I signed the FedEx hand held. Slit open the package. There was the label I needed to see: Skype Certified. What a relief. I know Skype serves millions of free minutes every day, but I think an equal number of minutes are wasted by users testing pre-pre-close-to-beta Skype add-ons!

Thanks, IPEVO. IPEVO is a US sub of Taiwan Skype Partner PC Home.

The name means IP every where and helping you evolve your IP experience.

Free.1 is beautiful...

The user manual is in perfect English! Very professional!

Installation and set-up was a dream. Like Skype it just worked. I called my Skype buddy Neil,

“If you didn’t tell me you were testing a new USB phone I do not think I would have noticed you were not on your Plantronics Headset.”

Guess what Neil, ‘Free.1’ has a 16 KHz sampling rate! Many USB phones do not have that because the Skype’s high quality 16 KHz sampling rate is not an industry standard. IPEVO had to design their own chip set. Expensive; but a smart move if you want to be Skype Certified.

Very sharp design. It is more than a USB handset. Yes, I am tethered to my desktop with wires. But Free.1 frees me from my keyboard. Nice With the “S” key I select the Skype Application, scroll down my contacts list using the Scroll key, find Skype Test Call (Echo 123) and then hit the Call button. The test is echo and noise free!

To do a SkypeOut Call I just hit the + key and dial the number.
To send a Voice Mail I use the list key and select the right function key. Dead simple.

Look at this: a call comes in. I hit the hang-up button and it sends a “busy” signal to the caller. I love it.
$29.99. You can’t beat the price.

Skype Certified. Stylish. Functional. A great Christmas gift!

These pictures speak for themselves. On the left you have my Plantronics headset. Not expensive and not the cheapest. On the right you have Bill's headset. He paid a lot more for his USB powered Plantronics. The problem is both of these headsets are broken.

The adjusting mechanism is just poorly designed. Bill's is taped... my fix was stuff some paper into it to jam it and ensure it stopped slipping and falling off my head. Despite the price difference in these two Plantronics versions they both use the same crappy plastic adjusting slide. In Bill's case he says this is the second Plantronic's USB he's had and the sound has failed in one ear now both times. Why blog it. The sound was spotty in one ear for me too today. Neither of these headsets has seen years or even many months of wear. They get used in an office environment. They get grabbed when a Skype call rings and quickly shoved on. They both fold up to travel the same basic way. These are still the basic corded kind. Nothing special.

Plantronics is not alone. I had a Logitech headset in the behind-the-ears format. It worked and was more comfortable for about six months before one ear failed. Prior to that, one of the fold up hinges lost its pin and I ended up fixing that with a paper clip. I don't want to wear military tank standard and yet as a simple user I'm finding that headsets don't stand up very well to anything.

So how long should a headset last? Three years?
How many headsets and how much has your Skype habit cost you so far?
Do you have a favorite?
Did you break it or let the the dog eat yours too?

I'd also like an enhancement. I'd like to be able to answer and hang up on a Skype call from my headset. I'll pay the little extra for the feature. I'm yet to see this on a basic headset although the feature is built into some bluetooth ones. Hanging up the call is too difficult for everyone. Make it easier regardless of what IM app one is using.