MagicJack Review

I am sure a lot of you have seen the ads and/or in some store like Radio Shack, Best Buy, ... just to name a few.  Well, I am here to give you my thoughts about this "MagicJack".

It cost me $40 to buy the USB device that also includes 1 year of service. I bought it 2 months ago.  Installation was easy.  I installed it on a dual core machine running Windows 7 RTM.  It does go out to download and install a software that runs on your PC.  I went through the initial setup ... self-information, pick a number, etc.  Now, I live in KS and it did not have my area code, so, I picked one closest to me, which is an 816 area code.  Not all area code is available at that time.  Once I am done with setup, I was ready to make calls.  I tried it two different ways.  One, I connected using wireless.  The call quality was poor.  Now this could very well be because of my wireless connection and has nothing to do with MagicJack.  So, after a couple of days, I switched over to wired networking.  The sound quality was much much better.

I did notice that my PC must be constantly on.  The screen saver cannot be running and/or the PC cannot be in sleep mode.  If the PC is in one of the states, I cannot make and/or receive calls.  This is one small drawback but it is something I can live with.  My PC is hardly ever shut down anyway, so, no problems here.

After a few days, I noticed that I cannot call home.  Every time I call my home, it would immediately go into voice mail.  I checked my connection ( still have internet ), software is up and running, but I still cannot receive calls.  I can pick up my phone and I can dial out.  Once I dial out, I can start receiving calls again.  After a while, it would stop receiving calls again.  This went on for a while.  Finally, I "chatted" with customer service and I was told that since I am using Windows 7, which is NOT a supported OS, he cannot help me.  So, I packed it all up and returned it to Radio Shack.

Now, overall, I was happy with the sound quality.  The reason I returned it is because I cannot call my home, if and when I need to.  So, if your intention is to use it purely for making calls, then I would recommend it.  Give it a shot.  Otherwise, go elsewhere.