This phone is awesome. I haven't even BEGUN to do all the cool stuff it can do, but what I have used it for works really well. It's incredibly thin too. But I wanted to give an update on how my VOIP is going.
I decided on VoipVoip. It's $6.99 per month to have a phone number people can call you on. All incoming calls are free, and all outgoing calls are 1.9 cents a minute. The bummer thing is that you have to reformat your phone numbers in your address book to: 12225557777, and then if you want to get really spiffy and allow Skype to call out for you (using a different application), you have to put a + in front of the number. Doesn't seem to work if the phone number is formatted (222)555-7777. But that's a minor inconvenience.
It is VERY dependent on a 3G or WiFi connection. Edge will not work. And 3G is not everywhere, despite what the coverage tells you. Often, there is also about a 2 second connection delay when the phone call initializes.
So far, if switching between WiFi and 3G and vice versa, I have to go in and manually change some settings to make it work. But, overall, VoipVoip is very clear, works most of the time, and is a great deal.
It also picks up your ring tones just fine, and makes and receives calls through the normal phone function. Even call waiting works just fine. When you have the voicemail turned on, it actually emails you your voicemail, which is pretty cool.
I dumped Fring in favor of Nimbuzz. I just like the interface better. It seems to be a little slicker with Skype, and it's a great chat program. I can make and receive Skype calls just fine. Most of the time though there is a slight lag when using Skype. A small inconvenience that I'm willing to go through for reducing my phone bill. You can also make Yahoo! calls and GTalk calls.
So far there seems to be NO software solution to make video calls. The phone has the functionality, but you can't freaking use it. It'd be awesome to interface with GTalk Video, Skype, Yahoo, MSN, etc, using a WiFi or 3G connection, but nothing seems to be out there.
Also, I seem to fill up the RAM pretty quickly and end up having to reboot the phone. Not sure what that's all about yet.
Overall, I'm definitely saving some dough. People who use both a data connection and minutes can cut their bill in half doing what I'm doing.
There's my update!
2 comments:
I feel, that in the spirit of full disclosure I should mention, as a counter-point, that actually calling Don is a giant pain.
9 out of 10 times I call Don with his new system, the call fails for one reason or another. Either the connection never gets made, or somewhere out in the ether the signal decides Don doesn't exist, or a myriad of other things.
When Don is solidly smack in the center of a 3G area, it works wonderfully well. However, as Don has mentioned, 3G isn't everywhere. It seems most especially it isn't where Don works. Do some research on how firmly inside a 3G zone your most frequent locales are before committing to the "Don-saver" system.
However... it IS a lot of money to save.
Nathan
Additionally it works really well when you have wifi.
Pretty much no troubles. The problem I have at work, is that I'm in and out of WiFi range so often, and yeah, 3G isn't great there.
One thing I have learned though, is that it has significantly reduced my dependence on my cell phone.
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