Mobile Phone Reviews
 
 
Skype's first mobile phone

Fri, 06 Jan 2006

Well, this is the coolest thing we’ve seen so far at Consumer Electronics Show (CES). EBay’s newly acquired Skype said it is working with Netgear on new products, including the first Skype wireless mobile telephone and a router which serves up the ultimate in internet telephony, free calls, wherever there is a network connection.

Looking not unlike a Sony Ericsson handset, the Netgear Skype WiFi phone will work wherever a consumer is connected to a wireless internet access point in the home, office, cafe, open public hotspot, or any open municipal wireless access point.

The Skype experience remains the same, in that users can make free domestic and international calls, as well as host conference calls and chat, with other Skype users anywhere in the world, and to non-Skype users for a small fee. With this device, headphones or USB phones plugged into a laptop or PC are not required.

The Netgear phone is pre-loaded with Skype's software, ready out-of-the-box to use the minute you rip it from the box with a wireless network. All a user needs to do after turning on the phone is enter a Skype username and password. The Skype software pulls up the user's full contact list, displays the connection status on the phone screen, and allows the consumer to connect to any other Skype user for free.

In addition to the Skype Wifi phone, Netgear and Skype also announced that the Netgear RangeMax Wireless Router (WPN824) with Smart MIMO technology will be available for hooking up to your new phone, which will no doubt have DECT phones the world over fretting about being made obsolete.

There are currently only 10 working units in existence, but news on availability will surface some time in the first quarter of 2006. All Netgear are saying about cost is that it will be 'very competitively priced.' If it means we can get rid of our landlines, we'll be there waving our credit cards regardless.
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