Product Reviews

One of Apple's most confounding design decisions is surely the iPhone's recessed earphone socket. Griffin has already solved this problem with an adaptor that lets you use any earphones. The SmartTalk does the same job, but adds a longer cable with a combined microphone and inline remote at the other end.

Most iPhone mics come with the proviso that you're happy to use the integrated earphones, but SmartTalk pairs with your favourite ones - far less wasteful if they've laid idle in a drawer for the past few months.

Its cable is a generous 30in long, enough even for fairly tall people to carry their iPhone in a trouser pocket and clip the mic to a shirt collar. The mic looks like a Liquorice Allsort and is just shorter and fatter than an Apple USB plug. Like an iPod shuffle, it's clipped into place with a gentle thumb press.

We'd have preferred the earphone jack

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and integrated cable to both be on the bottom edge of the microphone unit, which would have allowed all cables to be hidden under clothing and only the mic would have been in plain sight.

Earphones with short cables work best; longer ones present the challenge of tucking a lot more wires out of sight. Short ones also have the advantage that the mic can dangle freely and unobtrusively if clipping it doesn't suit - with t-shirts, for example.

In operation, the mic wasn't as useful as we'd hoped. With it clipped to our collar, callers had difficulty hearing the conversation when we were on a quiet street let alone a busy road, leaving us to lift the mic to the mouth for the conversation to flow freely and clearly.

The mic's grey button sits flush with the casing and integrates well with the iPhone's features, which lowers music during incoming calls; a single press answers and hangs up a call, while holding it redirects to answerphone. It also pauses and resumes music playback regardless of calls, while two quick presses skips to the next track. Indecisive listeners can't skip back though - not even with a prolonged press of the button.

Answering and redirecting calls without digging out the iPhone is very convenient, and control of music is a nice bonus. The mic's quietness is a letdown, although lifting it to speak gives more flexibility than holding a bulky handset to an ear. SmartTalk's saving grace, then, is its inexpensive price.