Review: US Robotics Cordless Skype Dual Phone

US Robotics' Skype-certified dual phone enters a crowded market where there’s little opportunity to differentiate between products.

This handset works not only with Skype but also plugs into your landline.

It is extremely easy to set up, with clear instructions during the software installation process.

This is a Dect Skype phone that plugs into your computer via USB, rather than one that plugs into your router, so it needs your PC on to work. Unlike some rival phones, it uses a separate base station and charger, which annoyingly means it requires two wall sockets and its footprint is slightly bigger than normal.

The handset itself is ergonomic, easy to use and comes with a free SkypeIn number for three months, allowing you to choose an incoming geographical Skype phone number for yourself.

We took the typically male route of using the phone before reading the instructions, and quickly got the hang of scrolling through the menus. And we were impressed by how quickly it connected with our Skype account and displayed our contacts.

In use, call clarity is influenced by the quality of your network - in our tests, we found it to be excellent. US Robotics boasts that this phone won't suffer from echoing, and we certainly didn’t experience any during the calls we made.

However, this falls short of being a five-star review because it won't work with Vista. Despite Microsoft's latest operating system having been out for several months, Vista drivers weren’t available and for us that's a huge black mark.

By now, a Vista driver should be on the website at the very least. We checked with US Robotics and were told one was in development, but were given no indication of when it would be ready.

We tried installing the software anyway, but it caused an error message warning us we needed to upgrade our operating system and only occasionally worked. So if you need a Skype handset for Vista, don't buy this model yet.

See also:

Review: Philips VOIP841 Internet Phone

Versatile cordless phone for both Skype and landline calls  07 Mar 2007

Review: Dualphone 3088 internet telephony

Make Skype calls without a computer  12 Feb 2007

Review: Philips VoIP321internet telphony

Make Skype and normal telephone calls using the same handset  25 Sep 2006

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