Philips VOIP841 PC-Free DECT 6.0 Wireless IP Phone
by Philips Accessories
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Our Price: $499.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $115.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Philips VOIP841 PC-Free DECT 6.0 Wireless IP Phone
Customer Review: Well thought out and straightforward
Summary: 4 Stars
The phone is gorgeous in high gloss black ... puts Belkin and Linksys offerings to shame, but finger prints take a lot of effort to remove. Fit and finish are good and it's nice that Philips included all the necessary cables (ethernet and regular phone). Yes there is a mini jack that accepts a headset (my Panasonic works) and here is volume output that is finally loud enough for me. For some reason, the jack location is about 1/8" too low for the headset to remain plugged in when you return the phone to the charging cradle. I can't tell if this is deliberate or a design oversight. Handset batteries are a pair of standard AAA NiMH--good because replacements are cheap and easy to find, but I can't help but think the talk time would be more with a custom battery. We'll see.
Navigation is decent--no confusion if you know your way around a cell phone. The screen is easy to read but, like a cell phone, the contact list is only about 11 characters wide so long names are truncated. Philips makes the selected contact name scroll like a ticker, but it would be nice to just to see more of the name to begin with. Setup for me into a Linksys router was effortless.
I was a Skype user before I bought this phone so the first thing I miss is the ability to conference several contacts in to a single call I am hosting. I'm finding that Skype on my Mac still works (login with same username) so I can enter contacts on my keyboard and they update the handset a couple of minutes later. However, I do notice that sometimes my active contacts are grayed out on my Mac, possibly because the handset was off hook recently and has not released control. Sound quality is a little tinny compared to Skype on a Mac with a hard wired USB headset, but still respectable.
If I had one wish, that would be a menu option to make all the land line features disappear. As it stands, I can dial the number to a regular phone but have to select SkypeOut or land line when I place the call. Since I don't have a land line, this is an extra step for me each time (This doesn't apply to numbers already entered into my Skype contact list).
All in all I am very satisfied. The phone looks awesome and belongs in the MoMA, and I am saving a good chunk of change by terminating my land line. BTW, since I have a cell phone that gets me 911, I doesn't bother me that Skype doesn't provide this.
Customer Review: The cost killer
Summary: 5 Stars
When I moved in the US from France, I didn't want to pay 30 or 40 $/month just to have a line. I analysed the skype and the vonage offers and I deducted, as I am never stuck to any phone, it was the less expensive plan.
I use this phone with the same login as my PC's one and I spent less than 30$ in 5 months. I call Europe (fixed lines or mobile ones) and the US. My first call was from a friend in Dubai. She saw that I was connected on skype, but it was late in the night for me.
The pros :
- cheap
- user friendly except the contacts
- no need to have the computer open
- works with a fixed line, but I don't have one
The cons :
- you can't see your outlook contacts on the phone, you have to duplicate your address book even is on the PC's skype these contacts are mixed with your skypeout contacts
- sometimes you can't access to the skype informations; you have to try 3 or 4 times to press on the history or contacts buttons
- once (5 months ago, but the first one), I had to take off the batteries for 8 hours to reset the device
Quite 1 year later:
I had this phone for a few months now. It worked enough for our needs. I amortized it many months ago. I sometimes had to take off the batteries for a few hours when the system didn't want to work anymore. You have to wait 15 seconds to access the contact list, idem for the history. You have to change the batteries every 7 months. But for this price (except the fact that Amazon places the price at $400 instead of $110), I don't care about these 15 seconds.
But this last month, it has been really awful. Anybody can reach us. We receive voice mails 30 minutes later. I was ready to buy a new one. The problem is that there seems to be any phone that doesn't have these problems!
So, I will wait a few months for Skype and Philips to have a real update of the software or produce a real phone that works well. I will just buy a new headset because Skype on the internet is more reliable than with this phone. I will cross my fingers for the service to come back properly (even if it is slow). And I will still save a lot of money by not having this expensive $40/month land line!
Customer Review: The Best Skype Phone I Used So Far...
Summary: 4 Stars
I highly recommend the Philips VOIP 841. I have used one of Linksys's older models (that connected to the computer over USB, Linksys CIT300 Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit) and I wasn't impressed at all. It was quite slow at times. I've also tried the Belkin Wifi Skype phone, Linksys WIP320 Linksys Wireless-G Skype iPhone ,which I thought would be really nice, because it connects directly to any wireless network. Unfortunately, it was even slower than the Linksys (wait a few seconds to access anything) and it's battery life was terrible. In the end I decided to try the Philips after seeing reviews online.
