I just received a MJ that I purchased for my older sister who is on a limited budget.

The set up was so fast I accidently called my home at 11 PM last night and woke up the wife.

The quality is just fine, normal telephone.

Set up was an absolute breeze.

and you can not beat the prices.

Well I ordered 2 of these a couple days ago - one for me when I travel, and one to send to my brother who's just been deployed to S. Korea so we can keep in touch without going broke. Will report back with the results we get!

I'm an expat in London, and all my family is in the US. Most of them have unlimited cell phone calls. In my flat, I have a wireless two phone system I got at Curry's for £20. I have a local Denver phone number that rings in my flat. It is awesome! My kids can call a local US number, and it is cheap for me. My wife can call the states and talk for as long as she wants. (We had $1200 cell phone bills during our first three months here) I have had zero problems in the 4 months I've had the unit. The only issue that I have is that the computer it's connected to needs to be rebooted every couple of days, and it takes about 5 minutes for the MJ unit to start up. Not really a big deal.

Redbeard, you might want to investigate a thin client as the computer to run your phone system. They're ultra reliable, use very little power, and are completely silent -- no fans or moving disk drives.

What exactly is a thin client in todays world? Im a bit confused about how you are using the term here. Thanks.

A thin client is a PC which runs a stripped down version of Windows (usually running one program). It doesn't have a harddrive, CD drive or other moving components. The device has less heat (meaning no fan or a notebook style one) and is usually designed to run 24/7. Leave it in a closet with a copy of Windows Remote Desktop or Real VNC running on it as well so that you can access it through your home network, but by and large just ignore it.

MagicJack in China
 

Well, here I am in Beijing, and I've been making a bunch of calls back to the U.S. today. MagicJack works brilliantly! The calls go through first time, every time, and the voice quality is great -- as good or better than landlines. The delay is minimal -- again, about the same as landlines -- and, with the TJ echo reduction system, there are no problems with echoes.

It appears the MJ is very nice but does it require I tote a wired style telephone etc around? I converse fine almost all of the time with my Thinkpad (w/ built in mic and loudspeakers) and skype at slightly over 2.1 cents/min all in (my total bill is about $30/yr). What other stuff do I gain with MJ other than no one can hear the incoming words other than me.

MisterNice

It's not necessary to use a telephone at all. You can use it with the mike and speakers on your laptop. There's even a hack so that you don't need the physical MagicJack at all.

Can you point me to the hack? That would be so much better than having to cart the device around.

Cheers

http://www.magicjacksupport.com/easy...gle-t2640.html

I believe you'll have to register to view it.

Fantastic!

Thanks

Thanks for the link. Very interesting.


Im not sure about this. I am running it on Intel Macs. On the Mac side, I cant find a way to switch to a microphone. I have to plug in a phone. If I go into a VM Ware virtual XP window I can use a USB microphone with Magic Jack. Is there a way to use a microphone while using the Mac OS? Thanks.

There's a wealth of MagicJack information on that site though, sometimes, the level of discussion isn't . . . um . . . up to FT standards. ;)

Ah, Macs. Can't help you there. It works fine on my Sony Vaio laptop (running Vista) with either a USB or plug-in microphone. It's in the Menu under Volume/Headset Control.