[Asterisk-Users] What business IP phone to use

[Ross C]

[Mr.] Mustard,

There's no one-stop IP phone review site that I know of (that has one
person/company comparing all of the IP phones side by side).  
You're right, the gxp-2000 is a little on the low end as IP phones go.
However, you're also getting a lot of features for your buck with the GXP.
I used the GXP2000's in a bakery installation; the users of the phone always
have stuff all over their hands, thus I didn't see much sense in putting a
really nice phone there.  Two of the phones have already needed to be
replaced because of people spilling liquids all over them; it was only $100
to replace a GXP2000 vs. 200+ to replace a nice polycom with many call
appearances.
Regarding the polycoms--
I wouldn't worry about the polycoms not 'officially' supporting asterisk.
LOTS of people use them with Asterisk (including myself).  For me, the
biggest pain was getting them configured correctly (the xml config files are
a horrendous PITA--if someone were to write a book, I'd prefer it be on this
;) ).  BUT once they're configured, I LOVE them. And so do the users of the
phones. They have great build quality and a great speakerphone (one of the
best).  In short, I would give the Polycoms a solid recommendation for an
all-around good business phone to use with Asterisk.

I know lots of people also love the Snoms.  I can't really vouch for them
too much; I have one, I just haven't used it really.

Someone should make an epinions.com of sorts for IP phones and IP phone
equipment.  I think it would get used...


-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of mustardman29
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 11:58 AM
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] What business IP phone to use

 

I have been struggling with this issue for about a year now.  There were
just too many IP phones to choose from at all sorts of price points and not
enough information about any of them.  Now I am looking at the situation
again and if anything it has gotten worse.  There are even more phones and
all sorts of opinions.  For every person that says phone x is great there is
someone else complaining about it.

I ended up buying a Grandstream GXP2000 and an Aastra 9133i to test so I
pretty much know what those two phones are about.  Lot's of people talking
about Polycom phones but they still seem to have their problems and since
they don't officially support Asterisk I have my concerns.  I really don't
want to have to keep buying phones to find out for myself as it get's
expensive real fast.

Is there any unbiased comparison of various phones and features anywhere.
If someone wrote a book I'd buy it but it would probably be obsolete before
it was published with the rate of new IP phone introductions and firmware
revisons.  I hear some people praising the GXP2000 phones and I gotta wonder
what they are smokin (regardless of firmware revison) so I just don't know
who to believe anymore.
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com --

Asterisk-Users mailing list
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users