Hardware 
10 Comments Netgear SPH101 VOIP And Skype Compatible Internet Telephone With Wi-fi
- No PC required
- Make and receive calls wherever you have WiFi access
- Manage your Skype contact list and view who is available to talk
- Forward calls to your mobile, landline or to another Skype name
- Communicates with ordinary phones WW for pennies a minute
NETGEAR’s Skype WiFi Phone is the first device to let you make free domestic and international calls to other Skype users over a wireless network without being tied to a PC. It is great to use at home or work where you already have wireless access, whether or not it is WEP encrypted. For a small fee, you can have voicemail, or even talk with non-Skype users on ordinary phones at deep discounts. With Skype WiFi Phone, NETGEAR makes mobile wireless Internet telephony a reality.
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(out of 18 reviews)
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- Dual Purpose: Make land-line calls or Skype Internet (VoIP) calls
- Call Friends through the Internet, for FREE
- Call ordinary phones WW for pennies per minute using SkypeOut* – no monthly fees
- Crystal clear voice quality
- No PC Required
Simply plug the Dual-mode Cordless Phone Station into your Internet router (Ethernet port) to enjoy making Skype calls. In addition, you can plug the base station into your phone line (PSTN) wall jack to make land line calls-from the same cordless phone. Up to 3 additional phones can be added-so you can replace your current cordless phones throughout your home with NETGEAR’s Dual-mode Cordless Phone with Skype. Main Features:Connect the base station to your phone line and routerUse the cordless phone to ma…
Rating: (out of 22 reviews)
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Review by Uncle Dave for Netgear SPH101 VOIP And Skype Compatible Internet Telephone With Wi-fi
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I took umbrage with a magazine which reviewed this model and marked it down because of short battery life and the fact that it can’t hook up to networks which need browser authentication. They were treating it as a possible mobile replacement and that’s a job that it simply can’t do. Apart from anything else, the open wireless infrastructure is too patchy to allow seamless accessibility. Think of where mobile phones were 20 years ago and that’s where this is as far as on-the-go access is concerned.
You could certainly carry it around with you so long as the networks you intend to access are either open or you know the keys, which rules out hotspots which usually require a browser which this doesn’t have.
The reason I bought it was to allow my wife to call me using Skype without having to switch on the PC. She’s not a great fan of “silly computers” though she has come to terms with them over the years at work but loved using this. What it does is simple enough – it hooks up to your wireless network and allows you to make and receive Skype calls without having to turn on the PC.
Think of it as being a cordless phone that uses Skype. The battery life is not great but that doesn’t matter so long as you remember to connect it to charge when you’re not using it. You also need to bear in mind that, like any VOIP connection, the quality of the call depends on a lot of factors because the call is routed via the internet.
Working out of the country and spending a fortune on phone calls (you only realise how far the telecoms industry still has to go in terms of opening up competition when you see how exorbitant international rates remain) it was exactly what we needed. I’ve since bought a combined landline and Skype phone from Skype for use by my wife and taken this with me so now we can both make and receive Skype calls without the inconvenience of being at the computer.
If you recognise it’s limitations and spend enough on calls to make the purchase cost worthwhile then you won’t be disappointed. It works straight out of the box, has the familiar Skype interface and does exactly what is claimed. Try and pretend it’s something else – e.g. a mobile – then you will definitely be disappointed…
Review by Trevor for Netgear SPH101 VOIP And Skype Compatible Internet Telephone With Wi-fi
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Battery life on standby seems to be 10 hours or less. Even in the home it needs to be on charge regularly. Out of the home you can connect to some hotspots (mycloud are doing a free trial) but it takes some time to connect and not always reliable.
Settings seem to get forgotten and have to be re-entered. On a couple of occasions the phone has got very hot for no apparent reason. It works with Skypeout and it originally displayed my credit balance on the main screen but now it always shows a zero credit balance. Sometimes this stops me making a Skypeout call even when I know I have credit.
On the positive side I have made calls where the recipient has commented on the good audio quality without knowing it was a Skype call.
