Netgear  SPH101 Skype Wifi Phone

Netgear is the first company to manufacture a stand-alone wifi phone for Skype, which is small enough to be carried around like a mobile phone. It was really hard to get the SPH101. It was announced month ago and the shipment date has been delayed so many time. I finally got one from Amazon around October. It was the same time I got my Mylo, so I had a great chance to compare bot of these devices. If you require information about Skype services and how these wifi gadgets implement these services you can read my Mylo review to refresh you memory.  

SPH101's main advantage is that it feels a lot like a regular mobile phone. The only difference is that it does not have a GSM or any other cellular module and can only use wifi hotspots to make any kind  of connection. Once it finds a wifi hotspot the connction quality is very good. I have to say that Mylo can lock on to a wifi network faster than the SPH101. Also the earpiece sound quality of the Mylo is slightly better.

I will not talk about the SPH101's functions much because it simply is a cut-down version of the Mylo.  In this case one does not get a keyboard but a regular keypad. Althogh it is theoretically possible to type chat messages using the keypad of the phone, the SPH101 does not offer this advantage. So it basically is for Skype Voice calls only. Unlike Mylo, SPH101 does not offer any services other than Skype. Remeber that Mylo can be used with Googletalk and Yahoo Messenger as well. It is also not possible to check you mail, or surf the net. SPH101 lacks all the multimedia functions. So as I said before it can only do voice calls.

Again in the department of Voice calls SPH101 is not as strong as Mylo. First of all the soung quality of Mylo is slightly better. Mylo has a better battery life so you won't need to charge is as often. SPH101 get really hot after sometime of usage, wich makes less energy efficient that the competitors.

SPH101 has one strong point over Mylo. It looks nice and is smaller. Both of these Wifi gadgets are cool and really functionall, but one has to choose which services one requires. If you never use Googletalk or Yahoo messenger, if you do not need to surf the net or check you mail then you do not need to pay the extra 120 $ for the Mylo.