With the Voyager 80 UC, Poly once again delivers headphones that feel completely comfortable in an office environment. Additionally, the headphones find it a little harder to justify their high price.

Today the Poly brand represents a colorful mix of company names. Poly is the result of a merger between Plantronics and Polycom and has been part of HP’s portfolio since the beginning of this year. These acquisitions and name changes haven’t changed the company’s mission all that much: Poly excels in office equipment and wants to be the audio king of the business market. This makes the Voyager 80 UC perfect for those who often need to talk on the phone during office hours, although Poly hopes you’ll use these headphones in your free time too.

The branding of poly products can sometimes be confusing, but this time the manufacturer is keeping it simple. The Poly logo can only be seen on the packaging and the headphones. It comes neatly in a carrying case with all the necessary cables. Poly seems finally ready to abandon its previous name, Plantronics, and HP doesn’t feel the need to slap its name and logo on its products for now. Therefore, for those who feared this, the Poly brand name will not immediately disappear under the new structure.

stains

Don’t expect any bells and whistles from a business headset. The Poly Voyager 80 UC is painted neutral black to give it a professional look. The strap is easy to adjust and the headphones stay stable and comfortable on your head even when you move and walk around. The valves completely cover your ears, so it doesn’t hurt to ventilate your ears every now and then after long telephone conversations.

The action buttons are located on your right ear. You have the power button and a red button to switch between noise cancellation levels, more on that later. A red light turns on to show your colleagues that you are busy. There’s hardly anything left to say about the design, but one thing stands out to us, unfortunately not in a positive way.

There are marks on the headband frame and ear flaps that are not due to careless use. If you look closely, you can also see these spots on Poly’s promotional material. This looks very sloppy and we are not used to that from the manufacturer. A second design option that we would have liked to see different is that you can’t fold the headphones. This makes it sometimes difficult to get him back into the baby carrier, which also takes up a lot of space in the backpack.

Loud and clear

The Poly Voyager 80 UC excels in video and telephone calls. The quality of the microphone is razor sharp. That’s pretty impressive considering the model doesn’t have a fold-out microphone. The ear cups contain six integrated microphones to record your voice and another four to filter out disturbing background noise. Below you can listen to two recordings to see the quality for yourself, one with and one without background noise.

Recording 1:

Recording 2:

So you don’t have to isolate yourself in a closed room every time you need to have a conversation. You can talk on the phone while your colleagues are working next to you or you are on the move. This makes the headphones a pleasure for anyone whose average work day consists of a lot of phone calls. The microphone is an area where Poly has always excelled.

The Voyager 80 UC is also the brand’s first headset to proudly bear Microsoft Teams certification. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you’re exclusively tied to the Microsoft platform; the headphones also work for Zoom or Google Meet calls.

In a bubble

It’s nice if the people you’re talking to don’t notice what’s going on around you during a conversation, but it’s even better if you’re spared from it too. Do you need a moment for yourself in the office? Put on the headphones, listen to the music of your choice and you’ll feel like you’re in a bubble. However, we note that some noises such as loud typing or the wind can penetrate through the noise reduction.

Of course, you decide for yourself how far you want to go when it comes to isolating yourself from the outside world. You can switch between different levels using the red button mentioned above. There is a mode for (limited) listening to ambient noise such as traffic noise and another for voices. They also work as they should, you can have a perfect conversation with a colleague while wearing the headphones. It would be convenient if the headphones provided feedback about exactly which mode is on when switching.

Pale tones

We haven’t discussed the most important thing that headphones should be able to do: play sound. Poly installs 40 mm drivers in each earcup. During meetings, the person you are speaking to will sound just as clear as you. Musical notes also sound clear, but somewhat obedient. The default is named Apartment and deeper notes could use some spice.

It is recommended to install the Poly Lens app on your PC or smartphone. This allows you to add a little more spice to your music, although the headphones cannot hide the fact that they are primarily intended for telephone conversations. For a music experience at the highest level, you should turn to specialists in this field such as Bose and Sony.

In the app you can also activate some additional functionalities, such as audio limits and wear detection. The first ensures that your headphones do not reach volume levels that would harm your ear canals. Wear detection automatically pauses and resumes music when you take off and put on your headphones. This feature can have a Gobelijn moment and start playing music as soon as you pick up the headphones from the table.

If you don’t need any further settings, you can also use the headphones without the app. You can also adjust the volume and forward songs using the right ear flap. As with any headset, mastering all of the gesture controls takes some practice.

Tireless

Poly claims that you can talk on the phone for 21 hours straight with a full battery. We doubt you’ll ever have a meeting that lasts this long, but our experience shows that you can bridge multiple meetings without having to reload. If you only use the headphones for listening, the battery lasts for around 24 hours.

Battery almost empty? No problem, because you can quickly charge the headphones using the included USB-C ports. You also get a USB-A dongle if your laptop isn’t up to date yet. A full charge takes just over two hours, but an hour or less of charging is often more than enough to get you started. You can continue to use the headphones while charging if the battery runs out at an inconvenient time.

At home in the office

We already knew that Poly makes excellent business headphones, and the manufacturer shows it again with the Voyager 80 UC. The microphone quality is impeccable. With this model, Poly aims not only for use in the office, but also for relaxation and entertainment. Precisely because the headphones have to be able to do everything, they are not really the best at anything. It’s a good headset for (video) calls, but there are also more specialized solutions. They’re also good headphones for listening to music, but the experienced music lover will want something more.

The hurdle we ultimately stumble over is the high price. The price was $450, but if you look closely you can find the headphones for less than 300 euros (excluding VAT). That’s still a lot of money for headphones. For this price you can expect the best of the best, and in our opinion the Poly Voyager 80 UC falls just short of that.