hopinet

Griffin Smart Talk for iPhone Problem

28th January 2009

When I bought my iPhone I looked for a replacement pair of headphones, I have never used apple headphones with any of my ipods because I don’t like the fit and I don’t like the fact I’m basically advertising to everyone I’ve got an iphone/ipod – I don’t think that’s a particularly safe thing to do!

What I found was the Griffin SmartTalk, a nice little device which is a remote control and microphone that I can plug my existing headphones in, only about £12 so just what I was looking for. Three months on and I’m again looking for a replacement. I’m pretty careful with them but as I walked round town with my headphones in today I lost first the right channel then the left. I can get it to work again if a wiggle it a bit but not consistently and it does look a bit dodgy one hand in the pocket all the time wiggling my hand about. Suffice to say it’s now useless and on the gadget scrapheap!

On quick inspection it is the cable just above the jack plug that has gone, this is because the cable is so flimsy. By the look of things I’m not the only person who has had this problem a look at the apple store shows as of today 15 out of the 17 reviewers have had the same problem and it is rated 2 out of 5, to quote a couple:

I was quite happy with these after getting them in a “does exactly what it says on the tin” kind of way, but after a few weeks the cable has failed at the base of the jack plug and sound to one ear has died. I must sadly conclude that the not-unreasonable price was actually a false economy.

I had these and the cable fell apart around the bottom after a few days, i returned them and got a new pair and after a week the same happened, so now i am stuck with headphone with no sound in the left ear, i bought these specifically because i thought that due to the higher price tag they would at least last a while, but they don’t, worst product i have ever used, avoid at all costs

This is incredibly bad quality for an iphone accessory and although I don’t think £12 isn’t a lot of money, it is only a mic and a button connected to a cable with a plug on the other end, surely you can make a good quality bit of kit for that. Sort it out Griffin!