BlueParrott M300-XT Review – Work Oriented Bluetooth Headset with Super Long Battery Life

The BlueParrott M300-XT is a mono Bluetooth headset intended for enterprise customers on the go such as couriers or personnel that need the full use of their hands and the ability to make calls constantly when working like Grab drivers and delivery men.

Seeing as this headset is intended for a very specific niche of users, ones that prioritise call quality over other concerns, the BlueParrott M300-XT is designed differently from other consumer and enterprise headsets with a specific mission profile.

Out of the box, you get a fair assortment of gear that includes a 1.2m long USB-C to USB-A cable sheathed in plastic, a small and large ear tip to swap out the existing preinstalled medium sized ear tip along with a quick start manual.

Our BlueParrott M300-XT review unit is primarily done up in a matte black plastic finish all around with a flippable boom mike, an earpiece with a swappable silicone eargel that fits into your ear and a large housing that stores the battery and other components that hooks over and behind the ear to provide a more secure fit.

While it’s designed by default for use on the right ear, it’s simply a matter of rotating the boom mike around to swap its orientation to the left.

In terms of controls, the BlueParrott M300-XT is relatively simple with a customisable control stud near the boom mike and a vertically aligned series of buttons with one turning it on or off and the other two to control volume. The base of the earbuds houses a USB-C port for charging the battery.

Overall build quality is solid, and the earbuds feature IP54 water resistance which means that it’s able to shrug off dust quite well and resist modest splashes of water like a light drizzle or sweat but it’s not intended for use under more challenging conditions like a full-on rainstorm or in a pool. 

BlueParrott M300-XT Review – Specifications

The BlueParrott M300-XT comes with the following specifications

Price	RM399
Driver size	10.3mm
Speaker input power	5mW
Speaker frequency range	20Hz – 20kHz
Speaker impedance	32Ω
Audio codec	SBC
Microphone type	2 x MEMs
Microphone sensitivity	-42 +/1 1dB
Connectivity	Bluetooth 5.1 w A2DP v1.3, AVRCP v1.6, HFP v1.7, HSP v1.2
Battery	14 hours talk time (quoted), 150 minutes charging time
Size/Weight	110.7 x 61 x 25.4mm/20g

BlueParrott M300-XT Review – Setup and Performance

Getting it up and running is a relatively straightforward task. After fully charging it, the earbuds paired up in a matter of seconds with a Galaxy A52 via Bluetooth and worked straight off the bat. To customise it, you’ll need to download the BlueParrott app first.

The app itself also contains a downloadable user manual and is primarily there to allow you to reassign what the control stud next to the boom mike does as well as being the primary means to update the firmware of the M300-XT.

Via the app, you’re able to assign the control to mute or unmute the mike, speed dial a selected number, activate  walkie talkie or memo mode or fire up a compatible app. Beyond that, the power button and volume controls are hardwired into the earbuds and cannot be customised.

Donning the BlueParrott M300-XT takes some practice and you need to finagle it over your ear with some effort for the first few times until you get the hang of it. Fortunately, it’s light enough that you can wear it comfortably throughout the day without issue. 

The ear tips which have been designed to stay outside of the ear canal proved to be a surprisingly comfortable choice for extended comfort though you give up a good amount of passive noise insulation as the design doesn’t provide a seal for your ear canal.

Combined, the over-ear design proved to be ideal for all-day wear and was able to stay securely perched over my ear even with a series of jumping jacks and moving about on errands about town through the day.

Under the hood, the M00-XT features a 10.3mm mono driver for sound and a pair of microphones with noise reduction capable of offering up to 80% of background noise from our end of the call.

Needless to say, putting it to the test with actual crowd-based background noise isn’t that easy in the middle of a pandemic so I opted for the next best thing with pre recorded audio of the background noise you’d typically expect in a pre-pandemic mall and a busy restaurant while making a voice call to a colleague. Voice quality was clear with the vast majority of the background squelched to a dull murmur. 

Unfortunately, there’s no way to dial the level of ambient noise reduction for the M300-XT nor are there any equaliser settings to tweak in the accompanying app. It’s a moot point in any case seeing as it’s a mono earbud.

Needless to say, we can’t natter for 14 hours in a row despite our best efforts but with a full charge we managed to get enough battery life to last all day with several hours of music playback via a paired phone and an hour or two of voice calls thrown in for good measure.

On paper, the BlueParrott M300-XT is rated for 14 hours of talk time which is excellent by any measure of the word.  Charging it is via the USB port and fully charging it needs 2 hours and 30 minutes. 

Is the BlueParrott M300-XT Good?

The BlueParrott M300-XT wireless mono headset isn’t for everyone. It’s designed not for entertainment but specifically for professions working outdoors that require clear, intelligible voice quality and endurance over other concerns. 

In its chosen role, the BlueParrott M300-XT makes for an excellent if somewhat pricey choice which pays for itself in uptime, resiliency and performance.

Review unit courtesy of Blue Parrott. For more details check out https://www.blueparrott.com/on-the-road-headsets/blueparrott-m300-xt