Customer Reviews

Skyoe USB phone

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Since SkypeIn and SkypeOut were introduced, I have bought and experimented with a variety of IP phones, but none of them were truly workable: I wanted to use my sound card AND my Skype phone, side-by-side, even simultaneously.

(My wife was quick to point out on one occasion that the sounds of the screensaver were smartly layered over her conversation on another Skype device. End of experiment.)

The Free-1 is THE solution. It installs its own sound driver that uses the Free-1 for Skype and nothing else. The sound quality is excellent, and while the phone is smaller than you might imagine (it's not much longer than a stick of DDR memory), it is comfortable to hold for long conversations (at least for a generation raised on cellphones).

I no longer keep a phone at the computer with this bad boy available. Until midnight this New Year's Eve, I'm making every outgoing call to North America with the Free-1 and Skype! It is every bit as good as my landline and sooooo much cheaper.

Honestly, if there were six stars to hand out, I would gladly do so.

First off, I can't really comment on this device if your going to be using it with windows, only Mac.

I bought this based on other reviewers as well as the fact that it was the only USB skype phone I could find that had drivers for OSX.

The good things about this phone are the following :

- Excellent sound quality. I can't say anything negative on this front.
- VERY light
- compact size.
- long cord (though I wish like the philips phone I had before this that it provided a groove around the outer edge of the phone to wind the cord around the phone).

The OSX "driver" is another issue. Overall when you boot up it works fine, my problem is that since I'm using it with a laptop, my laptop invariably goes to sleep or I will shut the lid and go grab lunch etc. When I return and start using my computer, if I try and use the phone, it's totally disconnected from Skype. I have to unload skype, unload the driver, then reload to get it working again. For casual use, I could recommend this phone. If like another person said in their reviews if you just want a phone to call home with or make an occasional call, again I would recommend. If your like me however and wanted to use this as a phone to use throughout the day and rely on it to make and receive calls, you might think again. I have had numerous occasions where I've answered and I get nothing. People get a bit impatient when you have to always call them back and explain away your phone problems.

Overall I think the "driver" overshot here. First I originally had a philips phone that had NO OSX drivers. It worked great as a handset, but the buttons didn't work. So this driver only needed to handle the ability to use the keypad on it. The mic/speaker should have been left to the OS (which I'm sure would ordinarily work without any drivers. If they'd done that at least I wouldn't be answering calls and either not hearing the other party or the other party not hearing me. Instead they appear to have tried to write drivers for the mic/speaker which means they seem to think they know better than apple... probably the reason it's having issues.

I would also add if your buying this for a desktop system that will mostly be on (you can't close the lid on a desktop ;) ) this would probably work better for you than for me on a laptop.

So, overall a mixed review. I like this phone, but it's dependability for moderate to heavy use just isn't there.

Having got fed up with the irritating echoes on Skype through the computer speakers, plus the fact that talking into a microphone in front of your PC isn't very relaxing, I decided to get a Skype phone handset. I knew what I wanted - a corded handset, nothing too expensive, that worked out of the box. I also wanted - and this was the tricky part - to find one that would also work on my Mac and not just the PC.

When checking around for products I was amazed at how expensive some of this stuff was. Equally there was some very cheap stuff out there but I had no idea if it would work. Fortunately I stumbled across the IPEVO FREE1 phone and various reviews that said it worked on Mac OSX (if you download the drivers) so I ordered it.

Straight away I have to say that this whole buying experience was excellent - Amazon are usually very good for me but this time they excelled; my phone arrived less than 36 hours after I had ordered it and even with Free Super Saver Delivery. It cost me £17.99 which is one heck of a bargain.

When it arrived I plugged it into the USB port on my Mac and it worked as a phone instantly. However pressing all the little buttons on it did nothing so I went to the IPEVO website and downloaded the drivers, realised that I have to run a little separate program as well as Skype, ran the program and off it went. I had a choice of ringtones on the handset (all pretty basic), where the sound came from (I could have it from the computer's speakers or the Free1 handset), how loud various bits `n bobs were. Basically all the things you might need to change. It's got some useful buttons on it that scroll down your Skype contacts list so you don't actually have to touch the computer to make calls and stuff.

I then loaded the drivers for the PC, plugged it into the PC and it worked instantly then too (although I did have to shut down first, as it informed me). I can't think of the last time I plugged the same new piece of hardware into both PC and Mac and it worked first time, so 10 points for IPEVO for that. Sound quality seems fine on both platforms, there's a little green light so you know it's working and... what more can I say. A great bit of kit, a smaller handset than your usual home phone (it's 15cm long and just under 4cm wide) and it works. It's a great little phone that I highly recommend.

the ipevo usb handset is stylish and lightweight piece. design-wise, it has already gathered several awards and there's little to add but praise. in terms of sound, it's been perfect so far - loud and clear. there are several extensive reviews on the web, and all of them seem to rate it very positively. works very well with both mac (in this case mac mini) and pc laptops (an ibm t41 and a fujitsu-siemens). excellent bargain for the price.

I'm experimenting with Skype as my sole phone service and although the service has worked great, I don't enjoy using a headset. This is the first Skype phone I purchased and there is no reason to keep looking.

The first time I used it, I called a co-worker on his cell phone and the clarity was unbelievable. I never before had such a clear call to a cell phone. He commented, "if it wasn't for the caller ID on the cell phone, I wouldn't believe you were calling from a computer."

I brought it to work for others to sample and they were equally amazed.

The only thing I would change is the size. It's a bit smaller than I expected but no different than most cell phones today.

I would recommend this phone to anyone.

I own a mac, and it's hard to find gear for Skype. This is really the perfect Skype companion - sleek in design (I have a black macbook), love the user interface, but most of all, I love the voice quality. Very, very clear. Much better than all the others I've tried (philips and polycom). Much cheaper too, which made me very happy :-)

I have a mac, and this is an awesome Skype phone. Hook it up, plug in the driver, and you'll be good to go. Super-clear voice quality with the best echo cancelation of all Skype phones out there. A must have!

When I first got the IPEVO phone I was really happy. The design was sleek. People no longer hear echo from my end.

After a couple weeks of usage, problems begin to emerged. The driver crashes multiple times on a daily basis. People start to stay they hear distortion in my voice (at least once in every half hour long conversation). I thought this would be the perfect solution but turns out to be another huge disappointment.

I spend a great deal of time on the phone using Skype, so at first I was really excited to actually have a handset, however, gradually we were starting to have problems with this phone.

After 2-3 months we had occasional problems where there would be noise on the line or we couldn't hear the other person. It kept getting worse, and now, 6 months after we bought the phone it's completely dead. This is a huge disappointment, since I use a Mac, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of Skype phones available for Macs.

My main complaint with this handset is that the drivers are a bit buggy. Sometimes if it gets disconnected, you have to restart everything to get it to work. Lately it's been having trouble connecting to skype, so it doesn't ring even though the rest of the features work.

The other complaint about this phone is that the square edges are not comfortable when held against your ear for long periods of time.

I haven't tried other skype handsets but I think I will look elsewhere when i purchase my next one