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Cisco Unified IP Phone 7942G
by hunts1874
I have been using this handset for the past 3 months, since the phone system at work was upgraded. So far, so good as this phone has been fantastic. Like any good office phone, the Cisco 7942G has a LCD Display, Speakerphone, Call Forwarding (this is handy when I am not in the office), the ability to conference call and has an extra ... port for plugging in a headset.
The speakerphone is of a good quality. I have found with some phones in the past that the person you are speaking to can't hear you very well or you can't hear the person you are speaking to very well, this is not the case with this phone. I haven't experienced any such problems.
Features that I have found to be useful are being able to dial a number when the phone is on the hook. I find this particularly useful when dialing someone's number I am unfamiliar with and reading it off my emails. The other nice feature is that all my colleagues numbers are saved in an address book which can be accessed directly from the handset. Not that the telephone system at work supports it, but I believe the Cisco 7942G supports Caller ID too.
The Cisco 7942 has a nice selection of ring tones. The handset also have a red light which flashes when the phone is ringing. This is useful if someone in your office was deaf or hard of hearing. The red light is soild when you have a voicemail. The handset also has 1 button dialing for retrieving your voicemail as well as two buttons which you can program numbers for one button dialing. There is room on the handset to fit more of these buttons on, which would have been nice.
I have been very impressed with the phone and I have yet to come across something I need to do with the phone that it hasn't been able to do.
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USRobotics USB Internet Phone 9600A
by northernlovely
I purchased the USRobotics USB Internet Phone 9600A about five years ago now, when broadband internet was really picking up and calls via the internet via programs like Skype were becoming more and more possible, and popular. Obviously the real draw is being able to call other countries for free, but another advantage for us at the time ... was that you don't need to have a BT line or pay a BT connection fee (we had moved into a flat which had BT wall sockets but the connection was £160!).
We purchased the USRobotics USB Internet Phone 9600A from Tesco on special offer at £20 which was a great price at the time for a USB Skype phone. It came with a Skype setup CD too (not that we needed it as we already had Skype installed).
The phone is fairly basic, but that's not a bad thing, as it's really quite plug and play. It pulls power from the USB port, so there are no batteries or charging to worry about. In terms of looks, it is very much modelled on an early Nokia, with it's grey silver / metallic finish, and the button layout, with up / down menu buttons, red 'drop call' and green 'make call' buttons, and the keypad.
The phone can be programmed so you can speed dial including voicemail, and the screen though mono and fairly blocky, is very large and clear to read. You can adjust the volume of the call via the handset and the audio quality for us is very good. Of course with it being a Skype phone (or any other internet phone service) you may occasionally get the odd blip or crackle, and of course if either end loses their internet connection the call is dropped. So I wouldn't say the quality is comparable to a land line phone, though it is excellent in terms of being a free call made over the internet! We actually paid for an incoming number with Skype and the USB handset can be set up with a variety of basic but not too bad ring tones (much like an early cordless phone). It even has caller display.
The USB cable is long, about two feet, longer than the average USB cable length and this is a decent consideration that you might not want or need to be staring at the computer screen when you're talking (as you can operate the call from the handset). It does at least allow you to sit in a chair next to the computer without having to be hovering over it. It did however get irritating having to be in the same position in order to make and receive calls. This is why we eventually upgraded to a WiFi Skype phone which we used for some time before moving to a traditional land line. We moved to this because of the aforementioned call quality issues, it simply became a bit irritating to be on the phone and it goes silent. In terms of the handset itself I cannot fault it though - but I don't think the internet will ever be reliable enough!
We still use Skype, but without a dedicated internet phone handset, as now we both have laptops and so do our family, we can talk AND webcam at the same time for free. I think this is the main drawback of the USRobotics USB Internet Phone 9600A or any internet phone. The call quality will never be enough to truly be a replacement for a traditional landline, and of course, you're not benefitting from the major advantage of Skype - that you can see the person you are calling.
That said, for what it is, the USRobotics USB Internet Phone 9600A was certainly an affordable, well made and reliable hanset, which was easy to use. If you do spend a lot of time talking to someone using an internet voice service, and the lack of webcam isn't an issue, and the price of the calls (say free from country to country) overrides the call cut outs and blips, then I'd certainly recommend it as you can pick it up for a ridiculously cheap price on eBay. If you can spend a bit more though I would recommend a WiFi alternative as you can also pick those up cheaply.
For me, I'm glad I have my trusty landline. But when money was tight the £20 handset and negligible monthly fee of Skype did allow me to keep in touch with my family on what to all intents and purposes felt like a decent quality phone, even if they didn't themselves have a computer. Now times have moved on it's not something I use any more, but I can easily see it being very handy to say a student, or someone travelling as a cheaper alternative to using a mobile phone for calls, especially if free WiFi is being utilised!
A 4/5 for me considering the pluses and negatives. You can't really go wrong for what they cost now.
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