Try waiting until Netgear have sorted out the poor battery life and all the bugs.
Review by Bruce Percy for Netgear SPH101 VOIP And Skype Compatible Internet Telephone With Wi-fi
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Quite a few things wrong with this phone, but overall, when it works, it works great. Audio quality is excellent. Just wish it wasn’t so quirky.
Battery life is poor – less than a day. It should have a cradle to plug back into to keep it topped up, but there isn’t one. Just a firewire socket for power. I have to keep logging in, because the ‘automatically log in’ feature doesn’t work. Ringing tones are awful and anything above zero (you can hear it at zero), distorts. Changing volume produces the loudest beep in your ear that you and the other person at the end of the line can hear.
But on the good side, the audio quality is superb.
Review by C. Richards for Netgear SPH101 VOIP And Skype Compatible Internet Telephone With Wi-fi
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I started using this phone three days ago and already I’ve had a host of major problems – poor connectivity even when very close to the router, very poor reception on the phone (echoing and patchy reception), inability to download product updates using the CD provided, and rapid heating up of the phone during calls. I downloaded a software update from the Netgear website as I could not access it from the CD provided, and after installing the update the phone now constantly restarts on its own just after connecting to the wireless network, so I am unable to use it. UTTER RUBBISH!! DO NOT BUY UNLESS YOU ENJOY THROWING YOUR MONEY AWAY! SEEKING TO RETURN PRODUCT.
Review by C. E. B. Portman for Netgear SPH101 VOIP And Skype Compatible Internet Telephone With Wi-fi
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It works perfectly. Not having to be in front of the computer to have a phone conversation makes Skype much more useful and practical. If you make daily long distance calls this will pay for itself very quickly, so you needn’t feel you’ve wasted your money if a better system comes along in the near future.
Review by K. MCGUIRK for Netgear SPH200D Dual-Mode Cordless Phone With Skype
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I’ve had a wireless netgear router for a few years now and its been excellent, so when I started thinking about finally ditching the skype headset for some more practical VOIP handsets I went straight to the Netgear site to check out their offerings. I was a bit concerned that there seemed to be so few reviews around on their products in this area, but decided to take the plunge with both the SPH200D and one additional handset (the SPH150D).
Its taken me a while to get around to setting them up, more because I was preparing myself for a long haul installation, but last night it took me about 15 minutes to get everything up and running – superb easy installation. Mind you I did already have skype installed on the PC with all my contacts etc, so no need to run the CD and do that part of the setup. The SPH200D picked up a connection with the base station as soon as I plugged it in – you then just put in a default PIN and add country and local dialling codes and you are done. If you have skype already on your PC it synchronises your skype contacts in just a few seconds. (By the way there is no power up button with the base station – you just plug it in and it just works).
With the SPH150D (the additional handset) you follow a similar process but when you register the handset make sure you are next to the base station as you need to press and hold the pager button on the top of the base station until it starts flashing. I made the mistake of just pressing it once at which point it does flash but simply pages the other handset ! (Handy for when the kids have hidden it)
This should get your additional handset registered and you can now intercom the other handset (very handy also, kids love it so watch out).
And so for the crunch – making calls. Well so far so good. Excellent quality on Skype and Skype out calls(had to add some more euros !) and of course with the SPH200D you don’t need to sign up to Skype In because you can connect to your landline so folks can still call through to your skype handset from a landline. Range seems fine – although I’ve probably only been about 150 yards from the base station so far. (If you need further ask the Butler to carry you back within range)
You can add up to 4 additional handsets so all the kids can have one. (Only kidding, don’t even tell them about the intercom or you’ll be sorry). The handsets themselves are pretty good. They look a bit plastic in the pictures but they are actually quite stylish with a good colour display.
All in all very good, probably more expensive than other models on the market but if you are a netgear junkie, this could be the VOIP strategy for you !
PS Don’t forget if you really want free calls you need to get your friends and family onto VOIP too !!
Review by Antony Lovell for Netgear SPH200D Dual-Mode Cordless Phone With Skype
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This product is awesome – great skype and normal phone.
