Home > Consumer Reviews > GE - SKYPE - Dect 6.0 Cordless phone

We got this phone to get rid of our landline. Installataion was very easy. Speaker function works well! We love it! We don't have to use our computer to talk people. With the unlimited calling plan and our skype-in number, we were able to save at least $200/Y for the phone!!! It connects most of the time. Sometime, due to skype line I think, the skype drops the voice, but other than that, it worsk for us! Love this!!!

The whole idea of the phone is great, a wireless phone you can use with regular calls AND skype phones without having to leave a computer on the whole time.

I got this phone as a gift from a friend who knows I like gadgets, and the phone worked for a month, I even recommended it to one of my bosses and she got one too.

Then, the phone died, you get the "Connection Error" screen of death and then skype goes bye bye. No connection to the base, and no way to troubleshoot it.

And don't think that calling GE/Thompson will help you at all, because they must know the terrible quality of the product, it will take you hours to get to an agent, and when you finnaly get to talk to someone, you realize none of them know a thing about the product, and then they'll offer you a refund or to change the product.

Replacing the product can take up to 3 months just to get another unit that will die a month later, and the refund, if you get it, will take another 3-5 months. Why do they keep selling these when it is such a terrible product?

do NOT buy it.

I've been having the same problem as other 1-star reviewers here where the phone won't connect/login to Skype, and any attempt to sign into Skype from the handset failed (it just went back to the home screen w/ no other message/feedback).

Multiple attempts at fixing this by removing and re-installing handset batteries, or powering down the base station were not successful.

But, I have fixed the "can't connect" problem by doing the following:
1) Un-plugged power cable from the base station (but left it plugged into the power strip)
2) Un-plugged ethernet cable from the base station (but left cable plugged into router)
3) Let sit for 5-10 minutes
4) Plugged in base station POWER
5) then Plugged in ethernet cable into base station.

During all these steps both my handsets were plugged in, and sitting in their recharging cradles.

Upon re-plugging in the base station, the handset showed "Connecting..." and the handsets automatically logged into Skype. I made a test call and it worked fine. We have subsequently also received calls, so all appears fine now. If you have this problem, I hope this fixes it for you. GE/Thomson customer service sounds like a total joke, so hopefully you (and I) won't have to deal with them.

FYI, I have been using the phone since January 2009 and I just had this "can't connect" problem occur in the last 2 days. Otherwise the phone had been working relatively well, but needed an occasional reboot by unplugging and replugging in power to the base station. Also have had the batteries occasionally drain, and have had occasional problems getting them to recharge.

Good luck!

I am editing my review because after getting a second one of these and using for a few weeks, one of the phones stopped connecting, and no matter what I did I could not get it to work. I called GE Support a few times and they had me return the unit. Two months later, they sent me a letter saying the unit is no longer available (not true, I can buy it today here on Amazon) and that they would give me a credit on a future GE purchase. Amazingly poor product support, in my opinion. And I have no practical/easy way to take advantage of their credit.

If I could edit the rating, I would reduce it to a "Two star" now.

Shame. The phones started out great.

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This is the best of the three Skype phones I bought. Excellent audio both ways. Easily good enough to replace a regular phone. Good battery life.

Nice to have your Skype contacts on display and easy to call them.

The only problem is they have raised the price. I bought mine for [...] at Amazon, soon after that they increased the price. Not very portable, since it has a base unit that pugs into the router.

Great phone overall. If you get two handsets and use with one base station, both handsets must use the same Skype account.

I bought this dual-mode Skype phone mainly because it works without a PC. Most VOIP phones have a USB cable that hook into your PC and uses your PC's internet bandwidth and CPU resources.

Given that the highly rated IPEVO S0-20 Wi-Fi Phone for Skype can be had for $130, you should not expect to pay more than $150 for this phone. I got mine for an incredibly good steal price of $65 USD from FutureShop in Canada.

With DECT technology, this phone has some advantages over wifi VOIP phones. For one, as a cordless phone it is reliable and maintains its signal and it does not get affected by wifi or microwave ovens. This phone's base unit connects directly to your broadband cable/DSL router by ethernet cable and also there is a RJ-11 phone jack for connecting your land-line. This method of connection seems to be much more reliable than the wi-fi Skype phones offered by Belkin and Netgear, which are said to drop calls frequently if you move about.

The setup is fairly straightforward and the instruction manual is relatively easy to read. It is as easy as using a new cellphone.

Upon setup you can either sign up for a new Skype account or use an existing account. If using an existing account, it will automatically download your contacts and other settings from your on-line Skype account. One neat feature is it downloads Skye's Echosound testing service, so you can easily set up your phones settings with that feature.

Also supported are Skype advanced features. You can see your Skype-In number and also available Skype credit on the LCD. It has the ability to display photographs of your Skype contacts. It also has a call log and voicemail alerts, like a typical cellphone. You can scroll through your Skype voicemail list and listen to any message with a touch of a button. I found the voice quality on par with by VTech 5.8GHz cordless phone. There is also a headphone jack if you want better quality.

The color LCD display is pretty bright and clear. However, the build quality of the phone is somewhat cheap, like a V-Tech phone. But for this price, that is nothing to complain about.

In summary, this phone works pretty much as advertised.