[asterisk-users] wifi sip phone real-world experiences?

[Paul Hayes]

Zoa wrote:
> Gordon Henderson wrote:
>> On Sun, 3 Jun 2007, Andrew Kohlsmith wrote:
>>
>>> On Sunday 03 June 2007 4:30 pm, Alex Crow wrote:
>>>> No frills, specs look good, price seems excellent!
>>>> http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=369519
>>>
>>> That's a terrible phone.  I've tried them.  the screen is pretty much 
>>> useless,
>>> the buttons are *TINY*, the battery life horrible, and the ringtones
>>> gimmicky.
>>
>> I have to disagree on at least one point here - Battery life. I don't 
>> think 3 or 4 days standby and several hours of talk time makes for a 
>> horrible battery life.
>>
>> The F1000G has other faillings, but battery life isn't one of them!
>>
> If you compare this battery life to a decent DECT phone, it's still 
> miserable.
> I'm used to these dect phones : 
> http://www.bang-olufsen.com/UserFiles/File/Products/Technical%20Specifications/BeoCom6000_en.pdf 
> 
> 
[snip]

It's not really a fair comparison though, DECT was designed from the 
offset to be used with portable phones on low-power batteries.  Wifi was 
never designed for this so it's comparatively power hungry.  The F1000G 
in my opinion is still pretty good battery life for a wifi phone, I've 
seen some that will not last a day in standby.

Looking at the OP's requirements list in the first post, there is 
nothing currently on the market which will cover anything like all those 
features (and do it well!).

I've currently got several Nokia Wifi/GSM phones sat on my desk, they 
are difficult to configure and very quirky, frankly not even good enough 
to be considered a "techie's toy".  I am told 3rd party softphone 
clients such as TruPhone work a lot better than the built-in SIP client 
but I'm yet to test any of these.  The main problem is they have a habit 
of constantly losing connection with my access points.  Even the F1000G 
and F3000 phones I have here don't do that.

I'm yet to be convinced that wifi in it's current state is any use for 
telephony at all.  DECT works so much better, it just needs someone to 
make a fully functioning SIP DECT phone.  The Siemens is good but they 
need to work on more SIP functions, although proper transfers should be 
possible soon.

I also have some Philips DECT SIP equipment next to my desk to look at 
when I've got a chance!

cheers,
Paul.