Netgear SPH200W WiFi Phone with Skype

List Price: $169.99 Discount Price: $149.99

Features:

• Makes and receives Skype phone calls wherever you have WiFi access1
• Works with most leading Wi-Fi hotspot providers including T-Mobile USA¹
• Lets you talk for free to other Skype users without a PC
• Calls any phone worldwide at low SkypeOut rates and NO MONTHLY FEES

Customer Reviews:

netgear voip [Posted on 2008-04-04]
the netgear telephone works fine only when the internet signal is very strong. otherwise the phone will disconnect and then connect again. needs a stronger signal than a computer and this may be a problem when you are not using your network and are not next to the router. good idea but needs improvement.

weak performance [Posted on 2008-04-21]
i am a little disappointed with the performance. phone needs very strong signal to work, and does not update online contacts. once connected, you can not move as signal is interrupted.

needs good wifi signal  [Posted on 2008-04-24]
It arrived and we charged it, excitedly tried it, but no luck. The Indian lady at tech support walked us thru and said to return it for exchange. Amazon made it easy to return, we got the new one, STILL NO LUCK! Found out that the unit didn't like our house's wireless signal -- we stepped outdoors and it picked up a neighbors signal and began working.

We like it because we don't have to drag the laptop around to Skype. It is nice to walk around as if it were a real cordless phone. Good to hear the zoop noise of Skype signing in, but you must have a good signal. We decided to keep it.

Worst purchase I have ever made [Posted on 2008-05-12]
I do not have a cell signal in my apartment, and I do not want a land line, so I signed up for Skype. I was very happy with the quality, but I wanted to be able to use it without being tied to my computer. I looked into wireless headsets for my PC, but I wanted to be able to make calls without my computer being on, so I decided to get a WiFi phone.

At the time, this model was not available on Amazon and all Skype phones that were had bad reviews. However, Time magazine listed this model as one of the top 10 gadgets of 2007, so I bought one directly from Skype. It quickly became clear to me that Time never even touched one of these phones and was just awarding the idea of a WiFi phone. Otherwise, they would have smashed it against the wall and it would not have made the list.

My first complaint with this phone is the Fisher Price interface. When I pay $150 for something that should cost $50, I expect it to have a very high build quality, not something that feels like a toy. The buttons are hard plastic, difficult to press and provide no tactile response to let you know you have pressed them, as if the phone was made out of Legos.

The second thing I noticed about this phone is its terrible interface. First of all, everything is slow. Turning it on, turning it off, going into any menu, etc. The call History and Contact menus are the worst, since the data for them needs to be downloaded from your Skype account, which is convenient, but should be done in the background so the menus are ready when you open them. Also, the history menu appears to only show calls made, missed and received on the phone itself; not calls made from your Skype account.

The other major interface mistake is that double pressing the 0 key results in a "+" instead of "00". This makes calling 1-800 numbers quite annoying. Apparently, this has something to do with international calling, but I can make international calls from a regular phone that doesn't have a +, so I don't see why this phone needs one.

I have tried this phone with at least one hands free set and it did not work.

I have lost track of what complaint number I am on, but the battery lack-of-life is a major issue. This phone lasts less than a day and a half in standby mode off the cradle without use.

Now that I have gotten all of the technical and interface issues out of the way, let's get to the meat-and-potatoes: using it as a phone. In short, the quality sucks. Skype on your computer allows you to open up a random port on your cable router that you dedicate to Skype to improve its quality. This phone lacks this vital feature, without which, sound quality suffers.

Overall, this phone has fewer features and worse battery life than a cell phone from 15 years ago. I cannot recommend it to anyone at $150. I would not even recommend it at $50.

Netgear Sph200w [Posted on 2008-05-20]
I did not find any use for this product. No help how to use it.

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