Customer Reviews

Skytone USB Speakerphone with LCD By Radian Works Skype Or Other Serv

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This week I've conducted two long legal consultations with clients in Eastern Europe from our Chicago office using this product. We needed a speakerphone because there were two lawyers at our end. The audio quality was at least as good as normal landline telephones and it functioned overall a bit better than our usual speakerphone that is connected to the phone lines, with less clipping from extraneous background noise in comparison with our usual speakerphone. The volume in the speaker was adequate, if not quite as loud as I would like. Our clients had no problems understanding us and we had difficulty only when they spoke softly. We used a camera installed in the laptop to which we attached this speakerphone and found the video to be helpful with these new clients whom we had never met in person. The confidentiality of our communication was assured because SKYPE employs 256-bit encryption that cannot practically be broken. Because this was all computer-to-computer, there was no cost associated with these hour-long calls beyond our normal monthly payment to the DSL provider. I am more or less amazed at the practical utility of SKYPE and with this very economical, very serviceable unit which uses it. It required no configuration and worked right out of the box with the quick installation of a small program for its use. No hassle.

I originally gave this phone 4 stars and it served me well for 3 years. However, now it stopped working after the recent Skype upgrade. Skype has no interest in helping and it appears the manufacturer has gone out of business making it impossible to get driver / software upgrades.


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Its hard to spend nearly $50 on a phone that does not have a wireless handset. However, this phone does not feel cheap and it works as it should. I've been using it with Skype for over a week. Skype was unusable with my generic microphone and surround speakers. Now it works as a normal phone except dialing +1 before every call.

At first the skytone software seemed to hijack my audio so my media or games would not play through the sound card anymore. I found that going to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices -> Audio tab -> Default Device -> select your normal sound card in this drop down. After doing this my games and media played through normal speakers, and ring tones and talking went through the phone.

My only real gripes about the phone are:

the short cord which I replaced with my own
it can't be hooked to a wall
Tech support never responded to my inquiry about the default sound devices, so I fiddled around and fixed it myself.

But the pros far out weigh the cons, because for $38 per year plus this phone I have a US phone that follows me around the world and my friends/family can call me at no additional cost.

I plugged this into my laptop's USB port, ran the setup disk, and started using it in less than 5 minutes. Sound quality on the phone calls varies depending upon the Internet connection and traffic, but for the most part it's at least as clear as a cell phone, most of the times much more so.

For anyone who has problems with their computer sound after installing this, you need only go to the control panel and tell it to send computer sound to the speakers, and telephone sound to the "USB device."

It tells you this in the instructions, but I noticed a few others complained about this in previous reviews. As always, read the manual. In this case it's not painful, as it's barely more than a pamphlet.

Really, there's not much to it. If you already use Skype then you'll be up and running in minutes and you'll never look back. Even the speaker phone part of it works nice.

Hope this helps!

I bought this phone for my office. I have a very good, much more expensive, cordless VOIP phone, which I love. But it doesn't have the clear, crisp sound that business requires. I also get static from time to time.

I bought this on Amazon from Amperordirect. They sent me a no-name brand so I'm not sure exactly what I got. But it is the same as the phone above as far as I can tell. I don't recommend you buy from them, however. I like to get what I expect to get. Plus their customer service is lacking.

Let's get the bad out of the way first. I spent the day getting it to work right with the PC and all my software. Being a software dependent phone, unlike my other phone, it requires tweaking.

I know it can be used out of the box. But I, like many others, got the annoying sound problem. It messes up your PC sound. You lose it, actually. I got some free software to "fix" this issue and tech support had no help for me. In fact, they didn't return my call. My fix is not what I want but it will do for now.

Some advice: plug the USB into the PC, not a hub. Otherwise, you'll have problems. At least I did. And follow what few directions come with the unit. You have to set up your sound for you PC in the control panel and then set up the USB device in Skype (assuming you're using Skype with this phone. The software that comes with the phone isn't great. It's not well thought out. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist either. This phone was made in China and it's cheap. But it's still a nice looking phone. It's comfortable. And it really is a good office phone.

Now the good: the sound is great! Fact is, in my case at least, it's better than my land line. I was talking to a woman in China and had to actually turn down the volume. If you get an echo, just lower the volume. It won't happen often and it's easy to fix if it does. It is a full duplex phone. You can and should talk in a normal voice.

I love the phone. And I love Skype. But keep in mind that, with this and any VOIP phone and service, if you lose your Internet connection, you lose your phone connection too. And if you have Cox Communications, it's not if your lose it, but when you lose it. That's the bad thing about VOIP.

