Best WiFi Mobile Phones?

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rphenix

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Topic # 24453 24-Jul-2008 14:44

I want to setup some of my staff so that when they are in the office they make calls on their cell via our Asterisk PBX using the office wifi. The question is what cellphone(s) are the best?

As far as I can work out:

Nokia E and N series all seem to support SIP and wifi.

Are there any others? Does anyone have a particular model they recommend or recommend I stay away from?

tonyhughes

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Reply # 150987 24-Jul-2008 15:34

Stay away from Windows Mobile for this task.

Defnitley use Nokia E or N series. E51 works brilliantly. Walk into WiFi range, and its like a SIP desk phone - brilliant. Good enough that some may wish to have as only phone - no desk phone needed.

Nokias SIP client integrates into the phone really well - caller id looks to your contact list (which might be synced to exchange.... mine was), and when you call out, you can set cellular or SIP as default, or choose on the fly.

Rock solid in my experience.

billgates

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Reply # 150996 24-Jul-2008 15:48

Using a Nokia N95 with Wifi + 2talk while in the house and no problems in call quality at all...

Do whatever you want to do man.

AllNightNerding

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Reply # 151140 24-Jul-2008 23:52

Whats the battery life on them with the wifi enabled all the time? I know my HTC Apache, it chews through the battery when the wifi is enabled. (I realise its not the best phone)

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zocster

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Reply # 151154 25-Jul-2008 06:15

AllNightNerding: Whats the battery life on them with the wifi enabled all the time? I know my HTC Apache, it chews through the battery when the wifi is enabled. (I realise its not the best phone)

Have you got the extended battery? I need one for my hermes.

joshp

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Reply # 151179 25-Jul-2008 09:10

I used the e61 for a while, the battery on that baby was pretty average anyway but with wifi i got about 2 days out of it.. if I used it heavily, less.. but it was pretty solid on the sip side.

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rphenix

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Reply # 155240 8-Aug-2008 16:11

I like the look of the E51 I have a question for anyone who has used it before:

Can it work with two different wireless networks without reconfiguration and if yes does it automatically join the wireless network?

We have two main offices, the plan would be to make it join either offices wireless network and sign into the pbx but I dont want the users to have to fiddle with settings each time they go into a different office.

sbiddle

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Reply # 155261 8-Aug-2008 16:56

rphenix: I like the look of the E51 I have a question for anyone who has used it before:

Can it work with two different wireless networks without reconfiguration and if yes does it automatically join the wireless network?

We have two main offices, the plan would be to make it join either offices wireless network and sign into the pbx but I dont want the users to have to fiddle with settings each time they go into a different office.

Any of the E series phones can do this. You simply configure the phone to auto connect and set the Access Points of the networks you want this to happen on.

The problem with all of the Nokia's is that the settings can't be locked down and IMHO this is the biggest problem using any of these devices in a corporate environment. Once somebody starts playing and disconnects manually from a network it won't auaomatically reconnect. You should be able to lock down these handsets with a profile and stop end users changing settings but because you can't they will just turn into a nightmare when it comes to supporting them.

Fantastic concept but it's just not quite ready for prime time..