[Asterisk-Users] Re: Buying some Polycom IP300s

[Noah Miller]

> The page in the wiki used to say that the person would not recomed
> Polycom phones to anyone.

I missed that part of the WIKI!  Maybe it's more recent.  I don't want 
to invalidate anybody's experience, but in the process of picking 
phones for my company, I evaluated a huge number of IP phones (and 
bought a lot of them).  The only ones I would consider for us to use in 
real production are the phones from Polycom, Cisco, Zultys, Snom, 
Avaya, and Pingtel.  Of those, the Polycom and Cisco units seemed to be 
the highest quality with the best feature set (I was looking for high 
quality speakerphone, multiple line appearances, centralized 
administration, intercom, lots of hard keys, and something that looked 
both sturdy and flashy).  I went with Polycom in the end because they 
are cheaper (actually, the cheapest in my list above).  They are NOT 
the easiest to configure, and they are NOT well supported, but they 
have certainly met my requirements and expectations., and once you have 
an FTP server set up with a good config, it is very fast and easy to 
set up new phones.


> Also, is the IP500 worth the extra money?  What can it do that
> the IP300 can't.

- Full duplex speakerphone (IP300 is listen only)
- Real graphical display (IP300 is more like an old-style calculator 
display)
- 3 line appearances (IP300 has 2)

 From a qualitative perspective, the IP500's just look more 
professional.  The plastic stand is more solid and durable on the IP500 
than on the IP300.  The display is much more readable on the IP500.  
All our employees use IP500's or IP600's.  We only use the IP300's for 
lobby phones and in back rooms.  Depending on the supplier, you can get 
the IP500's for not much more than than the IP300's.  I would highly 
recommend the IP500's over the IP300.