Wireless cellphone earpieces can make people look faintly ridiculous as they stroll down the street or around the office, seemingly talking to themselves with ugly appendages sprouting from their heads. The pulsing blue lights on these things can make people look like robots. And these battery-powered gadgets, which use a power-hungry wireless technology called Bluetooth, are just one more thing to charge.

But such headsets are becoming more necessary, at least in the car. A growing number of cities and states are requiring all calls made while driving be conducted in a “hands-free” manner. Two more big states, California and Washington, will begin enforcing such laws in July. Unless drivers in these places have cars with costly built-in Bluetooth speakers and microphones, many will turn to wireless earpieces to make calls legally.

Now, two of the most important wireless earpiece makers are bringing out new models that attempt to make their products more attractive and functional. One is a new version of the Jawbone, which has become a leader in the high-priced end of the market. The other is a new model from Plantronics (PLT), which vies with Motorola (MOT) as the top seller of wireless earpieces.

I’ve been testing both the new $130 Jawbone, and the $150 Plantronics Discovery 925, and both work well, despite some drawbacks. Each worked properly with both an inexpensive Motorola Razr phone from Verizon (VZ) and a sophisticated Apple (AAPL) iPhone from AT&T (T). But I preferred the Jawbone, because of its technology and design.

The new Jawbone, made by a closely held San Francisco company called Aliph, is 50% smaller than the original Jawbone, which I reviewed in 2006. It continues to boast the original Jawbone’s signature feature: a remarkable ability to suppress background noise and isolate the wearer’s voice.

Jawbone performs this feat by using a sensor that touches your skin lightly to identify your voice through the vibration of the bones in your face. Using this information, its microphone can more easily distinguish your voice from background noise, and accurately suppress the latter.

This feature, originally called “Noise Shield” and now theatrically renamed “Noise Assassin,” really works. When the company first showed off the original Jawbone, it made live calls standing in front of things like weed whackers and boom boxes, and then turned the bone-sensing feature on and off to show the dramatic difference.

Aliph’s new Jawbone

In my tests of the new, much smaller Jawbone, I stood a few feet from a roaring vacuum cleaner, while on a phone call. The person I was calling could barely hear me with Noise Assassin turned off, but could clearly make me out when I turned it on.

By contrast, the Plantronics Discovery failed my noise test. It was useless anywhere near the vacuum cleaner. This was obviously an extreme case, but it served as a stand-in for other loud noises likely to be encountered in real life, like large trucks, or construction gear on the streets.

The biggest flaw in the original Jawbone, in my 2006 tests, was its performance in wind, which was poor. The Jawbone did much better in my latest tests. During a Jawbone call from a car with all the windows down and the sunroof open, my voice was easy to make out, according to the person I was calling. The new Plantronics earpiece did just as well in this wind test.

Plantronics claims its headset also enhances the voice of the person you are calling, a claim Aliph doesn’t make for the Jawbone. But, while voices sounded fine on the Plantronics, I couldn’t detect any difference between the two on that score.

Both gadgets are meant to be more stylish, and both will be available in multiple colors. But, while the Jawbone is just a smaller iteration of its original slab-like form, Plantronics has done something more radical with the Discovery 925: It has tried to make it look like jewelry. The Discovery’s electronics are housed in the diamond-shaped portion of the device that goes on the ear, and the microphone sits at the end of a long, V-shaped boom that is open in the center. Plantronics says the design is suitable for both genders, but admits it is a bit more aimed at women and at fashion-conscious men.

I believe some men wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing this new Plantronics model. It’s also longer than the Jawbone. But I did find it more comfortable to wear, since it doesn’t protrude as much into the ear.

The Plantronics claims longer talk time — five hours vs. four hours for the Jawbone, but the Jawbone claims longer standby time — eight days, vs. seven days for the Plantronics. The Jawbone weighs more, at 10 grams, compared with 8 grams for the Plantronics, but neither felt heavy on my ear.

