We saw this phone over on SwissMiss the other day and were intregued by the design, as well as the ability to make both landline and VOIP calls on one phone. The great part is not having to have your computer on to use Skype. The bad thing?
Do you have a phone like this? What do you have?
SwissMiss, aka Tina Roth Eisenberg, just ordered this phone. It rated 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon with over 170 reviews, and retails for $115. We were going to say check out this phone, but after reading some of the reviews, we are changing our recommendation to a cautious check this out.
Frankly, the design, although it would only coordinate with modern decor, looks great--and that's not to say it would totally look out of place in anything but modern decor.
It's an imperfect technology, so it really depends on what you use it for and what type of quality you expect. Reviewers seem to say that it's better than a cell phone but not as good as a land line, in general. It works by plugging a broadband connection into the phone's base, and works really well with Skype. Conacts you update on either the phone or on your computer get sync'd to the other in short order. And the fact that it pretty much eliminates the need for a landline means that you can save a lot of money--and not keep you tied down to your computer all of the time.
Do you have experience with a VOIP phone? How about a combo landline/VOIP phone? What do you recommend?
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I have a Linksys DECT Skype phone, which also accepts a landline. It's been an excellent phone for use with the landline. Range, clarity, battery life are all great. It's developed a clicking problem in the earpiece, though. As a Skype phone, meh. To be honest, 95% of the time I was using Skype to conference with my friends. When I tried this, it crashed. Many times. It wasn't a bandwidth issue, either. I could comfortably conference with six people on my PC. The other issue: When using Skype with a PC headset you get full-bandwidth audio, sound quality is excellent, both outgoing and incoming. BUT, when you use the Skype phone... it sounds like a phone. Tinny and icky. If you're okay with that, go for it. It works well for one-to-one calls.
view 1p5v's profile
I have this phone in my apartment, and it's... decent.
I only have SkypeOut (I can make regular phone calls, but can only receive Skype calls), and it works fine if a bit quiet.
However, if I am logged in to Skype both from my computer and from this phone... the phone receives the Skype calls and the computer does not! Well, sometimes the computer does... but if it does it is something like a minute after the phone rings, and it is not consistent.
This is a problem; I need my Skype to be portable, otherwise it's not particularly useful to me.
As the previous commenter said, it really is more comfortable to use Skype with a PC headset, and I recommend that over this phone. However, this phone allows me to talk anywhere in the apartment.
view mossadacity's profile
I have Lingo VOIP and a nice VTECH system. It works quite well and allows me to call Europe (and most of the world) for $20/month. I'm very satisfied.
Cheers!
view SeanG's profile