Read my first impressions and initial review here: Skype Review Part 1
Boy On Phone
I’m writing this just review after talking with a friend for about a half hour over Skype he was using his cell phone and I was on the Skype phone. Aside from it being a great phone call, I’d been promising to chat with him for two years the mechanics of the call was pretty good though not 100%. The problems could have been on his end as it was a cell phone I’m not sure I’m going to try calling a landline next time.
The initial delay when picking up which I mentioned in my first Skype phone review was still noticeable. For the first couple of seconds our call seemed to ’stumble’ or loose sync. From then on in the call was fine except a couple of times it seemed to loose sync briefly but that could have been his cell dropping out.
Over all, I’m more than satisifed with my purchase of the Belkin Skype Phone .
Belkin Skype Phone
Last week I got on a kick with Skype; I’ve had an account for a while but never really used it a thread on my DJ forum about Magic Jack got me thinking about voice communication. Ordinarily I don’t talk on the phone much because of my stuttering problem, it’s stupid but it annoys the grab out of me. Anyway a few people have been asking me for quite a while for my phone number and stuff like that. My only issue with giving my phone number out online is people calling my house at random hours. I still live at home with mom and with time zone differences I cannot have people calling here at all hours of the night.
Long story short I bit the bullet and ordered the Skype unlimited US & Canada plan along with an SkypeIN number so that people can call me from a regular phone. For $60 I have a phone number and unlimited calls to US & Canada for an entire year you just cannot beat the price. After ordering the plan I got to thinking of not wanting to be tied down to a computer to use Skype as I like to walk around when I’m one the phone. I thought about other options before the Skype Wifi phone. It’s $130 direct from Skype with shipping it came out to just under $140. I really had a hard time justifying the cost of the phone for something I wasn’t even sure I would be using or the quality; I wound up ordering the Belkin Skype phone any how.
When FedEx dropped off the package yesterday. I eagerly opened the package included is a quick start guide, wall charger, USB Cable, CD-ROM with user manuals, the phone itself, and it’s battery. I popped in the battery, plugged in the charger and turned the phone on. It automatically joined a wireless network (not mine) and asked me to log in to Skype. I went into the menu and figured out how to connect to my network which is secured and logged into Skype. My contacts automatically downloaded, it’s really integrated well.
My initial impressions are that the phone is cheaply made, the buttons seem chinsy and the phone itself just doesn’t feel refined like I expected for $130. It takes a noticeable amount of time to start up too but that’s not that big of a deal. The software is very well made it took me a few seconds to get the hang of it but anyone used to a cell phone should get it with no problems. Other than that my biggest beef is that the charger port cover is a little rubber cover that I cannot get to close, it looks like it needs some finesse.
Call quality is crystal clear so far I’ve only called my house phone to test but it works great. I noticed when calling a landline phone when the person on the other end picks up you don’t get the first second of the conversation that’s not the phone’s fault though probably just a Skype to landline thing.
Over all I really like the phone and plan to test it with a real call very soon. My biggest beef with it is you cannot send text messages to Skype contacts; I realize the point of the phone is to voice chat but regular text messages would be great for quick messages that don’t require a talk. For $130 it should do text too. Secondly if you send a text message to a cell phone, the cell phone user cannot reply to you wheather you use Skype on the computer or this phone. I would think this would be as simple as Skype assigning an email address to your account for text replies again the point of the phone is to voice chat but texting does fill a nice void and it would be great if the Belkin Skype phone could do texts.
Read Part 2, my first call with the Skype phone here: Skype Belkin Phone Review
