This passage from the novel Gift from the Sea by acclaimed writer and aviation pioneer Anne Morrow Lindbergh stirred our thoughts on the many different ways we communicate. While nothing compares to or conveys thoughts or true expressions like face to face communication, it was the telephone that revolutionized our ability to communicate with each other from just about anyplace at anytime. Yes, the printed word, television, and the internet have also revolutionized the means by which we communicate but none of them are as quick or convenient as picking up the ubiquitous telephone.

While we are reviewing the ASUS AiGuru S1 WiFi Skype phone today we will first give a brief overview of Skype's capabilities for our readers who are unfamiliar with the program, as this VoIP phone is designed expressly for the Skype user. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that lets you make or receive a telephone call over an IP based network instead of the traditional analog phone line utilizing your computer, a dedicated VoIP phone, or your traditional phone with an adapter. In its simplest form VoIP utilizes IP addresses in place of phone numbers and a broadband internet connection in place of analog phone wire.

Skype is a proprietary peer-to-peer Internet telephony (VoIP) network system that is the brainchild of Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the creators of KaZaA, and is now owned by eBay. Skype is one of the largest VoIP providers in the world with over 100 million subscribers currently. The program is available in 27 different languages and runs on Windows, MAC OS X, and Linux platforms. Skype offers free voice, video conferencing, file transfers, and chat capabilities between Skype users. The software is free and can be downloaded from Skype's website.

Skype differs from other VoIP clients in that it operates on a peer-to-peer model instead of the more traditional server-client model. The Skype user directory is decentralized and distributed among the nodes in the network, which means the network can scale very easily without the cost and complexity of a centralized infrastructure. The program has the ability to route calls through other Skype peers on the network, and this allows it to work behind the majority of firewalls and gateways. Skype's encryption system actively encodes all calls, file transfers, and instant messages end-to-end with either 1536-bit or 2048-bit (subscription services) RSA. Encryption is necessary since all calls or transfers are routed through the public Internet. Further information about Skype's P2P telephony capabilities is available if you'd like to know more.


SkypeOut provides inexpensive per minute subscription charges to users with landline or mobile telephones, although users can make free calls within the US and Canada to both landline and mobile phones until the end of 2006 at this time. SkypeIn allows you to purchase your own regular phone number. This concept allows to you have a local number that anyone can call and you answer in Skype no matter where you are located at the time. If you choose a number in New York City but are staying in London then anyone who is in the same area code that calls your number will not have to pay long distance charges. Anyone outside of your area code (unless they have unlimited long distance service) will still pay for long distance charges to your New York City area code but not to London. You can purchase up to 10 numbers with locations just about anywhere in the world.

Other services include Skype Voicemail, Skype SMS, and Skype Zones (allows Skype communications from supported WiFi hot spots). Note that Skype is not considered a true telephony system and therefore lacks 911 call capability. Also, although the program and usage is free between users, you will need a good microphone, headset, and/or supported VoIP phone before using the service. We have found users with desktop or monitor microphones often have audio feedback issues due to speaker placement, making them a less than ideal solution. Headsets generally work the best although your mileage varies based upon their quality, and Skype specific VoIP phones are now being introduced into the market in volume.

Now let's take a closer look at the basic features of Skype and the performance of the ASUS AiGuru S1 phone.



Basic Features: Skype

After downloading Skype, you simply install it, create a user account, and in a matter of a few minutes you can be calling or chatting with friends, family, or business associates anywhere in the world. We will give a brief rundown of the major Skype features and will follow up with a comparison of Skype to other VoIP services in the near future.


This is the main Skype panel where the contact list, dial out program, and history of phone calls or chat times are listed under individual tabs in the center section. The icons next to each contact name signify the Skype status of each contact, and they also indicate if the user has SkypeOut. The activity based icons are located in the main tool bar along with additional options that are available from the drop down menu selections.


The chat session works like most IM programs and you can also talk with the person while chatting. You simply choose the contact you want to chat with and click on the chat icon. If the person is not online your chat message is held in a pending status until they log on or change their online status. You can have up to 100 people in a chat session at one time, save chat group profiles, and the program will save your chat history for viewing at a later date.


The conference call section is very easy to use. You simply click on the Conference icon on the main toolbar which brings up the secondary window where you add the contacts you wish to conference with at the start of the call. You are allowed up to nine attendees in version 2.5 for Windows XP at this time. You can also conference in various contacts (not to exceed nine)while you are on a call with another contact.


