[VoiceOps] Grandstream VoIP phones

[Alex Balashov]

On 08/17/2012 01:22 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:

> The Grandstreams from a few years ago gave us a lot of issues on SIP and
> provisioning, but that's gone as far as we've seen.  I originally turned
> down the offer of some demo phones based on past experience, so I urge
> everyone to discard that experience and see it as a new product.

The Grandstream ATAs have also been an interoperability nightmare, both 
on the electrical and IP side.

>     I mainly judge phone hardware by the quality of its speakerphone,
>     since I'm a very heavy user, so it may be a personal bias.  However,
>     by that metric, the Cisco 79xx's and Polycoms win, and Grandstreams,
>     Snoms and Aastras lose.
>
> Yeah, I'd never use speakerphone when talking to anyone, so user type
> will be important here.  I always recommend a headset to the
> speakerphone users, about 50% go for it.

With a good speakerphone, having a conversation with someone over it, at 
a reasonable distance from the phone, and speaking at a relatively 
natural conversational volume... shouldn't be a problem.

The reason I stay with the Cisco 7960, for all its problems and clunky 
SIP image UI, is that the hardware itself is just unbeatable.  Nobody 
ever complains of being unable to hear me on my 7960's speakerphone, of 
tinny sound, feedback, unsteady volume, etc.  The Polycom's is almost as 
good.  Everything else sucks in this regard, though I haven't tried the 
SPAs.

-- Alex

-- 
Alex Balashov - Principal
Evariste Systems LLC
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