14 DAY TRIAL // Vtech, one of the leading consumer focused technology companies designing, marketing and manufacturing telecommunication equipments has launched two models of cordless landline phones with a pretty peculiar feature. Both of them are capable to surf the web but they do it in two different ways.
The first one, the ip8300 phone, is able to go online by working together with an Internet portal service provided by Casabi and this way, the user is able to access weather reports, local directory searches, news headlines and horoscopes, the content being displayed on the phone's color LCD display. The one that will decide to buy such a device will also be able to read his email and make use of the ip8300's instant messaging capabilities.
The base station supports up to 5 different terminals at the same time and uses the DECT 6.0 communication technology, operating on the 1.9 GHz band by this being able to minimize the risk to provoke interferences with wireless LANs using the 80.11b/g protocols and with a number of other devices using the 2.4 GHz band.
The second device, the ip831, uses a whole different approach to get online because it uses the local 802.11 Wi-Fi network so it can connect to your personal computer via a wireless router which gives the device direct-to-handset capabilities and standard voice communication.
The PC is the one doing all the work in the case of this phone with the help of an application that allows the phone to access weather forecasts, sport scores and many other types of online content. In the case of the ip831, the number of phones supported by its base station is 16 and this makes it quite a steal for small and medium sized companies wanting to offer their employees the chance to read the latest news on the landline handset.
The devices will be available sometime between March and April 2007 and will be displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.