The file upload program works in much the same way as a typical P2P or FTP application does at this time. The user simply clicks on the Send File icon on the main toolbar that will bring up (in this example) the Windows Explorer window where you select the file or files you want to send, click on Open, and the file or files is now ready for delivery once the receiving contact accepts the download. Once the contact accepts receipt of the file or files, the upload/download process begins, and then completes once the file or files are delivered. Alternatively, you can simply drag and drop files onto the chat/conversation window to send them. The speed of the connection is based upon your internet connection and network traffic. We find the speeds to be very acceptable during most transfers and equal that of email, P2P, and FTP applications the majority of time.


The dial out section can be reached by clicking on the Dial tab in the main window, the Call Phones icon on the main toolbar, or if you already have a SkypeOut contact setup then you can double click on the contact's name to start the call or click on the name and then the call button. The SkypeOut function is designed to call landline or mobile phones and requires that you purchase Skype credits as the call time is charged on a minute basis unless you are currently a US or Canadian user calling within either country until the end of 2006.

Overall, our experience with Skype has been very positive -- unless of course our Internet connection is unavailable. The audio quality is very good and at times rivals or exceeds that of analog phone lines when using decent quality headphones. We have found the Logitech USB 250 headset to offer excellent performance, although we still have audio out glitches using this headset and our 5.1 audio output on the Audigy X-FI sound card. Now that we've covered the basics of Skype, let's take a look at the ASUS AiGuru S1 Skype phone.



ASUS AiGuru S1: Features

Asus AiGuru S1
Connection:	802.11G @ 54Mbps
Display:	LCM 128x64 Dot-Matrix LCD
Keypad:	Standard phone layout, LED backlight
Talk Time:	Average 2 hours
Stand-By Time:	Average 25 hours
Charging:	USB port connection to the PC AC adpator connection via the Phone Cradle
Features:	Rear Speaker Headphone Output Remote Link to WMP10 for playback options.

The ASUS AiGuru S1 has the basic features required for a VoIP phone and will retail around the US $100 mark. The phone currently supports Windows 2000 (SP4) or Windows XP (SP2) only at this time. Unlike the upcoming NETGEAR WiFi phone for Skype, the ASUS phone does not have a full color screen, full chat capability, or icon based menu, and it must have an active connection through an available PC. However, it also does not come with the $299 price tag.




This phone comes in a pearl color with the power button on the left side of the phone, external headset connector on the right side, and a speaker on the rear of the phone above the battery door that contains a 750mAh lithium ion rechargeable battery. The USB connection port is on the bottom of the phone. The phone is slightly larger than current cellular phones but still fit comfortably in our hands. However, after ten minutes of talk time the phone did become warm to the touch and stayed this way until we disconnected and let it cool for a few minutes.

The speaker is used for both the ringer and to playback music. The phone has the capability to control the playback features in Windows Media Player 10 and will sync with the song output in WMP10. The audio quality was decent and it was interesting to hear the selected song playing back on the phone. However, we found the feature to be just that, interesting but not anything most users would use past the gee-whiz stage. We wish ASUS would have dropped this feature and added the ability to see the actual online status of the contacts in the Address Book. At this time, you only know if the contact is online or not, not if they have marked their status as away or not available.



The unit comes with a phone cradle and an AC adapter that allows charging of the phone while it is in the cradle. The included USB cable is used to charge the phone through the USB 2.0 port and/or for connection to the ASUS utility program for configuring the phone and installation of firmware updates. You will want to make sure the phone is completely charged before installing and configuring the ASUS utility program.

The proprietary Wireless Link module connects to the USB adapter cable that can be adjusted depending upon the type of system it is attached to. The Link module sets up a separate wireless 802.11G connection and the phone will not work without it. On both our desktop and mobile systems we adjusted the cable so the Wireless Link module was at a near 90 degree position.
.



The install CD comes with version 2.08 of Skype. We downloaded and installed version 2.5 first and suggest this version or later being installed prior to the ASUS utilities. You will also want to set up a Skype account before loading the utilities and configuring the phone. The included installation instructions are fairly simple as are the online instructions when loading the utility program or performing a firmware upgrade. We upgraded our firmware to version 1.04D.


