CounterPath X-Lite 3.0 Review

Background

After developing EyeBeam it was only a matter of time until CounterPath (formerly X-Ten) abandoned their original X-Lite codebase. Unfortunately, with the "Upgrading" of X-Lite to Version 3, which is based on a cut-down version of EyeBeam, CounterPath have created problems for users by completely re-vamping the interface and breaking a lot of functionality.

Getting It To Work

After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing working out how to get this to connect to VoIPUser, I finally discovered the magic... you *HAVE* to use counterpath's STUN server. Defining anything else makes this new version of X-Lite give the LAN address as the contact address, no matter whether you define yourself as behind a NAT/Firewall or not. And there is no way to tell X-Lite to use a specific address as the contact address.

In Operation

Having worked that out, I get to using the package itself. All in all, it's very slick, claiming to support Video as well as Audio (though I couldn't test the video part, not having a webcam here) and supporting 2 lines.

Unfortunately, CounterPath added a nice advertising pane into the pull-out Video "Wing" to encourage you to upgrade, but that's about the only nag in the program.

Functionality

While it only supports H263 and H263+ for video, there are a wealth of codecs available for audio (BroadVoice-32, BroadVoice-32 FEC, DVI4, DVI4 Wideband, G711 aLaw, G711 uLaw, L16 PCM Wideband, GSM and iLBC). With the QoS DCSP/TOS and "Service Type" options available too, this is quite a well-rounded package.

Business users will be dissappointed to learn that Transfer and Conference Calling are disabled, but one would presume business users would be able to afford the $60 to upgrade and will make use of the extra 4 lines that the upgraded "EyeBeam" enables.

Conclusion

Voice quality is good, the echo cancellation seems to work well and importing MP3 ringtones allows a fair amount of personalisation.

So setup niggles aside, this is a fine (and free) SIP Softphone.

Added:  Sunday, September 17, 2006
Reviewer:  Robert Johnston
Score:
Related web link:  CounterPath X-Lite V3 Download Page
hits: 10207
Language: eng

  

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Posted by gjsmith on Feb 16, 2009 - 06:21 PM Your rating: This soft phone works better then most of the IP phone units I have used. Not only does it work with a ton of different VoIP service. Best of all it also works with many video phone services.

Posted by Kenny_10_Bellys on Jan 19, 2009 - 08:57 AM Your rating: It's probably the most professional free SIP phone, nicely laid out and good looking, but it still has its problems. The lack of real low-bandwidth protocols and the breaking of the transfer button and other 'business' features means it's hobbled right from the start. The lack of support for almost all the popular USB phones is also a pain, and even if you upgrade to Eyebeam the problem doesn't go away. They shouldn't have given this a different name, they should just have called it Eyebeam lite and made it clear it's a broken version to use as a taster for their paid product.