I did prefer the Plantronics’ controls over the Jawbone’s. The former uses obvious buttons, while the latter employs unmarked, hidden buttons whose location you have to learn by touch.

Both of these earpieces do the job, but if you have to choose one, I’d pick the Jawbone.

• Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Corrections & Amplifications:

The Aliph Jawbone cellphone earpiece weighs 10 grams, and the Plantronics Discovery 925 earpiece weighs 8 grams. An earlier version of this column erroneously reported the products’ weights in ounces.

This interface is generally called “multitouch,” and it involves using one or more fingers on a screen or touchpad to perform special gestures that manipulate lists or objects on a screen — without moving a mouse, pressing buttons, turning scroll wheels or striking keys.

The best-known example of the interface is on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices. It allows you, for example, to rapidly flip through photos, lists of emails or song titles by merely “flicking” a fingertip on its screen, or to resize a photo by “pinching” the image with two fingers. And, this month, Apple moved some of these multitouch features onto a laptop, its new MacBook Air, where fingertip actions are performed on an oversized touchpad rather than on a screen.

Apple didn’t invent the multitouch concept. Academic and commercial researchers, and small, obscure companies, have been working on it for years. Apple is adapting the concept, adding its own ideas and popularizing it — just as it did in the 1980s with the mouse and the graphical user interface, which had also been invented elsewhere.

Rival companies are scrambling to add multitouch features to laptops and other digital gadgets. Synaptics, a leading supplier of touchpads for laptop makers who compete with Apple, has announced that shortly it will incorporate several multitouch features into its touchpads. Microsoft is producing a coffee-table-size computer called the Surface, meant for hotels, casinos and retail stores, that uses multitouch finger gestures to move around digital objects such as photos, play games and browse through product options. Hewlett-Packard developed a prototype of a similar multitouch coffee-table computer for home use.

Rotating a photo on Apple’s MacBook Air

And, in the back rooms of this month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, various cellphone makers, seeking to emulate the iPhone, were showing off their own unannounced efforts at multitouch. One prominent cellphone maker, Taiwan-based HTC, has already built a phone, called the Touch, which slaps a rudimentary multitouch interface on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system.

The basic touch screen, of course, is an old and familiar thing. People use them every day to get money from ATMs or to check into flights at airport kiosks. Microsoft’s Tablet computers and Palm’s Treo cellphones, among others, use touch screens that employ styluses or fingers to move cursors, select icons and other items, and even to write on the screen.

But multitouch interfaces are potentially much more versatile. They allow you to use your fingers to manipulate virtual objects on a screen as if they were real, sort of the way Tom Cruise’s character did in the 2002 Steven Spielberg science-fiction film, “Minority Report.” For example, Microsoft’s Surface allows users to rearrange groups of digital photos by just dragging them around on the table top as if they were actual paper prints.

Unlike the touch screens on, say, ATMs, multitouch devices are able to distinguish between the press of a single finger and the press of multiple fingers, and to interpret the motions or gestures you make. They take different actions depending on how many fingers they detect and which gestures a user performs.

On Apple’s MacBook Air, the touchpad still allows you to use one finger to move the cursor and click like a mouse can. But, optionally, it can do much more using multitouch gestures.

You can rotate photos by just touching two fingers to the touchpad and moving the images on the screen as you wish. You can quickly move back and forth through a series of Web pages or photos by “swiping,” or placing three fingers on the touchpad and moving them rapidly sideways. And you can shrink or expand a photo, or zoom in and out on a Web page, by pinching the image.

All recent Mac laptops, not just the new Air, have the optional ability to scroll through a screen without using any button or special zone on the touchpad. You just place two fingers, instead of one, anywhere on the touchpad and drag them across its surface.

