[Asterisk-Users] Best $300 VoIP phone for asterisk?

[Michael Graves]

On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:37:25 -0400, Andrew Kohlsmith wrote:

>Good to know, I was going to get one in to test.  I tried the UTStarComm 
>F1000G but its ergonomics, flaky wifi and quiet speaker caused it to fail for 
>me.  I'm currently waiting on the new Siemens phone to come in to test.  
>Aastra says they have a standalone wifi phone "in the works" but no hard date 
>at this point. 

>What all these wifi phones are missing is bluetooth.  Such a shame, as it 
>could be used both for presence and for wireless headsets.

The Zultys 4x5 desk phone, which I tried for a couple of months last year, has bluetooth capability. It sucked in so many other ways that I was happy to sell off.

The other thing to consider is range and coverage. The Hitachi WIP-5000 worked well withint about 15m of my APs...then became seriously unreliable. 

The 480 cordless unit I've tested to approx 90m away from my desk before the call quality drops. I suspect that the corldess unit is not unlike a normal 2.4 Ghz digital cordles phone as when its 
call quality suffers it over distance it manifests in analog noise and choppiness...not a dropped call like a wifi handset.

Michael