Blatantly Random

3 Skypephone - Skype on a Mobile Properly Done

Filed under: Internet, Tech — Malcolm Owen @ 2:08 pm

About a month ago, I felt I needed a change of phone, and so I started hunting around for what I could possibly use. Bearing in mind that I’m a relatively low-usage phone owner, whereby I make a few calls in the month, barely a few texts and no real MMS or internet usage, I felt that an iPhone wasn’t exactly the best plan of action, and neither do any of the smartphones currently on the market fit my current needs. I do, however, use Skype a lot, but a phone company would usually throw a hissy fit at the suggestion, and then throw on a heap of data charges.
Then, I stumbled upon 3…

In the UK and a few other countries, 3 and Skype decided to work together and create the 3 Skypephone. It looks like a normal mobile phone, except for a few clues that it’s a bit different. Namely the Skype logo on the back, and the large highlighted Skype button in the middle of the menu keys. Turn it on, and after a slow booting sequence, it looks how a normal mobile phone’s display should look. You can dial numbers as normal, send and receive text and MMS messages, and even surf the mobile internet. It’s a good basic mobile phone.
This is now where the 3 Skypephone breaks from the norm.
If you have a Skype account (and if you don’t, you can make one quite easily…) then you can sign in from the mobile itself. You can call these skype contacts, and depending on how you are paying for the service, most likely for no charge either (I’m on Contract, so it definitely is free, Pay as You Go users would have to top up £10 every 30 days in the UK, which isn’t that bad). Got someone on another Skype enabled mobile you want to talk to? It’s no charge again. Indeed, using just Skype to Skype calls, it’s pretty much free international calling. Skype messaging is free too. It uses the cellular network to establish these calls instead of the usual Wifi you see other portable Skype phones use, meaning you can pretty much use it anywhere you can get signal from.
Skype penetrates the handset further than a normal bit of software you add to a phone. Skype accounts can be set up under the phone’s own contact list, and you can combine details so that the same contact can have a normal phone number and a Skype username associated with it. If you try to call someone using their number if they have a Skype account, the phone asks if you want to try and use Skype first, and quite frankly since this is free it would be a bit foolish not to attempt to Skype them first, unless you are urgently trying to contact them.

There are, however, a few issues with the phone.
For a start, the 3 phone signal where I live is a bit weak at times, and at some points it becomes almost nonexistent, despite being in the centre of a city. A bit odd, but I can only hope that 3 rolls out a bit more across the country.
Secondly, the Skype service doesn’t update as quickly as I would want it to. Friends that send messages via Skype sometimes do not appear online, despite checking on another Skype account says they are. Sometimes messages take a long time to get through. Even calls fail to touch my handset at times. I can only think of these as either issues with the Skype network, or teething issues 3 is suffering.
The big one, though, is the lack of a SkypeOut or SkypeIn. I can understand the lack of a SkypeOut facility, namely the fact that 3 would lose a ton of money for international calling if this were allowed. I don’t quite understand why SkypeIn is blocked, though. I have worked out that you can forward calls from one Skype account to another if it’s not answered in a specific amount of time, so in theory a SkypeIn number could be linked to a separate Skype account and forwarded to the Skype on the mobile, but that is too much hassle.

Despite these problems, I’m not unhappy with my decision to get the 3 Skypephone. In fact I’m quite pleased with it. It does something new that other mobiles can’t do, but more importantly, this new thing is something I actually wanted.
It feels good to be contactable at any time, anywhere, by people you talk to everyday. It’s a greater feeling to be able to call someone on the other side of the world for no charge, knowing that usually it would cost close to £1 a minute…