Cisco iPhone - REVIEW

Adam Turner
Tuesday, 24 July 2007 20:56

IT Industry - Market

While the iPhone is extremely easy to use, we were also impressed with the call quality. Your voice never sounds as rich using a DECT cordless phone as it does with a desktop phone, but if you allow for that the iPhone sounds as good as a normal phone.

Skype to Skype calls often sound better than PSTN calls, but last time we played with SkypeOut 12 months ago the call quality was terrible. Drop outs and over-compression was so bad when calling Australian PSTN lines as to make it unusable. Obviously something has changed because SkypeOut calls from the iPhone to PSTN numbers sounded very good from both ends, on par with Australia's MyNetFone consumer VoIP service.

Consumer VoIP services such as engin and MyNetFone also allocate you a PSTN number for receiving calls, but over the years we've found such services to unreliable for incoming calls. Sometimes callers don't get through to you and the calls don't always go to voice mail, so the caller thinks your phone has been cut off and you don't realise that calls aren't getting through to you. The benefit of the iPhone is people can still reach you on your trusty old PSTN number, but you enjoy the price savings of Skype when you call out.

SkypeOut calls cost vary depending to where you're calling (see www.skype.com.au), but you can ring Australian, US and UK landlines for only 2.7 Australian cents per minute (or free calls within your country on Skype Pro). So if you're making lots of international or even interstate calls then an iPhone could pay for itself very quickly -- assuming you're on a decent broadband plan. Australians wanting to use the iPhone should obviously avoid Telstra or Dodo's ludicrous plans with tiny download limits, metered uploads and exorbitant excess data charges.

Be aware that you're for paying a premium for the iPhone so as not to be reliant on a computer. Philips' VoIP321 cordless Skype/PSTN phone costs $100 less, but the base station connects to a PC running Skype.

Our only major grip with the iPhone is the painfully annoying ring tones. You've got a choice of 16 "melodies" - but they're annoying polyphonic mobile phone ring tones targeted at teenage girls. What makes Linksys think people want a phone that sounds like a Tamagotchi having a fit? Ring tones aside, the iPhone is simple to use and can save you a packet on your phone bills.

AT A GLANCE: Linksys iPhone (CIT400)

PRICE $AU239.95

PROS easy to use, doesn't require PC

CONS expensive, annoying ring tones

CONTACT Linksys www.linksys.com.au