I'd wanted a decent headset or phone to use with Skype for ages. I did a bit of research and settled on one of these. And very pleased with it I am!
Found all over the web for sale from £24-£45 (inc. P&P), cheapest I found here in the UK was "premiere-express" on ebay.co.uk. They were very prompt in delivering it too.
There seem to be 2 colour schemes available, black and two tone grey but I cant find any other differences. The unit plugs into any USB socket. The microphone and headset are recognized as standard "USB audio devices". The audio in Headset mode is loud and clear. Even in Speaker mode it does a good job of isolating the microphone from the loudspeaker so that it’s almost impossible to get any audio feedback audio unless the person at the other end has a very bad setup. Loudspeaker audio is clear and loud enough for use up to a couple of meters from the phone.
Build quality is excellent. It’s just a shame that they didn’t design it to hang on the wall; the handset will fall off if you try. The internal ringer is plenty loud enough for me. Nice big buttons and real phone like feel make it comfortable to use. It sits permanently by my keyboard ready for duty!
The phone comes with a small program called "SkypeMate" (updates available on the web) which takes most of the pain out of configuring the audio devices to work with Windows and Skype. If you pull the USB plug out of the PC then plug it back in, Skype will be automatically configured back to the phone which is what it ought to do but not what usually happens as anyone familiar with Windows USB audio devices will know! Unfortunately I sometimes find that after I’ve reconnected the phone, the main speaker audio also gets directed to the headset so a quick change in the control panel is still required to get things back to what they should be. Moral of story, don’t disconnect the phone from the PC!
Furthermore if I get an incoming Skype call, I can just pick up the headset and the call will be connected just like a normal phone, no mucking about with the keyboard anymore which I really like. There is also an indication of who the caller is on the phone display, It means I can leave the PC screen off and still accept calls. If I pick up the handset to make an outgoing call I will get a dial tone in my ear until I have started dialing also just like a real phone.
There is a version of the phone that comes with a small USB webcam on a flexible stalk (type P4V). This cost me £36 inc. P&P on ebay. The camera stalk is very flexible so can be twisted to point in any direction. It connects to the back of the phone body by a USB connector, (so only one usb cable is required to go to the PC). I've recently tried one of these too. It has a very small CCD (300k sensor, thats 1/4 VGA resolution) so I didnt expect too much from this. In fact it works very well.
I’m very impressed with these devices. It means that Skype now really works for me when calling friends abroad via broadband.
Dominic
6th Jan 2007
