Netgear Wi-Fi Skype Phone

Netgear’s Wi-Fi Skype phone is a great little phone. It looks like a mobile, but instead of relaying messages using traditional mobile towers at traditionally expensive call rates, the Netgear phone connects your call through voip (voice over IP) provider Skype. What does that mean? Well, call rates are really, really cheap.

The phone basically sports the Skype application’s interface minus any IM features. Which is a bit of a shame, it would be fairly redundant on the mobile keypad, but I’m sure it would not have been too hard to add to the wi-fi phone.

Whilst we are on the negative aspects of the phone, it doesn’t support SMS messages (which Skype does) and being a wi-fi phone it does leave you chained to your wireless router.

However, because I purchased the phone primarily as a second phone number (by coupling it with a Skype-In number so others think they’re calling a normal landline) I don’t mind overlooking these other shortcomings. It works exactly as you would expect, and it is fairly clear and responsive. There isn’t the traditional voip lag either, though that is probably attributable to my ADSL 2+ net connection.

So if you’re looking for a good voip phone then I would look into Netgear’s Skype phone. It’s especially attractive with wi-fi connectivity.