Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : VOIP etc : A good VOIP phone?

[Purevoltage]

Hello there,
I'm looking to get a phone for my office just wondering if anyone has any recommendations, I've only looked at a few Cisco phones myself however have not had experience with any.
Thanks,
Jake.

[shovenose]

I have a friend who owns a multitude of different Cisco IP phones. He really likes them.

[MyITGuy]

I utilize the Aastra 57i phones myself.

[MikeTrike]

Polycom is good if you can afford them. I've used a bunch of 650's and a few 330's, not a fan of the 330's. If you need something 330 like, go for the 335.

Yealink phones are fantastic for the price range. I'd personally opt for these. Solid phones, HD audio, cheap price.

3CX makes a solid soft phone for free. Only because I love 3CX. The 3CX iPhone app soft phone is also good.

[Adam-AEC]

I have a Polycom 501 and it works good. The interface is somewhat kludgy and it is *extremely* slow to initially configure, since it boots slow.

Sound quality and physical build is excellent.

[pdqso]

I have a wireless 802.11 QuickPhones QA 342. Works OK at my house. I don't use it a lot and when I cannot use my laptop at a remote location to use Skype / Google Voice but have access to WiFi.

[powerplaybegins]

Hi,

I feel eyebeam softphone from Counterpath does a decent job and is fairly priced. You can get a free trial version for it too

Thanks

[Power-gInc]

You can check in MyVoIP provider for best deal!

[Matt R]

I've been working on starting up a VOIP provider so I've been testing out a LOT of phones over the past few years.

Here's what I've come to learn:

1) Cisco is awesome. Their entire range works beautifully. I prefer the SPA525G because it works brilliantly in every aspect.

2) Grandstream is decent. I run into a lot of software bugs, but when it works, it works great.

3) Polycom is good. I don't like their speakerphone anywhere near as much as I do that of Cisco. People generally can't tell I'm on speakerphone with Cisco, but they always asked me to pick up the handsets on Polycom phones.

4) Snom is amazing. The interfaces are a bit confusing at first, but the quality of their product is absolutely outstanding. It's expensive, but well worth it. Especially the 800 series.

[CymraegWalesHosting]

We generally find Polycom and Cisco to be the best.

As with anything and espcially true of IP Phones, you pay for what you get in this industry. There are no big financial short cuts you can take that won't come back at you sometime down the line.

With IP Phones, try staying with a reputable brand.

There are lots of Chinese brands out there and in a nutshull, all the ones we've tried, our clients have tried... They are rubbish!! They crash, quality is terrible etc etc. Not the business impression you want to give current/future clients.

If your really on a budget, go with a linksys PAP2 ATA and plug a standard telephone in it and off you go.

[Power-gInc]

Cisco is the best.You can rely on Cisco without any tension.

[Tovoip]

Anyone tried Shoretel phones?

[ParagonHost]

Shortel phone must be used with a ShoreTel phone system they are not the standard SIP based phone as with others talked about here.

We are a ShoreTel Partner.

But in regards to this, OP what service are you using? It does make a difference sometimes regarding features etc. If it is a hosted provider you may want to grab there matrix based on the phone you end up using.

We are also a CudaTel Partner and the Cisco phones have a limited feature set VS the Polycom phones ( 4XXX is a nice standard phone ) and can be purchased at a good price. But CudaTel has built in support for Polycom and Cisco has a closed feature set unless you use it on a supported Hosting provider and / or there UC based platforms and such.

For me / Polycom has worked out best.

Cheers,

Dave

Originally Posted by Tovoip

Anyone tried Shoretel phones?

[JustinSM]

A few of us are using the Polycom IP 335's HD Voice phones. They are great quality, verify affordable and easy to configure with any PBX Box.

For Softphones / SIP Accounts we are using X-LITE and BRIA (Registered version) which has yet to cause us issues.

Best of luck if you're still looking

JB


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B2 Net Solutions Inc. - Superior Hosting Made Simple - Since 2003
Dedicated Servers, VPS Hosting, Web Hosting, Shoutcast Hosting
Twitter - @B2netsolutions | Facebook.com/b2netsolutions | Youtube.com/b2netsolutions
Call us 24/7, toll free @ 1-888-237-6637 or 1-866-609-6447

[VIPNode-Nick]

We've got a mix of 7940/7960 series (cheap on ebay!) and softphones... I'm a mac user, and use Jitsi - I haven't tried the linux or windows builds, but if they're as solid as the OSX build- it's a good choice! I use my headset and Jitsi more often than my 7940 desk phone... Give it a try, it's free.