In addition to pinching, the new Synaptics touchpads have a feature called “ChiralMotion,” which achieves rapid scrolling by moving two fingers in a circle anywhere on the touchpad. Another Synaptics feature, called Momentum, lets you emulate a trackball by flicking a single finger across the touchpad. This gesture can move an object on screen, like a virtual bowling ball in a game, with the illusion of inertia.

It’s too early to know if the new multitouch approach will ever be as big as the mouse-driven graphical user interface. But it’s already evident that it offers real advantages on devices where a mouse isn’t possible or convenient to use, or the decades-old interface of menus and folders is too cumbersome.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

On a chilly day, most folks find it tough to open the front door to retrieve the newspaper — much less climb a 15,000-foot mountain. But plenty of people court danger by rappelling down canyons and camping in remote woodlands. This week, I tested a device that will give thrill seekers a little extra insurance: It lets the folks back home track their progress, and learn when they’re OK or when they’re in trouble.

When activated, the $170 SPOT Satellite Messenger from SPOT Inc., the Milpitas, Calif., unit of Globalstar Inc., emits a signal to GPS satellites, which notify SPOT’s messaging service. The service then sends a message to friends, family or emergency rescue teams about your current status. Because it uses GPS technology, the SPOT will work even when you’re far from cellphone signal range and anywhere in the world.

I tested SPOT in my Washington, D.C., neighborhood (city parks still count as outdoorsy) and on a trip across the California desert and mountains on the way to a conference — though I was scaling mountains in an air-conditioned SUV rather than in a rock-climbing harness.

In my tests, SPOT worked without a problem. Notifications from the device were delivered to my friends via email and text message and included my current latitude and longitude. The service also sent along canned messages that I set up in advance on the company’s Web site at www.findmespot.com and hyperlinks to Google Maps that showed my location.

SPOT charges a $100 annual service fee, which includes an unlimited number of messages that can be sent out from your device using three buttons: OK/Check, Help and 911. An additional $50 per year tracking service called SPOTcasting follows and marks your exact location every 10 minutes for 24 hours each time it’s initiated.

This simple and straightforward device could really help in a dangerous situation. And the company takes its job seriously: A steely message on the SPOT packaging reads, “Opening this box is the first step in making sure you don’t come home in one.” But SPOT could also save the day in less-adventurous situations, such as when your car dies and you’re out of cellphone range.

However, SPOT isn’t perfect. While its three message-sending buttons make it easy to use, they also limit the types of messages it can send. There’s no keyboard, so messages must be brief and set up in advance on the Web site. And the device only sends messages and can’t receive them. Your friends and family have no way of getting back in touch with you on SPOT should you send a Help message from beyond cellphone range.

SPOT is a bright orange device with roughly the same surface measurement as a BlackBerry, though it’s considerably thicker. Its durable casing makes it waterproof and floatable, along with working in extremes like -40 degrees Fahrenheit and up to 21,000 feet above sea level. It runs on two AA lithium batteries, which last for different amounts of time according to the type of message being sent.

Setting up SPOT took only a few minutes on the Web site. A default or personalized message can be set up to go out with OK/Check and Help notifications, and email addresses and cellphone numbers (for SMS text messages) can be entered online as the destinations for these messages. Every message includes the user’s current location in terms of latitude and longitude, along with a hyperlink to access that location via Google Maps.

SPOT sends messages and location information via satellite, including points that can be tracked on a map.

The OK/Check button can be used most casually by owners of this gadget, as it merely serves to assure others that you’re fine. A good example might be two people on a three-month sailing trip who use this button as a means of checking in with family every Sunday night.

If OK/Check is held down for five seconds, it initiates the SPOTcasting tracking service (provided you’ve signed up for it) and locates your device every 10 minutes for a 24-hour period. These tracked points show up on SPOT’s Web site and are displayed as numbered points on Google Maps.

SPOT worked for me while driving through a regional park with a campsite, where cellphone range was faint, and up into boulder-crusted mountains. Just minutes after pressing Help or OK/Check or initiating tracking, friends received word of my location via emails and text messages.

