UT Starcom F1000 Review
Introduction
I originally purchased the UT Starcom F1000 from Vonage with a Philadelphia “virtual number” so that my colleagues in Philly could contact me on the same local (for them) number regardless of wether I was in the office or working at home in London.
The novelty of early adoption soon wore off with this handset. After ten or so minutes on a call the handset would get very hot and uncomfortable and on the odd occasion even when there was no other network activity the phone would suddenly screech unbearably forcing me to drop the call.
In Use
The UI on the phone is dated – mono graphics you might liken to a Tamagotchi toy! The orange backlight doesn’t help the styling either.
Battery life was reasonable – on standby with no calls whatsoever and constantly connected to a network I would get up to three days non stop. The problems start when making or receiving calls…this quickly drains the battery – about 90 mins talktime in my experience. One to watch also is having the phone on standby and out of range of an access point – by default the phone will search for AP’s to connect to – killing the battery in an hour easily. You need to be regimental about switching off when not connected.
Eventually I worked out how to override the Vonage firmware on the phone and set it up with Sipdiscount. I no longer had the screeching problems and found the phone to be a much better experience – still got very hot in use and I never managed to get a headset working despite trying the manufacturer recommended Nokia type.
Configuration
Configuration of the F1000 is reasonably easy. It has a basic in built web server that echoes the on-screen configuration but of course makes it much easier to input data (over multi-tap key presses). The terminology used in the web UI can be a little confusing (especially for beginners) and can be difficult to correlate with typical SIP registration info.
The F1000 can store details for 4 wireless networks either WEP or WPA encrypted, though I have heard of some users really having struggles with WPA. It has a nifty search function for sniffing out nearby Access Points…will tell you if they are open or encrypted and also the signal strength of said AP.
Conclusion
The real downer here I guess is that there is no browser on the phone, making it unuseable at hotspots that require either a login or a prepayment or even simply any user interface like an “I Agree” button. Shame. Though buried deep in the phone’s settings there is a scripting area that I guess was intended to overcome these issues – I have not seen any evidence of this ever working. On my travels I have used my laptop’s wireless connection to bridge through a hotel’s Ethernet connection with success.
In summary, if you can get one of these on the cheap, try it…you might like it. This model won’t replace your home / office phone. I have now moved on to the F3000 and it’s review will follow.
Added: Monday, October 30, 2006
Reviewer: Dave Olsen
Score:
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Language: eng
