The Hands-Free Mic & Earbuds for iPhone by Newer Technology is a decent replacement for the stock iPhone headset included with every iPhone. With a list price 33% lower than the Apple iPhone Stereo Headset (the stock headset's "real" name), it's almost a no-brainer if you need to replace your iPhone headset, or even if you just prefer black over white.

The Hands-Free Mic & Earbuds offers pretty much the same feature set as the Apple iPhone Stereo Headset -- both offer hands free talking and listening and a button to play/pause music and answer/end calls. The Hands-Free Mic & Earbuds include a little clamp so you can attach the cable to your shirt, which is a feature I happen to like.

The earphones are more comfortable than the Apple headset, with slightly brighter midrange and high-frequency response and noticeably better bass response. They're not super fabulous but they are at least a notch above the Apple headset for both music and voice. Furthermore, since they sit more snugly in your ear, they do a better job of rejecting external noise than the Apple headset.

The one area where the Apple headset has this one beat is the quality of its microphone. The Apple microphone was noticeably clearer, although not by a huge margin.

P.S. To test microphone quality I created a set of short audio recordings using five different headsets (and the iPhone alone without a headset). If you'd like to hear them, you'll find them here.

The Bottom Line

There's nothing exceptional about the Hands-Free Mic & Earbuds, but they are in almost every way an improvement over the stock Apple iPhone headset. If you need a replacement or desire an inexpensive upgrade, they can't be beat for the price.