You can’t set SPOT to track a trip for longer than 24 hours or at different intervals, such as every hour for a week. And the only way for others to view your tracked points is if they sign in using your online account’s username and password.

The Help button is used in more urgent situations and uses messages such as “Urgent help needed. Pick me up at campsite.” (The default for Help is “This is a HELP message. Please send for help ASAP.”) But preset messages shouldn’t be made too specific during the online setup because they can’t be changed from the device later.

The 911 and Help automatic notifications will always override less urgent messages like OK/Check or SPOTcasting. In the case of the 911 and Help buttons, one can be pressed after the other and the messages for both will still go out at the same time. The 911 button will send a message every five minutes until power runs out (the company says this will last for up to seven days) or until the message is canceled; Help sends a message every five minutes for an hour or until canceled.

The 911 button is more serious. When pressed, SPOT Inc. automatically notifies a certified 911 company called the GEOS International Emergency Response Center, which contacts your specified emergency contacts first to see if they know anything about your situation before dispatching a rescue squad using your coordinates.

If you can adjust to SPOT’s three-button approach, the device could be helpful for you or someone you know during outdoor adventures. Many people will buy SPOT simply for its 911 button, as an insurance policy on fluky cellphone service.

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications:

The SPOT Satellite Messenger uses a global positioning system to determine a user’s location and a second satellite network to send notifications to friends, family and emergency services. This column erroneously stated that GPS satellites send notifications.

It seems that this last attribute — the ability to make and receive calls on a cellphone — is overlooked and underestimated by many manufacturers. But believe it or not, there are plenty of people out there who simply want to use their cellphones for calls, period.

These individuals range from college students who frequently damage or lose their phones to wary, first-time buyers to senior citizens whose kids or grandchildren insist they use a cellphone. About a year ago, GreatCall Inc. introduced its Jitterbug cellphones, which were aimed squarely at the senior set with large keys, a free operator service and the phone’s own number prominently displayed on a sticker.

It seems that GreatCall was on to something. Verizon Wireless recently followed the company’s lead by introducing its straightforward, no frills Coupe, a cellphone that offers many of the helpful traits found on Jitterbug phones, like large screen fonts, but without a lot of extras. Verizon simultaneously unveiled two calling plans designed specifically for seniors, and was followed a month later by AT&T and its own monthly plan for those 65 and over. AT&T also has an uncomplicated phone of its own in the works for 2008.

This week I tested Verizon’s $40 (with a two-year contract) Coupe (www.verizonwireless.com) against GreatCall’s $147 Jitterbug Dial (www.jitterbug.com) to see how the two stacked up. I found the Jitterbug more comfortable to use for longer phone calls because of its cushiony earpiece, which blocks out external sound and helps the phone rest easier between your shoulder and ear during conversations. And Jitterbug’s mantra of simplicity will appeal to cellphone newcomers.

But for those who have been using cellphones and are familiar with the way they work, Jitterbug’s nonconformist features — like Yes and No buttons in place of Send and End and the use of a dial tone whenever the clamshell-shaped phone is opened — can come across as too basic, to the point that they’re confusing. One example: many standard cellphones redial the last number called when the Send button is pressed twice, but redialing on the Jitterbug requires navigating through five screens to redial the last number.

The Coupe is the smaller of the two and blends in with other cellphones. It includes a few of the extra functions found in normal mobile phones, like an alarm clock, calculator and the capability to send and receive text messages; perhaps most people who buy the Coupe won’t use it for texting, but it’s nice to have the built-in option. (The Jitterbug doesn’t have any of these features.) Right now, this cellphone only comes in shiny black with a blue border around its outside display screen. An included charging cradle adds a touch of convenience.

The Coupe also has some fun features that give it a more personal touch, including a choice of 24 ringtones and 10 wallpaper designs for the main screen’s background. After seeing low-grade camera lenses on nearly every digital device that I’ve picked up recently, the Coupe looked a little naked without one.

