Promotions

UK readers: this Saturday The Times is publishing a special 'Life Abroad' supplement, with tips on how to purchase property internationally and how to save money while living abroad. Clearly Skype is a good way to do this, so USRobotics is including a page that offers information and instruction to readers on how to use Skype for international calling--it's very 'how-to' and if you're here you probably don't need to see it, but I'm guessing it will help a lot of Times readers.

I'm mentioning it because with the 'Life Abroad' supplement USRobotics is offering a promotion for up to 2 hours of free SkypeOut calls if you purchase USRobotics hardware.

Continue reading "Living Abroad with USRobotics" »

Big announcement from Skypeland today: if you have Skype Pro (available in these countries), now you have a new feature--the ability to call internationally from your mobile using your SkypeOut credit. Skype calling on the mobile you have now? How does it work? Read on.

Continue reading "Skype To Go: call internationally from your mobile at low SkypeOut rates" »

OK so it may not have face tracking and a 10 megapixel lens, but this cute little Skype cam is just the job. And it's such an elegant design solution - a real lesson in simplicity - that you can't help but love it. Throw in a decent Plantronics P2000 headset and 6 months Skype voicemail plus up to 2 hours of Skype calls to landlines and you really have a very solid, portable Skype setup for a staggering £14.99 / $19.99 / E19.99!

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: The funkiest Skype webcam yet??" »

If you're a US Skype user, you may have already noticed that the US Skype Store has had a thorough makeover. Whilst most of these home makeover shows suggest neutral colours and well-placed scatter cushions on the sofas, you'll be pleased to hear that Skype have instead gone for a more intuitive navigation, the ability to search by product or category and lots of shiny green rainbows.

With the new site comes a host of new money-off offers for the US as well, including $50 off SMC's Skype Wifi phone package (which includes a FON router, loads of Skype call minutes and Skype voicemail for a year), free shipping on orders over $50, and $40 off the Netgear SPH200D cordless Skype phone. In addition there's $30 off the Logitech® QuickCam® Pro 5000, $10 off the Logitech® Premium USB Headset 350, and $10 off the D-Link DPH-50U Skype USB Phone Adaptor.

There's also a whole load of Skype kit on the site that was previously not available, and so Skypegear's going to take the opportunity over the next few weeks to review some of the kit which (through, I guess, nothing less than sheer and blind negligence), we've managed to miss over the last few months.

US company Digital River are behind the new site, and will also be handling the logistics behind the scenes. For more details, just visit the store here.

The refitters have been in on the US Skype store tidying, re-jigging, and generally making sure everything's ship shape, and as you can see the newly facelifted US Skype store is now open for business. To celebrate the relaunch, Skype are offering free ground shipping on all orders over $80 to mainland US destinations.

In addition, there is currently a $20 mail-in rebate on the Netgear SPH200D dual-mode cordless phone (which Skypegear will be reviewing later this week...) in addition to the existing $50 discount, meaning all you US Skypers could have one sitting on your desk for an all-inclusive price of just $149.99 after the rebate, rather than the original $199 plus shipping price tag. For more info check out Trustedreviews (who gave this phone a hearty 8/10 in their in-depth review), and PC Magazine (who awarded it an impressive 4/5).

Continue reading "Free shipping on Skype phones & accessories in the US, and other offers..." »

First of all - what's Skype Pro? Well as Peter Parkes, our new Skype blogger (welcome Peter!) mentions, Skype Pro is a new calling plan from Skype, available in many European countries and in the UK. The deal's pretty simple - to paraphrase:

• Zero cents per minute calling to domestic landlines in your country — this means you can talk as long as you like and only pay the connection fee (3.9 cents or equivalent) for each call that you make to domestic landlines
• Free Skype Voicemail (normally €15 per year)
• €30 discount on SkypeIn numbers
• €5 Skype Credit included as part of the introductory offer

However, of interest from a hardware point of view are the discounts available on some interesting Skype phones and accessories such as

• A €30 discount on a Philips VoIP 841 cordless phone (£21 in the UK), which Skypegear took a look at here. 
• A €10 discount on an SMC WiFi phone (£7 in the UK), which Skypegear reviewed here.

The VoIP841 is listed as coming soon in the store at present, but keep your eyes peeled for it soon.

3's X-Series has invaded the Hong Kong metro, with enormous posters plastered all over the stations. Bearing in mind that 3 Hong Kong network provide full 3G coverage in all the stations and tunnels of the metro system, this is a great place to advertise the benefits of being able to make free and very cheap calls via Skype on your 3 X-Series mobile phone.

Continue reading "X-Series and Skype go underground in Hong Kong" »

Skypegear's already got it's hands on the cordless DECT DUALPhone 3088 for a roadtest and it's a real all-rounder: not only can you make Skype calls but also use it for regular phone calls, as well as accessing all of your Skype contacts, voice mail and Skype status. Now the European Skype store has bundled this phone with up to 300 minutes of SkypeOut credit for a very reasonable E139 / £99.

Not that Skypegear's tight, but there's nothing like the warm fuzzy feeling you get from giving a great gift to the love of your life that you got at a really, really good price

Continue reading "E25 off and loads of calling credit with the new DUALPhone Skype phone bundle..." »

There's been a good chunk of press about Skype's recently announced unlimited calling plan for US customers over the last week or so. The deal is simple: for $29.95 a year, US Skype users can get unlimited SkypeOut calls to any phone in the US or Canada (and that's been halved to $14.95 if you sign up by the end of January). Users can still opt to 'pay as you go' in the normal way if they want to, but I reckon at $14.95 a fair few will opt for the unlimited option.

What hasn't been reported quite so much is a fringe benefit of signing up: money off coupons to put towards Skype hardware to make the most of all that unlimited calling. New recruits get a number of coupons redeemable upon purchasing a number of different Skype hardware phones and other gadgets.

Apparently one way users can find out and redeem these coupons is by adding a special Skype buddy to their buddy list, and then calling them for details. The name of the Skype buddy is skypehwcoupon. Check out the offers live there now...