[asterisk-users] Snom vs Polycom

[Karl Fife]

> From: "cb" <cb at mythtech.net> Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2010 12:42
> I use the Snom 370 all day long at work. I have never had a problem
> adjusting the volume. I change it multiple times a day as I keep my
> handset on one volume and my headset on another, so I'm always going
> up and down and I've never accidentally pressed any other key.
> I will however agree with you on the Mute button, any time I want to
> mute a call, I have to stop and look at the buttons and figure out
> which one of the tiny ones is mute.

You are right, especially with practice.
I still think it's a little easier if the buttons are distinct from one 
another by appearance, size and/or placement..  I think Polycom made a good 
design decision by not making you 'reach over' any buttons to press these 
common buttons.  I also like the fact that the mute button turns bright red 
when activated.  Come to think of it, I wish the DND button turned red when 
activated :-).

> Again, the Snom allows pretty liberal programming so it would likely
> be possibly to disable that button from doing DND and change to
> something else less likely to accidentally be hit. However that won't
> resolve the issue of the display icon being so small allowing you to
> easily forget you turned it on in the first place.

 Everyone bitches about Polycom for not having a full-featured web gui for 
provisioning.  These 'bitchings' have significant merit in the case of 
'trying out' Polycom phones, or for installations with a small number of 
Polycom phones.  Having said that, the Polycom provisioning system is simple 
and powerful. IMO it makes things very easy in the long run even if you just 
2 or 3 phones . It allows you to 'layer' your configs so you end up with 
settings for everyone, settings for groups, and settings for phone x,y, and 
z.  When you need to change any an aspect of programming everywhere, for a 
group, or for just one phone, it's a trivial and non-iterative matter to do 
so.  D.R.Y.   Firmware updates are as simple as dropping the new release 
onto your ftp/tftp/http provisioning server, but progressive releases are 
also possible.  It's well thought out.

> I'm guessing you are talking about using the X button here. Weird that
> yours plays the dial tone again right away as mine does not.
> I wonder if this could be a difference in firmware versions. I believe
> I am currently running 7.3.24 although I could be wrong (but it should
> be one around there).

I had a conversation with Mike Storella and one of Snom's developers 
describing why this characteristic is clumsy for several use cases. Even 
though it didn't make sense for us to use their phones at that point, I 
really had to tip my hat to Snom because they really were engaged in 
understanding our viewpoint 'from the trenches'.  So yes Snom is very 
receptive and hopefully they did fix it in firmware, or at least between the 
3xx and 8xx series phones.

> One thing that does drive me nuts about my Snom, if I am on a call,
> and have another ringing, I can't change to a different talk method
> (handset/headset/speaker) until the ringing call on call waiting
> stops. If I try, it will automatically put the first call on hold and
> answer the 2nd call. I've had this happen several times as I change
> from handset to headset mid call and find myself suddenly talking to a
> different caller.

Hear! Hear!
So far every phone I've ever used has some significant idiosyncrasies 
(idioiticsyncracies), but I guess that's the purpose of these subjective 
shakedowns--to determine the cost-benefit analysis of various options. I'm 
very hopeful about the Aastra 6739i. 
http://www.aastra.com/cps/rde/xbcr/SID-3D8CCB6A-82EE0F6D/04/6739i_pds_en_1209.pdf. 
Supposedly available within a few weeks.

-Karl