[Asterisk-Users] What business IP phone to use

[Cory Andrews]

Clint - Looks like your wish has been granted, and your love affair with Snom can continue.  They are soon releasing the new Snom 300, which has most of the features your are fond of in the 360 and 320 models, and should be quite near, if not at, your $100 price point.

Read up on it here -> http://www.snom.com/pressinformation_details.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=354&tx_ttnews[backPid]=33&cHash=1bb97caf5c&L=1

Detailed specs here -> http://www.snom.com/snom300_voip_phone.html?&L=1

Cory J Andrews
++++++++++++
VOIPSupply.com
454 Sonwil Drive
Buffalo, NY 14225
++++++++++++++
voice - 716.630.1555 X22
email - Cory at VOIPSupply.com
AIM - B2CORY
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Clint Sharp 
  To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 1:03 AM
  Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] What business IP phone to use


  It's funny this thread has been coming up, because I've been testing out phones at my office, and I just did a fairly intensive quality test on them.

  1) Budgetones: Don't bother for a business setting.  The speaker phone is basically useless (echo problems) and the handset is horrible.  If you follow the suggestion on the Wiki to drill out the handset, it improves things marginally, but not much.  Users talking to you will constantly complain about you sound muffled.  It's think it's a frequency response thing and not a volume thing, I think it's just getting lower than a standard 8 khz sample out of the microphone, because it's so cheap. 

  2) GXP-2000: Not much better than the Budgetones, but at least the firmware is still in active development.  Feature-wise it's pretty cool, but poor firmware and poor handset hardware again make this a real problem for us.  We lost one handset to static electricity yesterday (which was fixed by adding in a microphone from an old business set, which actually improved that phone's quality).  The speakerphone is useless due to echo issues.  However, 4 line appearances is pretty cool for that price of phone, and passthrough Ethernet at 100 mbs is pretty cool too.  Overall, I can't recommend them, because while they sound slightly better than the budgetones, I still get many complaints about muffled calls. 

  3) Polycom: Of the 4 phone brands we're actively using (not including the Wifi phone which rarely gets used), this was the best until I got the Snom in today.  The handset is of good quality.  I have an IP 301, but if the cheapest phone is this good, I'd definitely get a 501 or 601 (and am considering ordering some, although I may order Snom 320s instead).  Their support policies do get on my nerves, I'd like to not have to worry about what reseller I'm using, but it's a solid phone with solid features, although the menus are cumbersome and I haven't gotten MWI to work on it yet. 

  4) Snom 320: This is an excellent phone based off one days testing.  Minimal configuration, professional looking web interface, and the best sound quality of any of the phones I tested.  THe speakerphone works great, and the handset quality is outstanding, and tested the best with my callers that were listening to me through the PSTN.  I haven't upgraded firmware or anything on this yet, so can't tell you there, but I can't see a compelling reason to upgrade from whatever it shipped with that this point (i'm not feature crazy, I only upgrade the firmware if basic features don't seem to be working right). 

  Overall, stay away from the Grandstream's IMHO.  The audio quality issues will drive you insane.  I'm hoping someone will come out with a sub-$100 phone that drops some features but fixes what should be the cheapest part of the phone to manufacture, since they've been the same for nearly 50 years, the handset. 

  Clint



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