Philips VOIP841 Review: No more frantic headset issues!

I've been using Skype for the past year. Skpe has been critical for me to stay connected to friends and business contacts all over the world.

My biggest gripe has been when I'm rocking to some music on my speakers then the familiar BEEP-BOOP-BEEP sounds and I am in a panic to turn off the music, hook up the headset and answer the call all in a timely fashion. Since I have been using Skype more and more my frustration and annoyance with wrestling with the headset reached an all time high, so I started looking around for separate stand-alone Skype device.

Just looking at all the half arsed solutions by some of the best peripheral makers in the world who have no experience designing phones caused me to question if there was a good solution that fit my needs. Until I came across "THE PHILIPS VOIP841 PC-FREE DECT 6.0 WIRELESS IP PHONE" (yeah the name could use some work, seriously Philips that's not quite marketable).


Here is my list of why the Philips VOIP841 is great (Ignoring reasons why Skype is great on it's own)!

1. No PC Needed - It's a totally standalone device! Need I say more?

2. It's a real phone - It looks and feels like a real phone. Weight, battery length, base station, pants clip, mic and speaker are in the right places...

3. User Interface - Your Skype contact list is right there and looks just like Skype. Navigation is just like a cell phone so it's intuitive to a cell phone user. Skype credits are displayed front and center.

4. Speaker Phone - Oh how I love speaker phone, allows me to be hands free and even have other people join the conversation. Plus the speaker is on the other side of the phone so you can just put it down and it sounds and picks up sound reasonably.

5. Plug in a normal phone/ landline - Now that was a slick idea. Although I don't have a land line (who does these days?), it is a really good feature. You can customize the ring and make a preference of outgoing calls either Skype, landline or prompt the user.

6. Move your office with you - I just wanted to highlight how easy it is to bring with you, just jack it into a router and you are good to go.


Here's what would make the Philips VOIP841 even better!

1. No base station - Should be able to use 802.11 and not need a base station. Can you imagine just taking this with you with no PC to Wifi hotspot?

2. Headset jack - As I'm walking around my house, I still crave a headset. For some reason I like being mobile while I talk on the phone. All I ask for is a standard headset jack. Update review

3. Phone doesn't want to charge - The phone doesn't always detect it needs to charge, which involves taking it on and off the charge station until it recognizes it. Most of the time the phone is fine, just happened enough to make it worth mentioning.

4. Multiple Skype Profile Management - You should be able save multiple Skype profiles and make it easy to switch. (As far as I know the phone can only save a single username and password at a time).

5. Double Log on Compatible - If you are logged online with your PC on the same account and someone calls you the Philips does not ring. You can dial out when connected on your PC but it doesn't ring on taking a call.

In summary, the Philips VOIP841 is a great tool for the placeless office. Despite my list of improvements, it is a quality product! Thanks Mom for picking it off my x-mas list! It is essential to my web worker lifestyle and my laptop thanks you for not having to deal with headsets and another app taking up precious RAM.