Skypephone Review

On Monday I attended a press event in London where Three and Skype introduced the Skypephone. The Skypephone was described as having Skype in your pocket. I do not want to go over the details of the actual event here. I am more interested in the actual phone it’s self and how the Skypephone is different to any other phone you have used. For details of the actual event I have compiled a list of web sites who have written about the event. You can find the sites listed at the bottom of the review. Now on to the review.

When first opening the box of the Skypephone I was immediately impressed at how small and light the phone was. It weighs just 86g and measures 100 x 44 x 13.6 mm which is very comfortable to hold. The phone is available in 3 colour options. All black, white/blue and white/pink. The 2 Skypephones GadgetVenue received for testing are both black.

The phone costs £49.99 on a PAYG (Pay as You Go) tariff. With PAYG you need to top it up with at least £10/month to get the 4000 free Skype to Skype minutes and 10000 chat sessions. Calls are 12p per minute to regular landlines in the UK (numbers beginning 01, 02 and 03) and the same cost to send SMS messages.

If you opt for the contract version then the phone is free on a £12/Month 18 month contract. With this you get 4000 Skype to Skype minutes, 10000 chat sessions and 100 free minutes or SMS messages. Other options with generous minutes are available to choose from. Details and pictures of the phone are available after the jump.

On the front of the phone you will see a nice sized screen which is 2.0″ QCIF (176 x 220) capable of displaying 262K colours. Below the screen you see the 3 logo and then you will notice in the middle a fairly large Skype button. Push this button and it launches the Skype features of the phone which will be covered later. Around the Skype button is a silver directional key (left, right, up and down) which allows you to navigate through the menu’s. Each side of the Skype button are the soft keys as well as Menu and C (clear). Below this you will find the answer key on the left (which also takes you to the recent calls menu) and the hangup key on the right (which held down will power the phone on and off). Below this are the numerical keys which are standard on most phones. What I like about the keys on the skype phone is that they slightly protrude out in the middle of each key which makes it easier to text and not miss the key you wanted to push. I actually found it very easy to text/chat with.

Moving on to the sides of the phone we find on the left, the up and down volume keys.

On the right side you will find an application key which launches a menu containing current running applications. Pushing this repeatedly scrolls through the running programs and by pressing the Skype button it will select the application. Also on the right side of the phone is the camera button which when pushed, launches the camera software.

On the bottom of the phone is a rubber flap which covers the USB connection which allows the phone to be used as a mass storage device and allows the phone to be charged. Being able to charge via USB is a very handy feature which is welcomed.

On the back of the phone you will notice the 2 megapixel camera along side a small mirror. The lower 2/3rds of the back can be removed which reveals the battery. The back cover interestingly enough is held on with a magnet which is unique. It’s simple to remove, but at the same time seems strong enough not to fall off.

Under the battery you will find the SIM card slot and microSD slot. On the phone I tested I found the SIM card slot to be a little awkward and I ended up scraping off a bit of plastic to be able to slide the SIM card in. That’s not a problem at all because once the SIM card is in place, it is normally not removed out of the phone that often. The Skypephone comes supplied with a 256Mb microSD card to compliment the 16Mb of internal memory. The phone can take up to a 1Gb microSD card should you want more storage space for your MP3’s.

The battery is an impressive 1150mAh. It needs to be this fairly high capacity as Skype is “always on” on the phone which requires a constant connection to 3G services. By providing a larger capacity battery it allows for 320 hours of standby time, 270 minutes of talk time and 170 minutes of video talk time.

Now on to the phone and how it works. The part of this phone which makes it different to other phones is the tight integration with the phone and Skype. Up till now, Skype has always been an application which had to be launched. It worked independently of the phone and was just another application that could use your data transfer. The Skypephone has Skype integrated right in to the main core functions of the phone. When scrolling through your contacts list you can see your contacts Skype availability as well as the regular numbers. When looking through your call history, you see Skype calls mixed in with regular calls. You do not need to launch the “Skype application” any more, to Skype someone. You just hit contacts, find who you want to talk to and call or Skype them. It’s that simple. When wanting to check chat sessions, you can go right to your message folder. Next to SMS is Skype Chat and here you will find a list of your “active chats” which you can respond to.

The integration provided actually can be a little separate too. The Skype button opens up just Skype contacts if you prefer to browse Skype contacts only. This is a nice feature should you want to cut down the clutter on your contacts list.

Other Features of the Skypephone
As well as having Skype tightly integrated with the phone there are other standard features. A 2 megapixel camera (no flash) is provided and can be quickly accessed by pushing the camera button on the lower right side of the phone. Pictures seem to be a fairly decent quality and there are a number of standard options such as B&W, sepia as well as the white balancing.

Music is a part of this phone and a fairly standard MP3 player can also be found. There is an option to scan your memory card of music and the software on the phone will sort through the files and list them correctly. The MP3 player works and is functional.

Web surfing on 3’s network is as good as can be expected. Speed isn’t an issue with it being a 3G phone and there is plenty of free content available for browsing. Paying £5 extra a month can give you unlimited (fair use policy) access to the general internet to browse any site you wish. Checking your balance for PAYG, topping up for PAYG and checking your minutes used for contract users is also done through Planet 3. This allows quick access to see what you are spending on calls.

Bluetooth is also integrated which I love. BT is essential in phones these days.

The Good things about Skypephone
Deep integration with the core features of the phone make this a very attractive service to use. When using X-Series on the N73 it was a pain having to load up an application and going through the process of making a call. Now, I just select my contact and either call or Skype them. No more messing around with fiddly apps.

The phone also looks great. Everyone who has seen the phone thinks it looks great and all request to have a look and play around with it. Several people have also indicated an interest in purchasing one of these when they launch on the 2nd November in the UK.

The Bad things about Skypephone
There are not that many things wrong with the Skypephone. I spotted a couple of bugs, but no doubt these will be fixed in a firmware update (or they might be already as I have a pre release model).

First, the phone has randomly shut down once for me and powered back up. This also happened to the other phone that my brother is testing. However, this is not anything too major and no doubt it will be easily fixed in a firmware upgrade.

The Skype button does not light up for some reason like the rest of the keypad. When using the phone in the dark it just looks to be completely missing. Again, not a major problem and just a small cosmetic feature.

Sometimes you automatically get signed out. This has just happened once to me today and once to the other phone. Not major, but could do with being looked in to.

Apart from that all seems well with the Skypephone.

One thing I want to test is how Skypephone works in a 2G network area. When a 3 mobile phone moves out of a 3G area it switches to 2G. I want to test how Skype performs (if it does at all) when roaming in a 2G network area. As soon as I spot my signal is 2G I will let you know.

Features I want to see
SkypeIn and SkypeOut as well as Skype Video would make this a seriously cool phone. Being able to make calls to any landline in the world for just a few pence a minute would be amazing as well as being able to be contacted by anyone in the world calling from a landline. I can see why they do not allow SkypeIn/Out at the moment as it could potentially kill Three’s revenue source. However, things will slowly head this way and they have made a huge jump in that direction. I am not sure if any other mobile phone network will dare follow.

Conclusion
I am happy with this phone and am seriously tempted to continue using it my self. Three has made a cool step in mobile phone telephony and I look forwards to more features being launched.

For details of the press event you can check out 3MobileBuzz (who invited me down to London), BlogNation, sme-blog, Tamebay and dalelane.

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