Once our phone was configured and the system rebooted, we checked our Network Connection Status and found throughout testing that our speed stayed at 54Mbps while we were within close proximity of the computer. Our wireless connection speed degraded to 36Mbps when we were about 75 feet from our base connection. Our phone conversations at this range were usually acceptable, but we noticed some fall out issues when the network was being saturated with traffic from other clients. As we traveled beyond 75 feet from the base station, the voice quality rapidly dropped off until it became essentially unusable at 100 feet, despite the fact that we still showed a connection.



Menu Structure

We are providing a few snapshots of the phone's menu structure for reference. While these pictures do not provide every menu option they should give a good indication of the major options available on the ASUS AiGuru S1 Skype phone.



The top-left picture is the main screen where the major phone functions can be selected. The Skype option will take the user to the SkypeOnline section and the Menu option will allow the user to further configure the various phone options as shown on the two lower pictures. The top-right picture is from the WiFi status option and indicates the IP address, network identification, channel number, and current connection rate. This picture was taken at a location in the next office that was approximately 75 feet from the base station.



These snapshots are of the major menu options available within the SkypeOnline section of the phone menu. The phonebook option is actually the contact list, the voicemail option requires a surcharge unless you purchased a SkypeIn number, the answering machine option allows you to set up a greeting for your voicemail, and the conference call option is for creating and dialing a list of users for a conference session. The call history submenu consists of missed call, dialed numbers, and received call options. Overall, the SkypeOnline and Phone Menu options are acceptable for the majority of users looking at this phone for Skype operations. The phone is missing chat capability and the address book information does not show the true online status of the users. If nothing else, the options are a bit basic but are simple to use which is what ASUS wants to provide to the user of this phone.



Final Words

What else can we say about this phone? What most users will expect is the ability to pick up the phone, receive a call or dial a number, maintain a good connection, and offer acceptable audio quality. The ASUS AiGuru S1 provides these basics and offers the opportunity for a Skype user to break free of the headset or microphone requirement for communicating with their friends, family, or business associates. This has been one of our main issues with Skype since we first started using the program as you were tied to the computer the program was loaded on. This is no longer an issue and we look forward to our new found freedom and no longer have to worry about missing a call because we stepped into the next room. However, we did find the ability to control playback functions within Windows Media Player and to sync a play list along with audio playback on the phone to be more of gimmick than a useful feature.


The performance of the phone in daily operations was very good to excellent with the latest version of Skype for Windows XP. The phone lived up to its specifications by providing right over two hours of talk time and approximately twenty eight hours of standby time during our testing. The audio clarity was better than our analog line the majority of the time and at times exceeded that of our headset. However, we noticed during heavy network traffic that the unit would not sync properly and left us sounding like a cat on a hot tin roof in one conversation. This is something to be aware of as connection quality is not always consistent, but overall the audio clarity did surprise us as we were expecting something more along the lines of a cellular phone.

The phone always connected properly when dialing or receiving a phone call from another Skype user or from our associates with both landline and mobile phones. Our only issue, and this occurred about five times out of thirty, is that it took about five to seven seconds for the phone to sync with our voice when we were answering a call from a landline or mobile phone. Once our voice was synched properly with the outbound signal we did not notice any further issues during conversations that sometimes lasted over one hour. We also noticed the signal and audio quality would slowly start to deteriorate about 75 feet from our base station until the phone was not useable at about 100 feet. We did not have any issues in a two story complex as long as we stayed within 75 feet of the base station.

We tried an interesting experiment by attaching the Wireless Link module to our test notebook and then traveling down to the local Barnes and Noble that supported a Skype WiFi hotspot. We were able to successfully dial out and receive calls with the phone while our notebook was connected via the 802.11G protocol within the hotspot. We noticed during our WiFi connection status checks that the phone generally had a connection rate of 48Mbps. We were able to keep an acceptable connection up to an estimated 40 feet with this configuration. We might have been able to go further but did not trust our ability to outrun the person who kept a keen eye on our notebook while inching closer to our table during extended distance testing.

Overall, we are impressed with the ASUS phone, but when looking at the specification sheets of upcoming Skype phones from the likes of NETGEAR we are definitely interested in features like full color LCD screens, icon based menus, the ability to see the actual online status of our contacts, full chat capability, and the ability to use the phone in hotspot locations without lugging your system with you, something the Asus phone does not offer. However, upon noticing the price differences we are brought back to Earth for the time being and recognize the ASUS AiGuru S1 is a good deal for someone looking at a Skype based phone at this time. We recommend this product currently based upon its performance but are anxious to review other Skype specific phones before declaring the ASUS phone to be a bargain or even the best unit available.