The phone's base station connects to your home phone line and your DSL Modem/Wireless Router via a network cable (RJ45/Cat5/Ethernet). The phone has a separate charging station that can be connected anywhere the signal reaches in the house (in case your modem isn't near where you want the phone to be) acts as a regular landline and Skype phone. You will need to have a Skype account to sign into Skype. The phone works with both free Skype-to-Skype calls, (e.g. where both people have Skype phones or Skype on their computer), SkypeOut (where the Skype part of the phone calls regular landlines and mobile phones) and SkypeIn (where people can phone a normal telephone number that is mapped to your Skype account). SkypeIn was a yearly subscription and after that all incoming calls are free. SkypeOut is on a per minute basis and differs from destination country to country. You can use your credit card on the Skype website to do this, or PayPal. You can also configure Skype to auto charge you with a certain amount when your account gets low.
The phone performs well, it is speedy and call quality is excellent. There are a few times where the phone seems to lose connection to its base station once in a while, and phone resets itself when this happens. Browsing your call history takes some times as well; however dialing and bringing up the contacts list is quick (though I have a small contact list).
Customer Review: Great VOIP phone, easy to use and at great price.
Summary: 4 Stars
Just got this phone 2 days ago (saw on Skype.com for $129.99) and a joy to use and setup. I Got this as I travel and use Skype to keep in contact with family.
Bottom line is: I wanted a VOIP handset that was easy to setup and install. Also wanted one that my wife could use without the dreaded 10 min tech. explanation about which button sequence to hit to make a simple call. If you use a cell phone, using this handset will feel second nature. A friend has the WiFi Netgear ($149) and complains about it occasionally dropping calls & losing connection to base unit.
Pros:
-Great price, I feel about $20 too much, but still a great deal compared to Skype's store price.
-the least painless setup I have ever had for any electronic device I have ever used >ever!< (I have a cable modem connected to a wireless router but have no landline. -I plugged the LAN cable from Philip's box into wireless router, 10 seconds later handset beeps asked for my Skype user name & password, five seconds later, it's working!) Everyone I have talked to using the handset have commented on better sound quality (was using headset with boom mike before).
-Uses two small AA rechargeable batteries = lightweight handset.
-Design is smart and minimal, ie: the handset looks like a "normal" cordless handset, not a design that will in six months feel dated.
-Menu will feel familiar to anyone who uses a cellphone for inputting names and details.
Cons:
-Display screen is too small -not massively undersized but when scrolling through contacts, hard to see. ex: if you have a contact with a Skype & landline number, cannot link both together as you usually can with a cell phone.
-Base unit is smudge magnet (think of iPod black gloss finish) Not a big complaint but slightly annoying.
-Speaker phone function/volume is a little too quiet, it works but if you are planning to have group/family conversations, may be too low volume.
I really like this phone, it was easy to setup, does exactly what it says it will do and by having a PC-free handset for Skype, a snap to make calls.
Customer Review: Customer Service Lacking
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased this phone because I am living overseas and Skype is the only means I have of affordabley communicating with my family and friends in the U.S. The phone appears to work fine, needs some user-friendly updates, but overall serves its purpose. The problem is Phillips customer service--in November 2007, seven months after I purchased and received the phone, the charger completely died. Two times I've spoken with Phillips customer service representatives, who have mailed a new charger to my APO address; however, mysteriously, I have never received a new charger. In the first case, I waited 6 weeks before requesting they re-send the new charger. Now, four months later, I'm still waiting for the ostensible second charger, having received nothing from Phillips in the mail. Our APO service has been flawless to date, and vendors have had no problem mailing anything to us. Packages predominantly arrive between 2-4 weeks after placing an order, and there are no restrictions that would preclude us from being able to receive this phone charger (after all, it was through the APO address that we first received the phone). Additionally, the government records when packages are received. They have no record of a package for us from Phillips. So what's going on? Is Phillips lying to us about mailing a phone charger? Their product is completely useless to us right now, and coincidentally, we are arriving near to the one year warranty date. My opinion is that if you're going to spend this much money on a piece of technology that needs to be reliable, because it will serve a vital purpose in your life, then the lack of customer service assistance from Phillips is enough to discourage me from buying this product again or recommending it to friends and family. I encourage you to keep looking for a phone like this, but produced by a different company. We will not purchase a Phillips phone product like this again, after experiencing this problem, and four months later, having a simple problem remain unresolved. It makes me wonder what is next to fail, AFTER our warranty has expired.