Once online, the phone allowed me to enter in my current Skype account information. If I didn’t have one, it also gave me a choice to create a new account. Since I already had an account with Skype, I logged in. The phone downloaded my Skype contact list and information, and I was ready to make my first phone call!
The Netgear SPH101′s setup process was very similar with hawking wifi extender. As with the SMC WSKP100, Netgear logs you in. If you are trying to access a closed network, you will have to enter in your information using the phone’s keypad. I found the buttons responsive and they felt solid, a little more so than with SMC’s phone.
Once online, the SPH101 asked me to enter in my Skype logon info, after which it downloaded my information off of Skype’s server and I was ready to go.
Making a phone call on the two phones were practically identical. You could either follow the on-screen guides and call someone from your Skype contact list (which is updated automatically via each phone’s respective connection to Skype’s servers), or you could dial a number or Skype name by using each phone’s respective keyboard. As noted earlier, the Netgear SPH101′s keys felt slightly better than SMC’s WSKP100. However, SMC’s phone was more than satisfactory and met the needs I was using it for.
One of the most important factors I was looking for was call quality. Both phones suffer from a short lag-time when calling a telephone landline. There was also static on both phones, but this was intermittent and rarely affected the quality of my phone call. With the SMC WSKP100 phone, the person I was talking to heard static when I didn’t. Once again, this was occasional and rarely affected the call quality.
Calls made on both phones to computer Skype accounts were much clearer and did not suffer from the lag experienced when calling a landline.
