Netgear Cordless Phone with Skype review

Verdict:

Review Date: 27 Jun 2008

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Nik Rawlinson

Our Rating 5 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Netgear's Cordless Phone has a good screen and feels well made. However, Philips' Internet Phone puts the same software in a better body.

The Cordless Phone needs two power sockets: one for the base station and one to charge the handset. However, while you have to charge and store the Solwise device beside your broadband router, you can keep the Netgear's attractive base station by the router and the handset wherever you want. You can add up to three further handsets to the system, each of which is sold separately.

This is a Skype handset and a regular landline phone, so could be your main home or office phone, allowing you to make cheap domestic calls on the landline and switch to SkypeOut for overseas contacts. Your Skype credit is displayed on the screen with missed calls, contacts and incoming numbers. It's a fully standalone device that does without a PC, so can't be used with Microsoft, Google or Yahoo!'s messaging clients.

Sound quality was fair but not brilliant in our tests, with a slightly metallic edge. It's not bad, but it's not up there with HP's Internet Handset for sound quality.

Were it not for Philips' Internet Phone, this would receive the Best Buy award. However, it just misses out due to its slightly inferior looks.

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