Awards

Some recent Gear-related news on this fine Tuesday:

A double take on the Belkin Skype WiFi Phone

I just caught this video review of the Belkin WiFi Phone for Skype by Chris Hogg (and Chris Hogg) on Digital Journal TV. We’ve reviewed it before here. "They" run through what the phone does and say that it kicks derriere. I’m not sure of the camera and computer tricks DJTV used to make the video, but it’s pretty neat. Watch it here:

PSP’d

If you’ve got a Sony PSP Slim & Lite and haven’t tried Skype on it yet, have a look at these step-by-step instructions on Instructables. The author also goes into how to rip and convert DVDs for viewing on the PSP.

Webware 100 Winner!

For the second year in a row, Skype is a winner in CNET’s Webware 100 Awards in the Communication category. Users (like you! Thanks if you voted!)chose the winners of these awards; no doubt this year more people are using Skype in more ways beyond the computer (like on a Nokia Internet Tablet, 3 Skypephone, a Skype WiFi phone, a Sony Mylo—the list goes on…). Check out the Skype’s winning page here, and all the 2008 Webware 100 winners here.

Several interesting bits of Skype Gear-related news from the blogosphere recently, on a variety of devices that show off many of the different ways you can use Skype.

• Video: great story about usage and a Logitech QuickCam Orbit AF review
• Mobile: Results to 3mobilebuzz’s recent contest: Why I need a 3 Skypephone
• WiFi phone: Netgear SPH200W one of Time’s top 10 gadgets of 2007
• Headsets: A look at the FREETALK Stereo Wireless Headset

My full take after the jump…

Continue reading "Gear News Roundup: A little bit of everything" »

RTX has been making cordless phones that combine Skype and landline calls for quite a while now. Today the company has a new feather for its cap: its DUALphone 3088 has won the Danish Product Award 2007 from Ingeniøren, a Danish weekly newspaper that specializes in engineering topics. The award goes to “the very best Danish technological innovations and products developed for the worldwide market,” so it’s quite cool that a Skype product was chosen.

The DUALphone 3088, which incidentally we reviewed on the blog exactly one year ago today, is a cordless Skype phone that lets you make Skype calls and landline calls from the same handset without the need for a computer running, because the DUALphone’s base station plugs directly into your router. It also has (one of my favorite things) automatic firmware updates, so the latest features and bug fixes get installed to the phone automatically.

To learn more about the award, check out the press release on RTX’s website here (or if you can read Danish, See Ingeniøren’s site here). The DUALphone 3088 is also available at the Skype shop, for £85 in the UK or €129 in the rest of Europe.

Laptop Magazine in the US recently published its annual Ultimate Mobility supplement, and sure enough it noted a bunch of Skype products that can help advance your own personal ‘ultimate mobility’ with Skype. It’s not the greatest scan (PDF here), but these pages highlight 5 Skype Certified products and a few other products that aren’t Skype Certified.

LAPTOP named the Phillips 8411B (aka VOIP841, review here, store here) its Ultimate Choice 2007 for VOIP phones, saying “VOIP phones don’t come any slicker or more versatile.” The article also mentions the Netgear SPH200D (my personal fav, review here, store here), the Linksys CIT400 (review here, store here), and the Logitech Cordless Internet Handset, which I haven’t had the chance to review yet but looks pretty slick.

The article also names the SanDisk Cruzer Titanium USB stick (store here) as its Ultimate Choice 2007 for USB memory drives. It uses SanDisk’s U3 technology to let you run Skype and other programs in a convenient self-contained environment. We’ve mentioned it on the blog before here. I actually have one of these drives on my keychain, the SanDisk Cruzer Micro (not Titanium, sadly) and I love it especially for its design—it’s small and the USB jack slides in and out easily so you don’t damage it when it’s in your pocket or have a cap to lose.

Check out the full Skype coverage in the Ultimate Mobility section here.

This one hasn’t really been picked up online (nothing that I could find, anyway) but a nice story nonetheless—earlier this month Argos, the UK retailer of almost everything, was named the Skype ‘Retailer of the Year’ in the UK. The new award, bestowed by Skype, was given in recognition of Argos’ understanding of the UK consumer market; more people want to connect using Skype and Argos has made Skype-certified products available to them, serving as “an excellent ambassador of the Skype way of life” (according to the press release).

I’m a big fan of Argos—being an American used to massive warehouse stores (think Wal-mart), it always surprises me how an Argos can fit so many products in so small a store, and how so many people will go to the store to just to page through catalogs. But Argos does carry a lot of useful stuff, and it’s good to know they’re stocking enough Skype products to be recognized for it. The press release is online here.