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
I think many people see Skype as an Internet toy, when it can be a really great service for business. People that travel a lot with a laptop will like it. The handset is a bit expensive, and hard to justify. Just use a headset or bluetooth.
RE:Belkin Skype Phones F1PP000GN-SK – Poor Battery Life & Lockups
I have now gone through three (3) of these phones and the 4th is on its way to me from Belkin on yet another RMA. The first two went back directly to Buy.com. Below is a brief description of the same problem I have had on all 3, a problem that could easily cause the user to assume a poor battery life.
In a nutshell, every one of these phones I have personally used for an extended period of time (days) has the same problem. As an electrical engineer, it appears to me to be a very serious design flaw, most likely a hardware semiconductor “avalanche”, “breakover” or “breakdown” issue. In layman’s terms, this refers to a semiconductor that goes into a “shorted” or relatively “super conducting” state until current is removed from the circuit.
The problem presents itself as if the phone were battery had discharged and the phone is dead. In reality, it is my observation that the phone will lockup and draw an extremely large amount of current from the battery, to the point the battery quickly and fully discharged. If one encounters the problem while the battery is actually in this “rapid discharge” with the phone appearing to be dead, none of the keys will do anything to turn the phone on or reset the phone. It appears to the user that the battery has simply discharged. However, in this state, prior to the battery actually fully discharging, momentarily removing the battery and then reinserting it will break this excess current flow/rapid discharge and will restore the phone to a point where it can then be turned on again normally with the keypad ON button.
The only cure I have found when any of these phones are in this mode is to momentarily remove the back plate and remove the battery, then reinsert it. If you have caught the problem in the early part of this lockup and rapid discharge cycle, the phone will then turn on after the battery is reinserted, and appear to operate normally until the next lockup or the remainder of the battery discharges. If caught at this point, the battery will appear to have very poor life after it is “reset” because a significant portion of the energy or charge in the battery has probably already been consumed in this cycle.
So, what are the clues when this problem is occurring on your Belkin Skype Phone? First, if you catch the phone when it has first gone into this mode, the phone gets very warm to the touch, particularly in the area of the battery while the battery is rapidly discharging. When the battery is momentarily removed at this point, it will be very warm, if not hot to the touch. If you attempt to insert the charge plug while in this mode, while the battery is still discharging and the phone is locked up, there is no effect and the charging symbol will not appear. The phone will charge again, but only after the battery has been fully discharged by the phone or the battery and charger are physically removed and reinserted, thereby resetting the phone to a normal state.
NOTE: This problem will most often appears to the normal user as extremely poor battery life. I have closely monitored this last phone and reset it immediately upon lockup each time and it is now out 3 days and the battery indicates 1/2 discharge. When that fact is extrapolated, the phone should run on standby for about a week or shortly less.
Alternately, there is a slim chance this problem could be a firmware problem, but all phones I have tested have been current on firmware and I don’t have access to their source code, so who knows. It would be difficult to imagine a software or firmware related scenario that could put these phones into this high current drain mode to the point of heating the battery. My money is on a semiconductor in one of the power stages, such as the audio output stage etc. that has a breakdown/avalanche voltage that is too low by physical semiconductor design That is validated by the randomness and frequency of occurrence nature of these lockups, between different phones of this same model and with the individual phones themselves. They are going to have a difficult time convincing me that a “firmware update” of any kind will resolve the problem – at least until I thoroughly test it.
I have talked and talked to Belkin about this problem – All I can get to are “technicians” who haven’t a clue as to the nature of the information I am providing them and the observations that could help Belkin resolve a problem that only one “second level” technician has acknowledged as being a problem.
Until we all can get Belkin to listen and acknowledge this problem, AND FIX IT for everyone who has this problem, I recommend you stay as far away from Belkin’s Skype Phone as possible! Just my opinion.
Thanks Mr. Forrest. I do notice some funky batteries issues myself but never the issue you described. What I notice most is when pressing and holding the power button to turn it on, it makes a sound like it’s shorting out. Other than that the battery drains fairly quickly. < 36 when in standby mode. However I attributed that to it being a WiFi device which are notorious for power drains.
Other than that, I do notice it periodically seems to disconnection itself from my Wifi connection as if the connection has dropped but it actually hasn’t then reconnects itself within seconds, kind of weird if you ask me.