Customer Reviews

Netgear SPH101 Skype Wi-Fi Phone

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

Much like the Belkin/Accton/SMC/Edgecore rendition of the Skype Wi-fi phone, the Netgear SPH101 runs an embedded version of Linux with custom modules for the wireless and user interface portions. A glaring flaw in the first generation of Wi-fi phone is the lack of an onboard browser with which to access hotpoints that require authentication. Unlike the Belkin and clones, the Netgear SPH101 supports only WPA-PSK rather than the more advanced 802.1x method of authentication. Unfortunately, this prevents the device from being used in many college and corporate wireless environments where 802.1x is increasingly being implemented to authenticate browserless Wi-fi devices. The speaker used for the speakerphone is prone to crackling when used and the position of the microphone on the front of the phone requires careful handling of the phone in order to keep from picking up handling noise or phone movement. The Netgear is unique in that it is the only phone in the current generation to not be derived from the Accton Skype Wi-fi phone whereas the SMC, Edgecore and Belkin are merely cosmetically modified reditions of the Accton. Contrary to some reports floating around the internet, the Netgear SPH101 does not support Skype to Skype text chat. Apparently this feature was present in some prerelease versions of the phone and perhaps will hopefully reappear in the future. Currently, the Netgear SPH101 lacks some features that prevent it from being a true mobile Skype solution. Hopefully the missing features will be added in future revisions of the firmware. Either that, or being that the firmware is based off a build of Arm-Linux, perhaps those features can be added to alternative versions of the firmware by folks similar to those intrepid tinkerers of the Linksys WRT54G.

Just received mine after long backorder. One major item prevents it being really useful - with no builtin browser there is no way to authenticate and use free or fee-based public WiFi networks except in limited ways - e.g. my home.

No metro based WiFi networks, no coffee shops .. few hotels. So near yet so far.

Sound quality is actually superior to my PC for Skype. Size is good. Recharges off USB cable to my laptop so extra power brick not needed. Power management needs work.

I bought four of these Netgear wi-fi skype phones for our office since we speak everyday with our engineers on site in Africa.

The idea of having a phone always on without having to be connected with your PC is certainly great and particularly time-saving.

However, even if the phone works quite well, it is full of small bugs.

I had to re-enter the details of my connection 8 times until it memorized them, it lost the phonebook twice, it is not very easy to install, etc. etc.

Therefore if you really need now a wi-fi skyoe phone please buy it. Otherwise wait for a more tested model to appear.

I had this on pre-order for many weeks. Just as it shipped, I saw many negative reviews in here. I decided to take delivery anyway and see for myself.

I have come to regret this decision. The unit is really as bad as previous reviewers have indicated.

Battery life is poor. They advertise 3 hours talktime. I charged the unit fully, left all brightness and timeout settings on default and connected to a WiFi access point that has a signal strength to the SPH101 of between 90% and 100%, so conditions are set reasonably well towards achieving the indicated talk-time. I only got 48 minutes out of it!

In-built speaker which is used to play the ringtones and also in speakerphone mode is extremly low quality. It screeches when the ringtone is played back at any volume level above the lowest setting.

If you set up a preferred access point and this access point does not broadcast it's SSID, the phone will not try to connect to it. You have to manually select the access point from your preferred AP list in the phone and tell the phone to connect. So if your access point doesn't broadcast it's SSID for whatever reason, do not expect the SPH101 to connect to it seamlessly.

Another annoyance is that it doesn't do WPA with AES. TKIP is the only accepted encryption methond. It doesn't do WPA2 at all.

A cool feature I discovered is that the phone seems to have a facility to automatically look for firmware updates and download them. No need to fiddle with cables, FTP, TFTP or web interfaces to get new firmware installed.

I will not send the phone back, because there seems to be no alternative right now and I am hoping that new firmware will come out to address the WiFi and battery-life issues. That would only leave the issue of the speaker quality. Why they put such a cheap and scratchy speaker module in there is beyond me.

