ORtek VOIP Wireless Skype Phone
Manufactured by: ORtek Provided By: ORtek
Price :
Reviewed by:
Date : July 16th 2007

Installation

There’s not much to do in terms of installation, it’s just a matter of installing the CD. Once installed you will see an application called “SkyWin” which acts as the interface between the phone and SKYPE. You'll see a small red phone icon on the taskbar as shown in the picture below.

There’s no configurations that need to be done here, once you start the application and open SKYPE as well, a security warning from SKYPE will come up informing you another application requires to access it. Once you allow it to go through, all should work fine.

Functionality and Conclusion

Until the phone is linked with skype or any other VOIP software, you will not be able to access any of the menu’s on the phone. Note that the VUP 7240 phone is designed mainly for SKYPE so some of the functions will not work if you plan to use it on another VOIP software.

A light blue backlight on the LCD screen gives the phone a very rich look and it goes away within a few seconds of no activity.

Soon as SKYPE logs onto the internet you see your status along with your SKYPE contacts on the phone like in a phone book. If you want to speak to one of the online contacts, select the desired user and press the green dial button.

Holding the green button brings up the extra menu’s for you to customize the phone. You can setup the desired Volume setting, Hold Melody (5 melodies available), Ring melody (10 melodies available), keypad tone, and Ringer level. The melodies aren’t anything flashy but does the job.

You can also check all calls made, missed calls just like in a mobile phone. The INF button on the phone is to get all the available information for a selected contact on your SKYPE list. (eg: keep pressing the INF button and it’ll show details such as home number, mobile number, office phone and so on, provided they’re filled in.

The “S” button is to activate SKYPE if it’s minimized on the task bar.

Usability wise, the VUP 7240 is very handy as it allows great freedom and at the same time allowing you the luxury of using SKYPE or any other cheap VOIP calling software. The range is very good as well, as we placed the PC with the transceiver in a bed room and used the phone at the living room. There was no breakup in the transmission even though the signal was going through a couple of walls. The specs say it has a range of upto 100 meters.

A feature we would have liked to see is the ability to add contacts directly through the phone so you don’t need to use the SKYPE interface to add users.

During a call, the voice clarity was good and the ability to control the volume through the phone is a good option. The numeric pad was also very responsive and wasn’t hard to dial numbers. When receiving calls the phone immediately starts to ring just like a mobile which is extremely convenient to use.

Overall we’re quite happy with ORtek’s VUP 7240 VOIP phone, regardless of the minor problems mentioned above. It’s very well built and has most of the essential functionality built in. Availability for this unit still seems limited for some reason so we will have to wait and see until ORtek receives more acceptance from retailers.

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