Netgear WiFi phone for Skype: no PC required

Netgear announced their new Skype WiFi phone that needs no PC; Skype, of course, obviously comes pre-loaded since you don't want to carry yet another phone just because you can. Just enter your Skype name and password and you're set to call all of your Skype buds whenever you're in range of some WiFi. What's that, your peeps don't have Skype? No prob since you can seamlessly use your SkypeIn or SkypeOut account just as well. We're guessing that the WiFi flavor is either 802.11b or 802.11g, although Netgear also announced RangeMax to support Skype on their WPN824 RangeMax wireless router. No juicy details on pricing or availability just yet, so keep using that cheesy headset for now.

[Jabari @ Jan 4th 2006 6:56PM]

Looks Like they just took a Sony Ericsson design class....

[Arthur Lau @ Jan 4th 2006 6:58PM]

lol sounds alright .. lmao why does it look so much like the sony ericsson t630 =/

[Rich @ Jan 4th 2006 7:08PM]

...and I was wondering what happened to that Sony Ericsson T630 I lost a couple of years ago!

[Todd @ Jan 4th 2006 7:12PM]

GREAT!! Two questions:



1. Will it support the full voice quality of Skype, using the wide bandwidth ISAC codec?



2. Will they support the Skype Zones product of global hotspots that allow unlimited Skype only access for something like $8/month?



If yes to both, I may just ditch my cell phone....

[OLivier @ Jan 4th 2006 7:13PM]

Yes!!! At last!!

They probably have some flavor of embedded linux running on this thing. Jsut like they do with all their Modem/routers.

Thank you Netgear for bringing me the device that wll allow me to go completel without a landline and ***yet** keep a lanline number so my cheap-ass friends can ring me. (I live in Europe, and calls to mobile phone are 20X the cost of those to landlines, so forget about living strictly off a mobile here).

[ELQ @ Jan 4th 2006 7:31PM]

>why does it look so much like the sony ericsson t630 =/



I was thinking exactly the same when I saw it. It just seems that this is the "generic" cellphone look, OR, the designer really likes SE phones. :)

[mossop @ Jan 4th 2006 8:10PM]

I guess its more likely to be a Chinese (or similar) copy of the T610/630, definatly a theme going here...

[Rocky @ Jan 4th 2006 8:29PM]

WEP? WPA? Or is Skype login encrypted?

[Jay Allen @ Jan 4th 2006 11:25PM]

Big Q: can the phone record to a memory card or internal memory? Combine that with SkypeOut and you have a super-slick phone for those of us who need to record interviews.

[Mike @ Jan 5th 2006 4:00AM]

Sadly, the Skype wifi phone, announced in May 2004, turned out to be vaporware. This product, with no price, no delivery date and few details, may be following in the footsteps of its predecessor. I very much hope I am wrong!

[Jacques @ Jan 5th 2006 4:42AM]

Am I the only one who thinks that a headset is the most confortable way to use Skype? As much as I'd like skype to be independent from my computer (so I can reboot or whatever) talking for an hour holding a phone in your hand kinda sucks as compared to having you hands free to do actual work while seamingly listening to your partner. Wake me up when they have a base station with an LCD showing up your contact list and a wireless headset that charges when put on top of it.

[Kevin C. Tofel @ Jan 9th 2006 7:07PM]

Jay, sorry dude, no slots for any recording or storage; that would have rocked!



Mike, I held the device in my hand, so I don't think it's vaporware. It's possible that they just gave me a fancy brick, but highly unlikely.

[GOD @ Jan 9th 2006 10:10PM]

Looks and sounds great, I just hope it's reasonably price. I don't know if I would give up my cell for this, there aren't always wifi hotspots where I live. And what about WEP and WPA? Still if it isn't over priced I would pick one up.

[im sommerkamp @ Jan 17th 2006 11:08AM]

if it is recomendet from skype and it works with skype I wil buy it.I use skype since the beginning on my trips to southamerica.even with a little laptop and normal phoneline data down to 47kbtmin. skype allows

claer phonecalls from pc to pc and for 2.2cent phonecalls to any housephone in all25 EU countries,australiaNZ,Can,USA.rest and celular a bit more.even gratis sms (unlimited symbols)with www.web2skype.com(even from my blackberry7100).when I travelled around the world 1 year ago

I asked Who has SKYPE?now I must ask who dont have SKYPE?Now ICQ,Hotmail,Yahoo and all the others waking up and want to do the same:too late only skype dont ask for your adress and your grannies birdsday,just a nickname needed,nothing else.and skype has no junkmail because they dont use@@@ 2young swedish made the deal and sold skype to ebay for4.100milion$.

I remain a skyper(beware of bad copys)