I had originally bought 2x H550 headsets when they were still current stock at a local Best Buy (probably in 2007 or 2008) and prefered them over other designs because of the over-the-ear rather than the more intrusive in-the-ear designs offered by other makers. Lightweight, good sound clarity, more than adequate battery life / talk-time between charges. We used a pair of these for business, daily until Fall 2011. After about 3-4 years of constant use, the batteries passed their threshold and would only last for a few minutes between charges. Since the batteries cannot be replaced, we searched for identical replacements.Apparently the H550 has been out of production for a few years and purchases of subsequent replacement H550 units in sealed boxes had battery issues straight out of the box and had to be returned for refund. Date codes on the sealed packs indicated a 2008 production code. If the H550 were still in current production, I would recommend it highly. Since he only H550s available appear to be New from Old Stock or "NOS", trying to find sealed 3 year old product with useable internal batteries is hit-or-miss at best. Since sellers are reluctant to break the seals and plug the units in to see if they will charge first, there is no way to know whether you are just wasting your time buying them. (We found that they would stop charging within 3-5 seconds of connection to the included charger and the red indicator would flicker and go out. If you try to turn the unit on, it would be non-functional and demonstrate that the battery ad resisted charging.) Vendors understandably don't want to compromise the "new/sealed" description of their wares by testing them, so unless you really want one badly and are willing to be patient, give the H550 a pass.We did find that Motorola still makes a non-ntrusive over-the-ear Bluetooth model H730 which can be purchased at a local retailer or online at Amazon for under $50. We bought two of these as replacements and they have been highly satisfactory as a replacement for the no longer serviceable H550.