat reach any electronical parts? or diaphragm ? also consider sweat-fall from head – i guess that was the reason why my S9 failed
I would say that they fit my head very good, however they do not fit my friends head well. He has smaller ears than I and much nearer the head.
Sweat: if you’ve got a long hair than you can have problems with that. As I said before I didn’t test them in extreame conditions, but the main buttons and all the electronics is about a 0.5 cm from head… Although those are ear-holes that sweat not the all ear, so I think it’s rather safe.
Are you a sportman g_ordon?
Going back to connecting the headphones to Vista laptop – once you’ve connected them to laptop, you have to turn off bluetooth in laptop or go away far enough to connect the headphones back to n95 8gb… Sometimes it needs even re-pairing.
riding a bike a lot – I listen music from my NOkia e51, and it is a little bit dangerous to focus on music controls with phone, while riding a bike. that is why i want why i want device with audio controls…
and i don’t like cords (who does?)
i managed to connect my bh503 to my vista laptop but I still have the problem about the audio quality. The audio sometimes ok and sometime like it stucked. Sorry for my poor english
Have you checked the profile used, if the profile is set to handsfree (micro enabled) it’s sure it will sound bad.. check for audio profile.
Did you try switching between paired devices? I’m struggling to find a stereo headset with real multipoint capabilities (that is, 2 phones connected at the same time, not just phone and music player), but as I’m likely to fail on this one, I may need to adjust my requirements. So I could be satisfied with BH-503 if switching between paired devices is easy.
To be honest I tried switching between paired devices, but your headphones have to be paired with all of the devices you want to switch between and somehow, headphones should know that you want to be connected to exacly this one.
I achieved it only by turning the other device (yes, only one other).
laptop -> headphones
phone -> headphones
Works ok, but while connecting to a laptop, your phone bluetooth has to be set to off.
Sorry for such a long lug
So that’s probably not something I need, what I wanted is: I have the headset connected to a phone, Skype on my laptop starts ringing and I have some quick way to connect to it. If I need to disconnect from my phone first, then I need time to access my phone’s bluetooth settings to disable BT and then probably some more time for the headset to connect to my laptop. So if I want to answer a call quickly, these operations would probably take too much time. Am I right?
Child, I think you will not be able to do what you want. At the moment no headset does that. well i am not too sure but sure enough to write this.
These headset have 1 bluetooth chip like a standard mobile phone that has 1 antena. Now they will make them with 2 chips like the dual sim standby mobile phones that have 2 antenas. That is what I have been thinking please someone correct if I am wrong.
Well, you’ve got it right below
Very nice information! I like your guide to connect it to Vista. But I have one question.
Is this headset capable to connect to 2 devices at the same time? What I mean: Is it possible to listen music on my laptop via bluetooth and wait calls from my N82 at the same time?
Unluckily it’s not possibly – at least as far as I know.
it is possible … ad2p with laptop(phone) for music… and headset with (other) phone for calls.
is it possible to make skype calls with the bh 503 with out using the in built mics of my laptop
yes, it’s possible
thnx for the information i have placed an oder for one
Is it possible to talk with these headphones on ventrilo,skype,teamspeak and others similar programs using built in mic or I have to use another mic to talk? I have already ordered one I couldn’t wait to try it.Sorry for my bad english :].I hope you will understand what I mean
.
look at posts 17-18
did you try to use it in watching movie to your laptop and also thru TV tuners.
Currently I can’t check it cause I turn to windows 7 and I can’t use the headphones with this system.
But before that you are using XP did you try it. Even in watching movie.. does the audio stream in headset well.
I were using Vista, but I’m pretty sure that it would depend only from the bluetooth software that’s installed. There should be also no problems listening the audio stream watching movies
Ah ok… my Bluetooth device is WIDCOMM. Built in my laptop.DELL INSPIRON 1520 with XP. What do you think?
Go to the bluetooth properties (left or right click on bluetooth icon in systray) and search if there is anything written about bluetooth audio or headphones – if there is, then there are big chance that you’ll be able to connect them to your computer.
Problem is I don’t still the BH-503, on the vista OS did you try to watch movie and use the headset to listen the movie audio…. is BlueSoleil will work?
Hey!
Is sound on these headset any better than on original headset that comes with N95 8GB?
Thanks!
No, unluckily it’s a little bit worse (as always in Bluetooth headphones)
Hi
I tried your procedure to connect the head set to my Dell xps M1330 with Vista but I was not successful. I can pair the computer and the head set. I also could change the default playback device to the head set, but I can nit hear any voice out of it.
Can you please help me over the issue?
If everything is connected you may check the ‘audio device’ in wmp11 you can find it in tools->devices->speakers->properties->sound playback
I just bought bh-503.. I installed toshiba bluetooth drive.. because xp cannot connect bh-503… Actaull it works with toshiba drive but I cannot use mic.. I want to use this headset with skype… I set mic blutooth wave but it doesn’t work..what’s wrong? anybody knows this? I check with wave recorder.. also it didn’t work..
get sure that a proper devices exists in your recording options – I’m currently using Windows 7 and it’s were this is placed
From now on it works with Windows 7 too, because a new driver was released. Yuppie.
Hi, I’ve been trying to connect my BH-503 to a IBM T43p laptop with XP-pro without success. I also followed the instructions from masteranza very carefully but again without connection.
Connection to any Nokia phone is OK. I can see the PC and headphones being paired since the BH-503 is listed at BT Devices list on PC. But, the light on headphones keeps flashing green instead of blue (blue = connection OK). The headset is not visible at WMP10 either.
Any ideas what’s going wrong? Could it be that the IBM Integrated Bluetooth IV on my laptop is not compatible with Bluetooth 2.0 on headset? But this makes no sense since the connection kind of takes place.