April 2007

Well the eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted that Skypegear’s got a new blogger on board: so a big Skypegear welcome for Andrew Brennan who is going to be working alongside me.

Andrew hails from Philadelphia and will be working out of the US initially. He’s hoping to move back to the UK pretty soon - presumably for the climate, excellent cuisine and to experience London’s housing crisis first-hand.

The last few weeks he’s been covering some of the phones and other hardware which we’ve managed to miss on the blog, but look out for more from Andrew coming up. A bit of background: As well as being a Skype freak, Andrew is a world-class rower, having won a bronze medal at the world championships, and is currently training for his first marathon. He’s also a self-confessed pop snob, which is an oxymoron if ever I heard one .

His favourite Skype gadget is Netgear SPH200D phone we recently reviewed. His other ‘desert-island gadget’ (assuming an island with some kind of solar-powered charger and also a satellite-based internet connection of some sort, of course) would be his Creative Muvo V100 MP3 player which he describes as “perfect for workouts”.

Please give Andrew a warm welcome and feel free to say hi and post any questions you may have for him to this post.

I recently wrote up a review of the Plantronics .audio 910 Bluetooth Headset, a great way to chat on Skype and on your mobile phone wirelessly. But what if you already have a bluetooth headset? You can probably still use it with Skype. Read on.

Continue reading "How to use your bluetooth headset with Skype" »

So I’ve been doing several of these catch-up reviews of products that have out for a while, and the US store has been kind enough to provide me with samples. But one thing they didn’t have to provide me with is the Logitech USB 350 headset—I already own it and use it as my day-to-day headset. Here’s my review.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: Logitech Premium Stereo USB Headset 350" »

It seems that when it comes to Skype phone design, it’s really the speakerphones that lead the way. We already have Ipevo’s strinking white-and-green Xing, Polycom’s functional but not unattractive Voicestation 500, and now out of Japan comes Buffalo’s latest Skype salvo: the BSKP-CU202/SV (Google translation here).

Continue reading "Buffalo rolls out stylish Skype speakerphone in Japan" »

Skypegear is no stranger to Linksys devices—We’ve done roadtests of the CIT400 a while back and the WIP320 more recently. The Linksys CIT300 Cordless Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit is another member of the Linksys family that I’ve had the opportunity to use around the house for the past week. It’s a solid device for people who want to make their Skype calls and landline calls on the same phone but don’t want to spend a ton of money to do it. Read on for my review.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: Linksys CIT300 Cordless Handset" »

The VoIP841 is Philips ‘one phone does it all’ Skype phone. Plug it in to your landline and plug it in to your router, and suddenly you have a phone for making Skype calls from, whether your computer is on or off, as well as making or receiving regular landline calls. Nice.

Continue reading "Philips VoIP841 Skype phone gets good reviews both sides of the Pond" »

Andus Purde over on Skype for Mac blog makes some excellent brief points on which webcams you can Skype with on your Mac. As Andrus observes, “Apple iSight, Philips SPC900NC and Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 are pretty safe bets”, but there really are quite different cams you can use for your Mac.

A couple of other points from Andrus:

• Many other cams can be made to work with Skype on a Mac by downloading a suitable driver from http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net. List of cams here.
• Make sure you have at least an 800Mhz processor to run video on your Mac
• Ensure you don’t have more than one video window open at any one time, as the cam can only communicate with one application at a time
• Check out the knowledgebase or look at the forums for more information if you’re unsure about a particular webcam’s compatibility.

Continue reading "Which webcams can I use with Skype on my Mac?" »

Have you seen how many different phones there are to make Skype calls now?! This year has seen an explosion in different new models, so I thought it was time for a quick Skypegear overview on the different phones you can use to make calls via Skype.

Cost-wise Skype phones run from around £10 right up to hundreds of pounds, so it’s important when you’re choosing a phone that you pick one based not just on your budget, but more importantly on your needs. I’ve divided them up into four categories:

• Phones that you need to have your PC on to use
• Phones that can be used without a PC
• Speakerphones
• Headsets.

