On our desk this week - 4

VoSky Chatterbox

Have you ever sat at your PC talking to a friend on Skype thinking... "Gosh, I wish I could get up and wander around whilst I'm talking, without having to sit and be tethered to this darned headset"? If so, then Actiontec are pitching the VoSky Chatterbox right at you.

It is a speakerphone that is certified by Skype for use on its network. Simply, it's got a microphone inside for you to talk into, and the other end of the conversation comes out via the speaker. The chatterbox includes echo reduction technology so that the other part to the conversation doesn't get his own words fed back to him via the speaker into the microphone.

The Chatterbox connects via USB and is installed with a driver disk. Rather than piping all your audio through this device, it is configured so that only Skype audio goes through, leaving your speaker setup configured to handle everything else.

You can make and take calls through the Skype UI just as normal - but with this installed, the audio comes out through the speaker. You can mute the microphone and adjust the output volume levels using buttons on the face of the device.

Sound quality in Skype is pretty hot when you have decent equipment, as I'm sure we all know. However, we found that there was something of a reduction in sound quality when using this. It will probably be ok for most people, but those using Skype often will definitely notice a reduction in both the input and output quality if you have anything more than a £5 mic/headset at the moment. When we talk bit-tech over Skype, we all have £50 Plantronics headsets, and the sound quality from the Chatterbox was not in the same ballpark.

However, since the device only costs £20, then we suppose that's really to be expected. The idea of Skype speakerphone is a great concept and it is executed pretty well in terms of the hardware and the interface, but we just wish the sound quality was a little more on par with what we're used to.

Name: Actiontec VoSky Chatterbox
Buy it from: Dabs
Cost: £20
Verdict: A great idea and good execution, but needs better sound quality.