3 small problems:
* no in built answerphone for the landline
* no contacts held in the phone – you have to enter them all into skype
* when i first set it up there was no sound. trawled the web and found out that i needed to hit the reset button which fixed it. netgear support emailed me three days later with the same recommendation.
apart from the small gripes, awesome. i am also amazed that it just configured itself and i was online!
Review by D. G. Lyons for Netgear SPH200D Dual-Mode Cordless Phone With Skype
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I have had this phone (with extra handset) for about a year.
As soon as I bought it I identified a number of issues, some of which have been discussed in other reviews. I have raised all of them with NetGear support and none of them have been resolved. I have dealt with many ‘bad service’ organizations before, but NetGear’s support of this product is special in that it is exists as bunch of resources (off shore) but it does not exist as support. People acknowledge the support requests but never, ever address the problem. They also have a neat trick whereby they close the request automatically after a period of inactivity (their inactivity).
The phone itself has the following issues:
Caller ID is supported, but the phone does not look up the caller names in the phonebook. So you need to memorize numbers in order to make good use of this feature.
The phone provides support for landline voicemail, but if you live in the UK and your voicemail access is a four digit number (e.g. 1571) then the phone will not accept this number because of its US centric number validation.
The phone also provides (allegedly) a voicemails present indicator (landline). This doesn’t work.
The phone automatically converts numbers in the history that begin with 011 to + (so a Leicester number e.g. 0116 123 4567 becomes +6 123 4567) when you dial the number from the call history (oddly this conversion is not applied for missed calls). This US centric feature is not very helpful since the number fails to connect.
The phone is provided with a number of truly awful ringtones. When the phone rings, it counts the ring pulses and plays the ringtone for that number of pulses even when another non-NetGear phone has picked up the call. So, because most of the nearly acceptable tones are quite long, the NetGear phones keep ringing long after the non-NetGear phone has picked up the call.
Occasionally, it is not possible to pick up calls with one of the handsets. A reset usually fixes this, but then you have to go through the pain of setting up all your preferences again.
Most of these issues you might live with in the expectation that regular firmware updates would address the problems. But there is no evidence that NetGear have any interest in releasing firmware updates (just one so far) or that they have any interest in supporting the phone.
Review by LB for Netgear SPH200D Dual-Mode Cordless Phone With Skype
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I was looking for a skype dual phone that would also offer speakerphone, have a headset jack and allow for chat online (typing). Panasonic did not offer this last feature and the other brands did not offer headset jacks at a decent price. This phone has it all and is affordable too!
It really is plug in and play – another triumph.
Though netgear will not endorse any headsets for the headset jack – the one I have (no brand of significance) works perfectly.
Review by Mr. T. Balson for Netgear SPH200D Dual-Mode Cordless Phone With Skype
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Be aware that this product is dispatched by Pixmania, and it comes with European plugs. This small matter isn’t mentioned anywhere on the website, and apparently it’s against UK law – but I digress… You’ll need two adaptors to get it working – unfortunately Pixmania only bundled one with mine, meaning I had to wait an additional 15 days before I could even try the thing. I ordered this as a Christmas present for my partner, but by the time I’d received the second adaptor it was well into January.
The product failed to operate as claimed – Skype worked, the landline function didn’t. I spent several days phoning the Netgear support centre and getting fobbed off with suggestions such as ‘check the cable’ and ‘reset the unit’ etc, until they finally exhausted their list and agreed to replace the product. They gave me two options – I had to either take a day off work and wait for their courier to pick the product up, or pay a non-refundable £15 charge for them to send a replacement directly. You may be wondering where Pixmania was throughout this process – they had stopped answering emails after skipping off into the sunset with my £100.
When I got the replacement, to my joy I saw it was a UK version – and when I fired it up, it worked first time. It’s a great product, simple to use, slightly dodgy ringtones, but overall it’s great.
To sum up, I recommend this product – but what I don’t recommend is buying it from Amazon! The same product was available from the high street chains last time I checked, and you’ll be guaranteed to get a UK compatable version.