But the money you save is so great, only a fool wouldn't take advantage of it. Just keep in mind that, as with most companies, customer service is almost non-existent. You're on your own. Unless you're lucky enough to buy from a better company than I did.

Bottom line: If you need a good, dependable, inexpensive office or desk phone for VOIP, this is a great buy. The speaker on the phone is good. It's easy to use. The camera is not bad. I don't use mine and don't need it.

But there are bugs, which I've tried to describe. Not everyone will have the experience that I had. But buy your phone from someone with a good reputation for customer support and someone who will send you the brand phone. Even if it costs more.

I do recommend this phone. It's a great investment and the sound quality is above average.

Windows XP detected this phone and installed Plug and Play drivers without a hitch. Skype recognized it and worked flawlessly. Sound quality was decent. Overall, the setup was extremely easy and the phone works very intuitively. It feels and works like a real phone - simple and straightforward.

-you can call using a handset or speakerphone on a phone-like USB-Soundcard device
-The numbers pad works fine
-The ringer works fine
-Some buttons doesn't work as expected
-The software that comes with the CD (because you need a software) is outdated and doesn't work. You need to download it: look for SkyTone in google.
-The software is a resident program in windows that displays an icon in your taskbar
-The software does not always start properly (on my machine). You have to kill it and restart it. When it doesn't work well, your PC routes the audio wrong. It can be to your speakers, the handset, the speakerphone or handset+speakerphone at the same time -___-
-It also has a SHORT handset cable. Whenever I call, I pull the whole phone.

I recently bought a desktop computer with Vista 64 bit. I spent a few hours researching VIOP phones for Skype, and found that currently most are non-compatible with Vista 64 bit. However, I read a few others had success using this phone with Vista 64x, so I ended up buying it.
I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works. My relatives could always tell if I was using a Skype phone before, as opposed to a conventional phone, and now they cant tell the difference. I use it with Skypemate, it works like charm, and never drops a call.
When I got the phone and installed the software, it was necessary for me to manually adjust Skype's audio options so it uses the phone and not the speaker, very easy to do.
The only one downside I have found to it, is that I cant dial out completely with the phone's keypad, and have to dial out through the Skype application.
Overall, considering most VIOP phones don't come with the right software for Vista 64x, this is a excellent phone with out-standing call quality.
It provides me with a reliable daily phone service, that never drops calls or stops working. I highly recommend it.

I recently switched everyone in my office to Skype for phone lines. We needed a good speakerphone for conference calls. In the past I have used Polycom Skype speakerphones, with good luck, but my new laptop seems to have a dead microphone port. Result? Had to switch to a USB speakerphone. This seemed like a good deal, good price, so away my One-Click went.

The speakerphone is terrible. Good volume, but the callers cannot hear you unless you move directly over the phone. The vaunted Skype integration via software is a pain: non-intuitive, and requires working the phone and the PC at the same time. Finally, if you want to use a headset AND this phone, forget it: while you can reconfigure the software to stop sending calls to the phone, it still insists on ringing the phone and lagging hangups.

I'm heading to return this one.

I purchased this phone to work with Vonage's SoftPhone. Vonage's technical support were USELESS - even going so far to tell me their SoftPhone application doesn't work with USB phones (despite saying on their website that their SoftPhone application works with all USB phones). Unfortunately the phone also comes with very little information and only Skype drivers so if I hadn't been determined to get this working, the phone and the Vonage application would have both gone back. Even the SkyTone manufacturer (Radian) said the phone worked perfectly with Vonage but couldn't provide any help (and their documentation with the phone is "minimal" to put it lightly!)

But - there is a happy ending to the story. I searched the web for any tips and found that Vonage's application is actually written by another company called "CounterPath". Then I started to get somewhere. Counterpath's support is great and it turned out that their free SoftPhone application (X-Lite) works perfectly with the SkyTone phone on the Vonage service and actually has more features than the Vonage customized version. They also have some retail versions for purchase but I can't think what other features I could possibly need.

So - I now have a fantastic phone with its own direct line which is very clear and can work via my PC or the phone seamlessly wherever my PC is. The recording feature is great (how I wish I'd had this when using a regular phone) and so on. And this is all on Windows Vista! It's just a pity that both Vonage and Radian have no idea or desire to really help customers to get this great technology working. I'm sure I can't be the first person who hit this problem and one attempt at documenting would probably save a lot of people returning their products in frustration.

The phone really surprised me. it works like a real phone!
quick installation, easy to use. I'm very happy with it