Three red buttons labeled I, C and E (for In Case of Emergency) are positioned just below the phone’s screen and can be assigned names and numbers to work as shortcuts to those most often called. A specially marked “911″ button on the phone’s keypad is designated specifically for emergencies, though this must be held down to use and, even then, asks if the caller definitely intended to call 911.

A speaker button is also clearly labeled on the Coupe’s keypad, and pronounced volume adjustment keys line the phone’s side. On-screen fonts appear larger than those found on regular cellphones.

Verizon’s well-known network is sure to be a draw for potential buyers, especially because any plan used with the Coupe includes free calls to other Verizon Wireless users. Though any of this carrier’s plans work with this basic phone, the Nationwide 65 Plus plan made its debut with the Coupe in hopes of appealing to those ages 65 and up. A single-line plan allows 200 anytime minutes and 500 night and weekend minutes for $30 monthly; the two-line plan offers roughly double the minutes (to be shared) for double the price. These plans aren’t exclusively usable with the Coupe.

GreatCall’s Jitterbug comes in two $147 models: the Dial, with a numeric keypad and the OneTouch, with just three large buttons labeled Operator, Tow and 911. I’ve tested both in the past, but this time around I looked at the Dial because it’s most comparable to Verizon’s Coupe.

The Jitterbug Dial phone comes in black or white, and its buttons and all of its on-screen lettering appear considerably larger than the Verizon Coupe’s. Its number keys glow bright white and are encircled by yellow borders, while the Coupe’s digital keypad is black with glowing blue numbers — colors that aren’t as distinctive. Unlike the Coupe, Jitterbug doesn’t come with a charging cradle, though GreatCall has plans for adding cradles in 2008.

A free operator service can be reached from Jitterbug phones by pressing “0.” This operator greets users by name, places calls on the user’s phone (saving you the trouble of dialing) and can add numbers to a phone’s contact list if a user doesn’t want to or can’t do this.

The Jitterbug can be pre-programmed with names and numbers; I ordered mine with five pre-programmed numbers, a luxury that nervous new cellphone owners might find worthwhile. Things get difficult when you try to enter your contacts. Even though each number key has three or four letters assigned to its key as on all phones, adding a contact involves using Jitterbug’s clumsy system of choosing one letter at a time from the screen. You’re better off using the free operator service for this.

Jitterbug phones let users store only 50 contact names and numbers, while Verizon’s Coupe will store 500. Many first-time cellphone owners will be content with 50, but, again, options are good.

The Jitterbug and Coupe each have small screens on their outer shells that display the time, date and phone numbers of incoming calls. But the Coupe displays its remaining battery power both on this outer screen and inside on its main screen, while the Jitterbug only flashes battery status on the screen if the battery reaches a certain low level, or if you navigate to a special “Phone Info” screen.

Behind the scenes, GreatCall’s Jitterbug phones run using networks set up by other carriers; I never had any trouble dialing out or receiving calls. A variety of calling plans can be used with Jitterbug phones ranging from $10 monthly for pay-as-you-go at 35 cents a minute to $80 monthly for 800 minutes. Add-on packages of minutes and sharing plans are also available.

If you’re familiar with cellphones, the Jitterbug will be a confusing step back for you, even though its free operator service and comfortable earpiece are pluses. Some people will prefer the Jitterbug’s larger fonts and number keys to the Verizon Coupe’s smaller, more stylish build. Still, the Coupe is a good option for people who have at least some familiarity with technology and cellphones. Each in its own way does a good job of sticking to the basic task of handling phone calls.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

Companies have failed for many years to produce a successful electronic reader, a dedicated device that would do for books what Apple’s iPod has done for music — allow you to carry around large numbers of titles and enjoy them in a convenient way.

