Wi-Fi Skype phones disappoint - Part 2

According to belkin officials, the Skype organization is very specific about how a GUI should look and how a keypad should behave for a device to be Skype Certified. Indeed, we had a nearly identical experience while configuring and using each of the phones we tested. However, we found Netgear’s SPH101 much more responsive than the Accton-based phones, with screens quickly painting and commands quickly executing.

Part of the reason we liked Netgear’s overall experience was its superior TFT (thin film transistor) LCD screen, which was much brighter and cleaner than the CSTN (color super-twist nematic) screen in the Accton-based devices.

Each phone we tested automatically downloaded our Skype contacts from Skype’s servers within minutes of connecting to the network. The process of navigating each phone’s interface to find and dial contacts or to dial a SkypeOut number from scratch was intuitive.

In fact, each of the phones left us satisfied, we found sound quality and radio coverage up to our expectations. But our level of satisfaction dropped like a stone when we started moving around with the phone a rather critical problem for mobile devices.

We consider the lack of real mobility, both inside and outside the corporate WLAN (wireless LAN), a deal breaker with these phones. When considering the price versus capabilities of these devices, we’d prefer to get a little more bang from a mobile device, something more along the lines of Paragon Wireless’ GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and WiFi dual-band Pocket PC device, the Hipi 2200. We could install Skype on the Hipi 2200, but we also could use it with cellular and SIP networks.

It’s also worth noting that none of the phones we tested for this review supports Skype Chat. Anyone who attempts to start a chat session on one of them will get a message indicating that the recipient does not support chat and cannot join the conversation.

As they are based on the same model, the SMC and Belkin phones are practically identical in form and function, although our Belkin device came in glossy black finish while the SMC device had a white finish. Both phones measure 1.93 inches wide, 4.53 inches long and .71 inches thick and weigh 3.7 ounces with the battery installed.

The SMC phone we tested used a slightly older firmware revision (0.9.02) than the Belkin phone did (1.0.0.2). This difference likely accounted for the
SMC phone’s “stickiness” in tests: We found that the Belkin phone was quicker to identify when a network connection dropped and the Skype connection timed out. The SMC phone, in contrast, would fail to recognize that the Skype connection was gone and would then hang for a short period once we attempted to access a Skype function.

In the battery tests, we connected all three phones to a Trapeze Networks-powered unencrypted WLAN, with each phone placed about 3 feet from our access point. To measure battery life, we booted each fully charged phone (preconfigured to attach to the network and log in to Skype) and then received an incoming call from a second Skype client configured on a PC. The results provided below represent the entire duration of an active call with music playing constantly in one direction.

The SMC phone’s 3.7 volt 1,200-mAh (milli-Amp hours) battery is rated for 3 hours of talk time or 30 hours of standby time. However, we were pleasantly surprised by performance that surpassed these numbers:

The Belkin phone had a talk time of 4 hours and 51 minutes (although massive dropouts started occurring around the 4-hour, 42-minute mark), while the SMC phone turned in 5 hours and 3 minutes of talk time before shutting down.

Netgear’s SPH101 is slightly smaller yet heavier than the other devices we tested: It measures 4.33 inches long, 1.81 inches wide and .75 inches thick, and it weighs 4 ounces with the battery installed. The SPH101’s 3.7-volt, 840-mAh battery does not promise quite as much kick as that of the Accton-based devices it’s rated for only 2 hours of talk time or 20 hours of standby time.

In tests, the SPH101’s battery performance did lag significantly behind that of the Accton-based devices, delivering 1 hour and 59 minutes of talk time. We tested the SPH101’s talk-time performance when connected to a WPA-PSK-encrypted WLAN, and the battery performance dropped slightly to about 1 hour and 40 minutes. The SPH101’s battery shortcomings are a shame because the device was superior to the Acctonbased phones on almost every other front.

We noted that all three phones black out the LCD panel during a long call. In addition, none of the phones shows the battery level during an active call, which could lead to some anxiety when you don’t know if you have enough power to make it through an important call.