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Magic Jack Phone ?

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Carol Haynes:
Jack Daniels - magic ;)

AzWiz:
At the risk of being labeled a spammer, I'd like to offer my experience with MJ.  I thought the late night TV  infomercials made this a dubious product, but figured for $40 it was worth satisfying my curiosity.  I found the product as advertised, and surprisingly well thought out.  All software is self contained and when plugging it in, appears as a cd drive which then autoloads.  I tried it on my laptop connected with a wireless g connection to my router.  Even using the built in speakers and mic on the lappy it worked satisfactorily.

When received and activated I was given a choice of 4 area codes where I live (Phoenix, Az).  At the very least, it's worth $20/year for a local phone number with voice mail and and voicemail to email forwarding even if you never used it to call out, which is what I do.

My 2cents.  Now I'll see if they stay in business for more than a year or two.

wandas:
I am in Thailand. I have used MagicJack for two months in the US and three months in Thailand, and I'm thrilled with it. Having a US phone on my desk in Thailand is a great time and money-saver, especially with three kids in the USA, as well as my spouse quite frequently. I got lucky and got a local number, as well.

There is no advertising on the regular service - none. The quality is fine. I have had a couple of lost calls, but I just hit redial - it's not like it costs money. I get this on all VoIP calls, including ones I was paying 25 cents a minute for.

I use it for one to three hours a day, which even at today's card-phone prices means I've saved a couple of pocketsful of money. Did I mention it's nice to have a US phone on my desk in Thailand?

Here's what I hate about it: Every call, in or out, the ugly interface pops up. So I got a free program that blocks it from popping up - Download.com has it. I have heard it's difficult to uninstall the MJ software, but I don't *know* that since I have had no reason to uninstall it.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind being a MagicJack shill. It works exactly as advertised, it is totally trouble-free for the near-half year I have had it, and I don't mind saying so. I'd say the same if MagicJack slipped me a few dollars under the table.

Here are the facts. It works as described. There are no hidden costs including no advertising. The quality is fully VoIP, i.e. quite good. You use a regular, ordinary telephone, no dorky headset, and you call any phone anywhere, not just computer-phones. It's isn't *quite* free but $20 a year for hundreds or thousands of international minutes to/from Asia is darned close to it.

ws

EDIT:
Good grief, there are a lot of cynics around here. A review has to be negative to validate it? Lighten UP, people. Some of you sound like you haven't been out dancing for months!

I wrote a review of MagicJack for my weekly column in the technology section of the Bangkok Post newspaper. It's here:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/100908_Database/10Sep2008_data013.php

wandas:
My 2cents.  Now I'll see if they stay in business for more than a year or two.
-AzWiz (October 21, 2008, 11:06 PM)
--- End quote ---

Yes, well, we all worry about that, I think.

Carol Haynes:
EDIT:
Good grief, there are a lot of cynics around here. A review has to be negative to validate it? Lighten UP, people. Some of you sound like you haven't been out dancing for months!
-wandas (November 02, 2008, 07:14 PM)
--- End quote ---

It isn't cynicism it is a fact of life these days. We are recently getting a lot of people who sign up and post one single comment promoting a product and are never heard of again. If you then stick the message text (in quotes) in google you find identical messages all over the place. This is just regular spamming and it is very annoying. The trouble is that companies who use this method to promote their products don't build up trust for potential customers. We don't mind people promoting products provided it is done openly and with a clear statement - in fact if you look around the boards here you will find lots of developers that have built up a trusting relationship with potential customers.

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