Just a year ago, Sony took another stab at this concept with a product called the Sony Reader. Like the iPod, it was linked to an online store where you could buy thousands of titles that could be downloaded to the Reader. Unlike the iPod, it hasn’t been a hit with consumers, partly because the store was hard to use and had a very limited selection.

Now, the biggest name in online book sales, Amazon.com, is entering the fray with a $400 electronic book reader called Kindle that aims to succeed by offering a much better shopping experience.

The Kindle is the first e-book reader that allows you to select, buy and download titles directly to the device, instead of downloading them to a PC first and then transferring them over. Amazon is offering a large collection of digitized books — about 90,000 — compared with fewer than 25,000 for Sony. The Kindle also can download newspapers, magazines and blogs directly, and update them automatically. This is possible because the Kindle comes with free, built-in wireless Internet access, using a cellular data network.

I’ve been testing the Kindle for about a week, and I love the shopping and downloading experience. But the Kindle device itself is just mediocre. While it has good readability, battery life and storage capacity, both its hardware design and its software user interface are marred by annoying flaws. It is bigger and clunkier to use than the Sony Reader, whose second version has just come out at $300.

Like the Sony, the Amazon reader uses a high-contrast, but low-power, screen technology. The Kindle’s six-inch screen can display only monochrome text and gray images, and there’s lag time and a flash of black every time you turn a page. But I did find that the screen was good enough to make me forget I wasn’t reading the book on paper.

The Kindle holds about 200 titles in its internal memory, and can accept memory cards for storing more books, periodicals and blogs. You can also keep and read some types of personal files and photos on the Kindle, but you have to email them to Amazon for conversion to a proprietary Kindle format.

The battery lasted me a couple of days between charges with the wireless on, longer if I switched it off.

Using the well-organized Kindle store, I was able to purchase books like “Boom!” by Tom Brokaw, “Stone Cold” by David Baldacci and “American Creation” by Joseph Ellis. The process was fast and simple, partly because the Kindle comes preconfigured with your existing Amazon account information.

New releases and bestsellers cost $9.99 each, compared with a typical Amazon price of $15 to $20 for the paper volumes. Prices for other books vary widely, but are generally cheaper than the paper versions.

I also successfully subscribed to electronic editions of The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time magazine, and several blogs and news feeds. This was a much less satisfying experience. The layout of these publications was much clumsier and harder to use than on the Web, and they cost more. Blogs and periodicals that are free on the Web cost anywhere from 99 cents to $14 a month.

The Kindle has some nice software features. It includes a small keyboard that lets you make notes in the margins of books and perform searches. There’s also a built-in dictionary.

But the device is poorly designed. It has huge buttons on both edges for turning pages forward or backward. They are way too easy to press accidentally, so my reading was constantly being interrupted by unwanted page turns. Plus, the buttons are confusing. One called “Back” doesn’t actually move to the previous page, but supposedly to the prior function. I never could predict what it would do.

The “Home” button for returning to the list of content on your Kindle is tiny and located at the very bottom of the keyboard. There is no button to take you to the online store; you have to open a menu and scroll. The book-like cover, intended to protect the device, attaches so weakly that it’s always falling off. And because the power buttons are hidden on the back, reaching around to use them practically guarantees you’ll knock off the cover.

The software interface also is clumsy. There is no way to organize titles into groups or categories, so you have to keep turning pages in the Home area to find a particular item to read. And doing many tasks requires you to scroll a barely visible silver cursor along a narrow side panel.

Also, there is no way to email friends to tell them about books or articles, send excerpts or links, or even buy them a Kindle title as a gift.

Amazon has nailed the electronic-book shopping experience. But it has a lot to learn about designing electronic devices.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Corrections & Amplifications

The Amazon Kindle is the first electronic book reader that allows users to download books via wireless broadband, without a PC. This column erroneously said it was the first to allow such direct book downloading via any means. Some early attempts at electronic book readers had built-in wired phone modems for downloading books.