IFA 2006 :: Philips VOIP841 - PC-free DECT/Skype WiFi phone

[Bob Crabtree]

At IFA, Philips promised to introduce before Christmas a phone that regular Skype users will lust after mightily.

The VOIP841 combines a DECT phone for wireless landline calls along with Skype WiFi functionality that allows VoIP calls to be made and received wirelessly without needing a PC to be switched on or even present. Likely VAT-inclusive retail price, we were told, is €199 (£136).

This news - including the price - is likely to come as a nasty shock to Netgear and Belkin. Each company has made quite a bit of noise about its own Skype-only WiFi phone in recent months but these products have been delayed and were far from prominent at the Berlin show.

More in this IFA headline.

[Noli]

Finally

(that's a *lot* of skype calls before this thing pays for itself but better than never)

argh - better *late* than never

[Bob Crabtree]

Well, take off, say, what, £35 cos that's about the cost of a DECT phone that you won't have to buy? Then you're looking at £100.

Okay, the equivalent of £100 of calls takes some doing but for the sheer convenience of being able to take and make Skype calls away from your desk and whether or not the PC's turned on, it's not a sum that hardened Skype users are necessary going to be turned off by.

[sunnyg]

hmm, philips sounds kinda cheap quality to me, especially as u want it connected to your computer.

[Bob Crabtree]

sunnyg,

I'm sure you knew exactly what you meant to say - but I'm not sure you actually said it.

How come you think Philips sounds cheap quality?

Also, I haven't a clue why you think it needs to connect to your PC. It doesn't do that at all, it connects via its own wireless base station to your home router.

Might I refer you, perhaps, to the original IFA headline?

[Noli]

Well, no offense but I think that's false logic Bob, because I already own a DECT phone so buying this isn't going to save me £35 (or refund me £35). I guess if you got a skype in number and were happy to pay for all your skype out calls to non-skype connected friends & family, then you could save £31.50 per quarter in BT line rental, which is very attractive (and use mobiles as back up for when it don't work - and let's face it, it won't all the time) except that I need BT line rental for my ADSL subscription to work in the first place. The whole point of skype is that it's simple and cheap from the off. Until the user base is larger / has more handsets like these, it's not quite worth it. Amazingly, my entire non-tech family has skype - but I call them on landline/mobiles 90% of the time cos of one of us being offline/away from computer the rest of the time. It's like video mobile - until everyone has it, it's an expensive proposition for the rest of us (non-first time adopters).

i'm just bitter cos i really want to tech to work at prices that make sense and it's so close yet so far...
ok, I'll go and get a coffee and cheer up

[ScottJM]

Thinking of buying a VOIP841 for SOHO use and would like to know if anyone has success in using/linking a Plantronics wireless (DECT)CS70 headset with the Philips 841, or with any other DECT or Bluetooth wireless headsets. I see some retailers offer a bundle of the 841 plus a CS70 but that doesn't neccessarily make it work. thxs much

[Bob Crabtree]

Thinking of buying a VOIP841 for SOHO use and would like to know if anyone has success in using/linking a Plantronics wireless (DECT)CS70 headset with the Philips 841, or with any other DECT or Bluetooth wireless headsets. I see some retailers offer a bundle of the 841 plus a CS70 but that doesn't neccessarily make it work. thxs much

Can you please point me out some links for this Philips/Plantronics pairing?