Linksys WIP320 Linksys Wireless-G Skype iPhone
by Linksys
(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: LinksysAudio: English (Original Language)
Release Date: 2006-11-20
Model: WIP320
Product features:
- Product Type - Skype Phone
- Warranty - 1 year limited
- Transmit Power -- 12.5 dBm for 802.11g / 16.6 dBm for 802.11b
- Radio Range -- Outdoor up to 200m, Indoor up to 75m via embedded antenna
- Voip Internet Accelerator Intelligent Packet Priority Engine
- USRobotics USB Internet Speakerphone (USR9610)
- Linksys Network Optimizer for Gaming and VoIP
- Linksys Internet Phone Adapter with 2 Ports for Voice-over-IP PAP2T-NA - VoIP phone adapter
- Linksys Spa8000-G1 8-Port Ip Telephony Gateway
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Linksys WIP320 Linksys Wireless-G Skype iPhone
Customer Review: very useful new age long distance phone
Summary: 4 Stars
Some reviews already exist, so I'll be brief and to the point.
If you're not technology literate and expect things to work out of the box, stay away from this. Really - it's not plug_and_play. If you like to fiddle and take pride in having next gen technology work for you, you may like it. Even love it. And hey, if you have family in Europe (like I do) you will save money using this, despite the fact that long distance bills aren't what they used to be...
You *know* what Skype is, right? If you haven't used it on your PC before, forget it and stop right away. As a Skype user, for long I have wanted to replace my house landline with a Skype phone. And since I am moving out of my house for a year or more, this is a chance to set things up with next generation technology. No phone in the house. My cell and the Skype connectivity ought to be more than enough.
The phone is well packaged and appealingly designed. The cool white color and overall minimalist design display represent highlights. The packaging is simple - instructions (which you may just as well toss away, as we shall see), the phone with battery and battery cover you assemble together quickly, and finally a charger with a USB connector - simply to charge the battery. The phone itself is remarkably easy to navigate and naturally intuitive with people who have used Skype and with cell phones, it's a hybrid between the two, but geared to simply connect to a wireless router and become a stand alone Skype handset. The keyboard layout is simple, and the menu easy to navigate with the little navigation pad and the 2 softkeys.
From here, I thought things would be easy, power the phone up and then the menu seemed simple and intuitive - and my wireless setup is simple (WEP 64) and I know it by heart. But the WIP320 refused to connect. There are not many connectivity options to try, and I knew the wireless network just works.
So I had to be off to the Linksys.com support area. Lo and behold, hidden in there is a new firmware section that you *MUST* download. You *MUST* - go there right away. This required a USB cable from computer to WIP320 that is not included in the box, but if you're like me you have plenty of them around (they come with every second USB gadget).
The software update is quite fundamental. You have to download 24MB, not an unsubstantial upgrade package. You have to start with the phone turned off, and the a secret and awkward key combination that will get your WinXP computer to find a driver caller Gadget or something like that (not very intuitive) and then the upgrade process will go on and take 20 minutes or so. Not a gentle get-to-know each other phase, as you may have gathered. I am used to first generation gadgets, but this one had eve me whistling though my teeth a little.
Now to the good news: With the upgrade, the phone connected to my wireless network.
So with the installation complete, how does it work? Nicely. Very decent voice quality (which admittedly one should expect from a $80+ phone) and familiar Skype functionality. It just works.
I have not experienced any functional issues, the phone does not get warm, and the wireless functionality seems stable. Battery life seems a tad inconsistent - it will be OK at times, then again go down in big steps very quickly. But I have not run out of power.
The build quality of the phone seems somewhat flimsy, though, with key press and such feeling "cheap", but that is just an opinion and a matter of taste. I am also a tad surprised that ring tones are so limited in an expensive phone. And while having a compact cell phone format is nice, I'd prefer this phone to be a big bigger and substantial, since it is my home phone. Perhaps less plasticky feeling. But I understand other users may carry them around from Hotspot to Hotspot, and demand portability - and probably in a few years we basically all will.
Some limitations... inconsistent battery level indicator, and the power budget is definitely on the tight side - keep the phone next to your bed overnight, and the battery will be near empty the next mornin - without having made a call. Probably another firmware release away, but then again WiFi is always going to be powerhungrier than other technologies, I guess, part of the price you pay for next gen technology.
Also, for some reason I would have expected the phone to be more configurable when it came to ringtones and such - Skype allows one to import tones into the application, this phone does not. Vwery configurable it isn't. But Linksys seems to release open source code for it, so probably one will find more personalized stuff over time - a wake-up function would be nice, for example.
All in all, I am glad that Linksys presents me with this alternative to traditional telephony - it just works (after some initial fiddling that may be too much for the average user).
Description of Linksys WIP320 Linksys Wireless-G Skype iPhone
The iPhone WIP320 is part of the iPhone family of handheld devices which harness the power of the Internet to deliver more than talk, uniting the familiarity of the telephone with compelling Internet services, access to personal content, and integration with the home to create complete communications solutions. iPhone - More than TalkDigital Cameras and Photo Categories
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