Kensington Vo300 USB Internet Speakerphone – Product Review

A Retro-Looking (and Feeling) Speakerphone

When I first saw the Kensington Vo300 USB Internet speakerphone, it reminded me of the front door intercom security system I used to play with when I was a child. I’m from a crowded city – Taipei – on a small island called Taiwan. Because of the limited land space there, most people live in either apartment buildings or high-rise condos. As a city boy, one of the hot summer afternoon routines my friends and I did was to hit on those door phones at the apartment and high-rise buildings, pretend we are mail delivery people, and see if we can act good enough to have the owners open the front gate for us. It wasn’t a good habit, but it was definitely fun.

The Kensington Vo300 USB Internet speakerphone not only has a similar size (5” x 4”) and look, it also has the same “slow reaction” when operating the buttons on an old door phone system. I guess because of the concern for cost control, the buttons on an old door phone security system were never that sensitive. After you hit a button, you had to wait through a short-period dead-time before you could hit the next button. On the Kensington Vo300 USB Internet speakerphone, you can expect to experience the same thing. When using up and down navigation buttons to search through Skype contacts, or using volume up and down buttons to adjust the speaker volume, you need to be patient. Fast and repeat button pushing is not recommended while operating the Kensington Vo300 USB Internet speakerphone. It will just reduce the life of the buttons and not make they system go any faster – just like for an elevator.

I’m not Bad Mouthing

At this point, you might think Howard Chang is another arrogant blogger who is trying to bad-mouth Kensington Vo300 USB Internet speakerphone, but bear with me a moment more before you come to that conclusion. Bad-mouthing a product is never my purpose for writing a product review. I just want to list the information a consumer needs to know before making a buying decision. Besides, retro-looking doesn’t equal to bad-looking, and it sometimes means “cool” to some people. Furthermore, if you can be trained to operate the buttons properly, you can enjoy the abundant features and functions the Kensington Vo300 USN Internet speakerphone offers.

Abundant Features

Among all the good features the Kensington Vo300 USB Internet speakerphone offers, I like the fact that a user can perform almost all of the tasks involved in making a Skype voice call on the Kensington Vo300 dial pad. After setting up the Skype contact information on the computer, a user can find the contact on the Vo300 LCD screen by using the up / down navigation buttons, initiate a Skype call by hitting the green call button, listen to the voice messages by hitting the message button, and adjust the speaker volume and mute the microphone by pressing the related buttons. If you don’t like the wait in navigating through the contact list on the screen, you can use the number / alphabet pads to jump to the targeted contact faster. There are also other button-hitting procedures to check in the missing / receiving call logs and to start a multi-user conference call. This all-on-the-dial-pad feature provides a tremendous convenience to users.

Comparison on Kensington Vo300 and Polycom Communicator

Before wrapping up this review, I want to do a pricing / feature comparison on Kensington Vo300 USB Internet speakerphone and the Polycom communicator. They are both designed specifically for Skype as an external speaker / microphone combo unit for a small conference room.

 

	Kensington Vo300	Polycom communicator
Price	$70+	$120+
Microphone	Echo-canceling Microphone. Cannot adjust volume. Need users to speak louder.	Echo-canceling Microphone. Super sensitive. Can pick up very low volume sound.
Speakerphone	Very good quality.	Very good quality.
Functions	Abundant functions, such as display Skype contact list, listen to voice message, and headsets port.	Basic functions, such as call / hang-up and speaker mute buttons.
Installation	Easy. The computer that is connected to Vo300 needs to perform the software in start-up.	Easy. No special software needs to be in RTS.
USB Cable length	Long enough. (around 6 ft)	Short. (only 3 ft)

Conclusion

Kensington Vo300 USB Internet Speakerphone can be a good phone to users if they want abundant features and easy operation on their conference phone, and have limited budget . If users want to eliminate the need for participants in the conference room to bend forward to the phone to speak, Polycom Comminicator is the better choice.

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