New toy: Belkin Wi-Fi Skype phone
Category musings
My new toy arrived today: a shiny black Belkin Wi-Fi Skype phone. I'd been talking myself out of buying it for a while, but when it showed up on Pricegrabber for $50 less than the original list price, impulse took over. And I have to say, I'm pleased so far. It had a decent charge right out of the box (I made an hour-long call and still had a fair amount of battery life left), is easy to configure, and charges via mini USB - either by connecting it to a computer or via AC adapter. It claims to have a 50 hour standby and 3 hour talk time battery life... we'll see. It's very lightweight, but doesn't feel flimsy. It only comes loaded with 3 ringtones, but they're not overly pretentious or obnoxious... and, surprisingly, it has both a silent mode and a vibrate option - unlike some cellphones I've used, which only vibrate if the ringer is turned off, this device allows vibrate to be set to always, never, or only when silent.
One of the criticisms I've read of the Netgear equivalent is that the lack of an included browser essentially renders the device useless in most wireless hotspots (i.e. airports, hotels). Belkin, on the other hand, has partnered with Boingo: for $8 a month, you can configure the Belkin phone to automatically connect to any hotspot that Boingo supports. At the moment, there are around 60,000 in 76 countries - pretty much every airport in the U.S. (11 in California alone) and 9000 hotels worldwide (1600 just in the U.K.). I don't travel much, but I signed up anyway because I'll be saving far more than that now that I can switch to using my Treo just for emergencies. And reading eBooks, of course.
My new toy arrived today: a shiny black Belkin Wi-Fi Skype phone. I'd been talking myself out of buying it for a while, but when it showed up on Pricegrabber for $50 less than the original list price, impulse took over. And I have to say, I'm pleased so far. It had a decent charge right out of the box (I made an hour-long call and still had a fair amount of battery life left), is easy to configure, and charges via mini USB - either by connecting it to a computer or via AC adapter. It claims to have a 50 hour standby and 3 hour talk time battery life... we'll see. It's very lightweight, but doesn't feel flimsy. It only comes loaded with 3 ringtones, but they're not overly pretentious or obnoxious... and, surprisingly, it has both a silent mode and a vibrate option - unlike some cellphones I've used, which only vibrate if the ringer is turned off, this device allows vibrate to be set to always, never, or only when silent.One of the criticisms I've read of the Netgear equivalent is that the lack of an included browser essentially renders the device useless in most wireless hotspots (i.e. airports, hotels). Belkin, on the other hand, has partnered with Boingo: for $8 a month, you can configure the Belkin phone to automatically connect to any hotspot that Boingo supports. At the moment, there are around 60,000 in 76 countries - pretty much every airport in the U.S. (11 in California alone) and 9000 hotels worldwide (1600 just in the U.K.). I don't travel much, but I signed up anyway because I'll be saving far more than that now that I can switch to using my Treo just for emergencies. And reading eBooks, of course.