Of course there are other ways to make calls such as by plugging in a phone adaptor to your regular phone, or by using the in-built mic in your webcam, but these really are 4 main ways of improving your Skype audio calls with hardware.

There’s also a great interactive guide to choosing a phone in the Skype store, but read on for more info…

Continue reading "The 4 main types of Skype phone...or, a beginner's guide to buying a Skype phone" »

It’s great to use Skype on your computer with a headset, but once you try it with something that looks and feels like a real phone it’s tough to go back. The Linksys WIP320 Wireless-G iPhone for Skype is a good example. It’s a WiFi phone available at the US Skype Store that I’ve had the opportunity to play around with for the past couple days. Read on for my take on this iPhone.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: Linksys WIP 320 Wireless-G iPhone" »

The Sony VAIO Mouse Talk VN-CX1 is a slick little device that works as both an optical mouse and a Skype phone. I got my hands on one from the US Skype store, and after using it for a couple days I can tell you it’s a really good choice for business travellers and others who want to combine the functionality of a headset and a mouse in a compact package. Read on for the full review.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: Sony VAIO Mouse Talk VN-CX1" »

A friend of mine sometimes jokes that bluetooth headsets are evil because on the TV show 24, only terrorists wear them. I used to completely agree with him. A few years ago I tried to Skype with an old bluetooth headset I had. Seemed like a great idea, but the experience left a lot to be desired. The headset never fit very well on my ear, I couldn’t control any of Skype’s functions using the headset buttons, and the bluetooth driver on my computer would only work half the time. When it did work, sound quality was lousy—callers complained that they heard an echo (the mic picking up the speaker)—and every ten minutes the connection would break in a staticy explosion and I’d have to turn the headset off and back on to resume speaking.

Needless to say I was skeptical when the US Skype Store sent me a Plantronics .Audio 910 Bluetooth Headset to try out. But I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. The major difference between the Plantronics and my previous bluetooth-Skype attempt is that the Plantronics is Skype certified, so it’s actually designed to interact well with Skype. The difference is like night and day. Read on for my review.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: Plantronics .Audio 910 Bluetooth Headset" »

The Netgear SPH200D is designed to let you do two things: make Skype calls, and make ‘normal’ calls via your landline. And not only is it cordless, it also doesn’t even need a computer in order to make Skype calls as it just plugs straight into your wifi or normal ethernet router.

We’ve seen a few of these cordless phones pop up, and because they offer a ‘one phone does all’ solution they have proved very popular with Skypers whenever they come out. So how does the SPH200D stack up?

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: Netgear SPH200D Cordless Skype Phone" »

If the smooth lines of the slinky Futiro Skype phones Skypegear reviewed last week don’t fit in to your beautiful 19th century manor house’s decor, what should you do? Well, of course there are already a few retro Skype phones and handsets available such as the Hulger P*Phone, but if you really want to go the whole hog, then the fantastic Instructables blog may have just the thing - a DIY Old Timey Skype Phone.

Continue reading "How to make your own old-time Skype phone..." »

Ooh not one but three phones from Futiro have come Skypegear’s way for testing. The Solo, Terra and Luna are Futiro’s answer to an all too common problem which plagues some phones (not just Skype ones): they tend to sometimes look like they have fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Not so these three beauties, who wouldn’t look at all out of place in the offices of a designer architects or swanky boutique. Skypegear got all three to have a play with…

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: Futiro Solo, Terra and Luna" »

Some new laptops these days have webcams built in to them, making them ideal for using Skype to make videocalls when you’re out and about. However, a lot don’t, and many of the ones that do have squeezed a camera in which really doesn’t do the job very well. Enter US Robotics’ Mini Cam for Skype, which aims to plug just this gap, providing a small, affordable way to add videocalling capability to your laptop.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: US Robotics Mini Cam for Skype" »