Well, it's been a long time in coming, but I am finally evaluating the F3000 phone from UTStarcom. A project I'm doing for Best Technology has me looking at all sorts of WiFi phones, and the F3000 was thought to be the creme de la creme, that is, until I actually got it and started working with it. Here's what I don't like about it:
- The first digit of a dialed number is often inexplicably missed as the phone transitions to its "dial screen"
- The (apparently battery-preservation related) power features on the WiFi radio seem to yield some startup problems for the RTP stream, and initial audio seems to be garbled sometimes.
- The range is lower than even the minimal range of Linksys's WIP300 phone.
- Annoying startup and shutdown jingles. When are phone makers going to realize that these jingles are a complete and utter waste of my time an annoyance, to boot?
- Poorly designed networking options menu causes every entry that begins with "register" to just say "register", concealing the rest of the option name, ie. "register server", "register port", and so on. So it's hard to tell which option you're actually modifying.
- Phone mysteriously becomes unregistered from the SIP registrar after certain SIP methods. Not sure of the pattern yet.
Here's what I do like about it:
- Obvious TFTP support (where is this on the WIP300?)
- Customizable ringtones and graphics via software upload
- Network-updateable firmware
- Nice pretty color screen.
I'll get back to you when I've putzed with this phone some more.
1. wait till WIMAX comes into play.
Neal Saferstein
Posted at 4:20PM on Jun 3rd 2006 by Neal Saferstein