12 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
Packet8 Videophone is Awesome - Great Way to Stay in Touch Cheaply
Date of Review: Jan 31, 2005
The Bottom Line: Highly recommended, great way to stay in touch with loved ones, even in the same city. And for those who need it for business, it's an easy to use solution.
I was looking for an easy way to stay in touch with my brother who's in Spain, and while I can talk to him fairly inexpensively, it was always a pain to see him, his wife, and most importantly, their 3-year old daughter. I was pretty familiar with VoIP services, and heard about Packet8's videophone, so I decided to buy 2, send him one, and give it a try.
The videophones are easy to set up and come with all the cables you'll need. Everything feels really high quality, and even the cables are top end. All you have to do is plug in a high speed connection and a few other items to the back of the phone, and you're up and running. Unlike normal VoIP phone service, you don't need a separate phone adapter, since it's built in to the videophone. When you hook it up for the first time, you'll need to call a special number, then type in your activation code. The phone is immediately activated.
My first call was to my brother, videophone to videophone, and it worked perfectly the first time. Immediately, the picture came on and I could see him. The video was choppy at first, but it smoothed right out and we were talking face to face. it was amazing. The camera is good enough to allow closeups of pictures and other things you may want to show the person on the other end. Depending on the connection, the video can get a little choppy occasionally, but it cleans itself up pretty quickly. There are some quality settings that can be changed so you can adjust for substandard connections. The phone comes with a plastic lens cover so you can have privacy if you want it, and it also has a "Privacy" button which just cuts out the signal you send out so no one can see you. There are also other setting you can change to adjust the image quality, like your upload bandwidth. If you have a fast connection with good upload speed, you can increase the limit so your video transmission will be higher quality.
The phones are pretty high quality - you can adjust the screen pivot, and even focus the lens. There needs to be adequate light in the room for the video quality to be good enough, but that's relatively easy to to. Otherwise, the speakerphone works great, and the phone feels pretty solid.
The videophone calling plan costs $29.95 per month, which is $10 more than the standard Packet8 calling plan with no videophone. It's a good deal - I get a dial tone, every feature imaginable, plus unlimited calling in the US and Canada. And because my brother is also a Packet8 customer, I can call him for free, even though he's in Spain. This is a huge benefit for those who have family or friends in international destinations - you won't have to pay international calling charges to call if you're calling a Packet8 phone.
The deal I got was pretty good. The phones seemed a little pricey at first - $500 each, but i got a $250 rebate on each phone, which made it kind of like a buy one, get one free setup. We both also got our first month of service free. I signed up through a website I found called http://www.ordervoip.com . There may be other places online to find this deal, but they had a pretty good writeup of various VoIP services, and Packet8 was the only one offering a videophone, so I went for it.
Overall, I'm really happy with Packet8's videophone. After a few months of using the service, it's still fun to do video calls. I just wish more of my friends in random places had the phones too, so we could all play! I think that will happen soon, as prices drop and more people sign on to VoIP.