After waiting almost 6 months for this Skypephone, and its competitor from Belkin, to come to market through numerous postponements, I just gave up and bought an Asus P525 smartphone. For just over double the price of the Netgear I got a Windows CE PDA with GSM capability and full Skype compatibility. When browsing through your phone contacts your are given the choice to call through GSM or Skype. Because you have built-in Wi-Fi, you can make Skype calls and chats from any covered area, plus you can go on the internet using IE and check your e-mails with Outlook. I have also read that the Skype software that runs on dedicated phones like the Netgear and the Belkin is very crude due to the lack of processing power, whereas with a Windows CE-based device you have much faster processors that allow a Skype software closer to the one used on PCs.
For those of you alergic to Windows, just wait for the Skype for Symbian release and buy a Nokia or SonyEricsson smartphone.
Bottom line: Skype is too good an application to be wasted on poorly designed hardware.

I am supremely dissapointed in this product. The battery life estimate was changed from 50 hours down to 20 hours between when I ordered it and when it finally shipped. I can't even get near that. I had intended to take the phone with me on the road, but it won't last an eight hour day unless I don't use it at all, and even then ten hours is as much as I can get out of it. I can get barely an hour of talk time, then it's dead. I feel like I have a phone that has to be constantly plugged in, and if that's the case I could tether a usb phone to my laptop for $hundreds less than I spent on this. If I had the opportunity, I would return it.

Don't buy this. Wait for a better attempt from some other company...

I completely agree with W. Yeh's assessment of this unit but would like to add a few "nits" to the mix.

Voice Quality: Call clarity on the SPH101 couldn't approach that of Skype on my laptop. Lots of dropouts and static occurred that would typically be associated with network problems. After doing some isolation tests, I concluded that the units CPU was likely underpowered and was the cause of many and various audio artifacts.

Battery Life: Twenty (20) minutes talk time killed more than half of the available battery life. Six hours of standby completely drained the unit.

I am returning the unit tomorrow.

I purchased 2 units of this products and return both units back to Netgear.
First of all, netgear should carefully do a QC on this product before release in the market.

1. This phone gets extremely hot after talking for more than 10 mins onwards.

2. The battery life only last for 1 hour if you continue talking on the phone.

I think may be the WI-FI chipset in this phone is giving the problem. It consumes all the batt life and the heat it generates.

Wrote a complain email to Netgear. They still have no solutions to this issue.
Not recommend to get this phone unless the problems listed is not your concern.

I had really looked forward to this device, but its numerous flaws substantially outweigh its real potential.

The device itself is flawed in a couple of important ways. The battery is very poor and there is no opportunity to replace the battery (for instance, to have a second on hand when a first battery runs out of energy). It's hard to imagine a serious phone today without a speakerphone capability, but you can imagine the designing engineers worrying that it would limit the battery life even further.

It's worth noting that you can simply turn the phone on and use it. When you turn the phone on and register on the Skype network you must wait until the contact list is downloaded to the phone. That takes, in my experience, about 90 seconds.

I've also had the experience of some of the other reviewers where the phone will simply lock up, freeze and deplete a fully charged battery in a matter of seconds.

It is simply not a device you could count on. You couldn't use this device as a dependable solution for Skype access over WiFi.

Finally, I find myself agreeing with those people who have had significant problems with Netgear's support. Their support ticketing system is hard-to-use, takes too much time and wastes the time of the frustrated owner.

I wonder: did Netgear test this device in public at all? It doesn't seem like they could have!

This phone is a great idea, but not so nicelly implemented.
- The battery life is very short (as many have commented);
- The phone gets warm after 10 minutes of conversation;
- The firmware is poor. Many times even the screen timeout doesn't work, living the lcd screen on and draining the battery;
- The worst thing on it is that the phone can't connect any wifi network that has web-based login. So you will not be able to connect your phone in most shopping centers, airports, etc, even if it's free! This seems to be a simple fix in the firmware, but Netgear is beeing _very_ slow on enhancing it (they sure now how).
If you do not really need an wifi skype phone now, better wait a second generation.
3 stars just for the ideia.