Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
54 of 57 people found the following review helpful.
Good way to keep in touch with faraway relatives...
By C.E. Lopes
I bought this for my parents and in-laws as a Christmas gift (so, shelled out for three units). They live in Brazil (where the quality of phone lines is not all that great!) and we live in US. Since they are not computer savvy to use netmeeting (this thing actually uses the same protocol...) or a similar computer tool, I needed another way to let them keep up with their grand-daughter.
Let me start by stating that the instalation and operation of the Beamer is a no-brainer! That in itself is a God-send to people that are not technology-oriented (like grandparents might be...). It's also portable! So if the other party travels a lot (like retirees might do...), they can pack it up and take it with them - BUT ATTENTION, it will require an analog phone line to use.
Another good thing is that it doesn't require monthly fees of any sort. You only pay for your regular phone call (obviously, if it's a long distance or international you'll pay the appropriate rate); there is no extra-cost for adding video to it.
The quality of the image is acceptable even on international calls. Better than using netmeeting over dial-up connections, a little worse than using netmeeting over broadband connections. You can definitely tell who is the person you are talking to and see their facial expressions with accuracy. Attention: lighting is essential to obtain good results!
The units are sturdy and look beautiful. The LCD screen does have some pixels that seem brighter or darker than others (I would call them dead pixels) - and this is mentioned in the manual, but nothing that compromises the experience.
Finally, it is non-obstrusive. You can plug it to the phone and it will only come live if someone activates a beamer on the other side. Otherwise it is just a nice looking portrait-like thing over your desk.
I give it four stars for two reasons:
a) price wise it could be better. [it] is a lot of money for any appliance and to use this you need to buy at least two...
b) it would be wonderful if this thing could use the internet to place the calls (kind of like a netmeeting machine). This would eliminate long distance calls (although you would have to pay for an ISP). It might add to the size of the unit, but certainly would cut the costs on communication.
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
Pleasure to see relatives, but need use right phone company
By A Customer
My parents-in-law lives in Beijing and we are in US. At first the beamer does not work - not able to establish a connection. Evetually the technical support of Beamer tried to use some other phone services and was able to find one that works. It is a 10-10 number from AT&T. Beamer did not work with calls made from my long distance carrier or phone cards.
It is a thrill to see relatives afar after long separation. I have the picture quality on the high on both sides and asked both sides to remain stable, this way the pictures are sharp and tolerably smooth.
I tried this phone with my parents who live in central China but no luck, even with 10-10 numbers. So definitely there is no guarantee that this setup will work for you.
28 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
not ready for prime time
By amazon_fan
I read a review of this product where the reviewer cautioned that his beamer was defective right out of the box, but I chalked that up to pre-production glitches. The first pair of beamers I ordered also had a unit defective right out of the box- it was as if the horizontal hold on one display was turned all the way up. When the replacement pair arrived, one of those units went dark and stayed dead within 15 minutes of being plugged in.
It seemed pretty easy to setup, just plug in the power and attach the phone cord in much the same way you would connect an answering machine. But I really can't recommend the product because of quality problems.
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