 VOIP
is rapidly becoming the default method of communications for many
individuals and businesses. Here at Lordpercy.com we are already
skyped with our main telephone line using skype in and almost all of
our outgoing calls made on VOIP technology. Sadly the technology
often fails to keep up with the shift in consumer tastes and the
lack of VOIP accessories is only just being addressed with devices
like the VOIP chatterbox from Actiontec.The
chatterbox is a small unit (7.7 cm x 5.8 cm x 2.1 cm), which plugs
to a PC using a USB 2.0 socket and acts as a voice gateway allowing
a speakerphone style of operations. The first thing that strikes you
as you liberate the Chatterbox from its shrink wrap package is that
it is a small unit, it fits nicely in the palm of the hand which
makes it feel a bit like a walkie talklie!
Styled in white the Chatterbox shows its ready
for action with a small green LED above the microphone mute button,
this also changes to red to indicate when the mute is in operations.
The only other controls on the unit are the volume selection buttons
to the right of the speaker, these range from very quiet (pressing
your ear against the unit) to quite loud, enough to work a few feet
away from. Its best to think of Actiontec's Chatterbox as an
extension for VOIP from your PC it doesn’t have phone controls and
so unlike to Waitec device we tested you can’t dial the number from
the chatterbox of answer incoming calls without using the PC.
 To
be fair this isn’t what the chatterbox was designed for and it does
do its job well, the full duplex audio system makes for loud and
good quality calls with just the right amount of suppression during
calls depending on who is speaking. We’ve encountered speakerphones
with far less convincing audio capabilities than the Chatterbox so
its quite impressive when you consider the £27 asking price. Perhaps
the best use of the chatterbox was shown when using it with a
laptop, which would have traditionally performed poorly with its
inbuilt speaker and microphone. Instead the whole experience was
transformed by the little white box making it easy to take calls
while out of the office.
Overall Actiontec’s chatterbox provides an easy
to use and reliable method of extending the audio capabilities of
your PC or laptop when using Skype or other VOIP clients.
Published - 17/12/2005
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