Digital Trends

Philips VOIP841 December 4th, 2007 | by Brandon King

Features and Design

The popularity of Skype and other voice over IP (VOIP) solutions has lead many people to consider casting their traditional landline phone to the wind. But there are still some major advantages to keeping a landline, namely that it remains on should the power go out; you receive working 911 service; and you don’t have to worry about the nebulous state of fax support which varies by VoIP provider. Along came the Philips VOIP841 hybrid phone, and we thought our troubles had been remedied. But, for each problem the VOIP841 solves, it also creates another, and bizarrely offers nothing compelling beyond basic functionality.

Let’s start with the basics. The phone itself looks sleek and sexy, with a shiny black and dark silver finish, plus some nice curves. The button layout is similar to a cell phone’s, so working with it right out of the box is intuitive. The phone fits nicely into the charging station as well, and a separate base unit plugs into your landline and router.

The base station is almost the size of a router itself, but can luckily be placed out of sight. Conversely, the charging station comes across as attractive, yet is made of very light plastic and slides around any surface it is placed on. Rather than include a charging dock on the base and offering the second charging-only stand as an option, you are forced to eat up two power outlets if you place the two beside each other. That’s inefficient, but not a deal-breaker.

In terms of plastics quality, the phone itself looks much sturdier than it actually is. The handset feels light and flimsy, and inspires zero confidence that it will last through more than two inadvertent fumbles. In fact, we did drop our unit, accidentally, from a height of less than 3 feet, only to find it split nearly in two down the seam. Granted, it snapped back together easily and doesn’t appear to be permanently damaged, but any device costing as much as the VOIP841 should be able to take a drop from couch seat height at minimum. At this point, it was obvious that there were going to be problems on the horizon if these were the impressions we were getting before even powering the unit up.

Image Courtesy of Philips