Communicator Grey C100S USB Speakerphone for Skype

Communicator Grey C100S USB Speakerphone for Skype Features:

• Skype™-certified
• Hi-Fi wideband voice quality
• 2 High-quality microphones
• Acoustic clarity technology
• Easy to use

Customer Reviews:

• Works with Apple perfectly: Not sure what all the fuss is about, I am using it with Leopard and the most recent Skype and functions perfectly. None of the echo that Skype used to deliver through the Macbook Pro speakers / mic combo. Extremely happy with product as enables me to use for conference calls when travelling on business and piped in to the broadband connection in the hotel.
• Skype Essential: Fantastic microphone and speaker. I use it under Windows XP, so I can't comment as to concerns on other operating systems. But under XP it is fantastic. If you wish for your sound card to remain your primary sound driver, then it throws up an error message every time that Skype sends a sound to it, but it is a very minor annoyance.
  
  Sound quality is excellent as long as there is sufficient upload bandwidth on your network line and it isn't too busy. If the network is super busy, then things naturally begin to sound bad due to packet loss which is completely unassociated with this unit.
  
  Overall a fantastic device and worthy of the Polycomm name. It has a permanent place on my desk. I use it both as a speaker phone and as a quasi-headset by using the headphone port. Fantastic and easy operation.
• No good if drivers don't work; no customer support: Very erratic performance with WinXP; had to return unit. Polycom has no customer support at all so you're left to Google search to figure out how to fix problems. A friend also has severe problems with his C100S.
• Wildly great and awful all at the same time: Everyone who gives the Polycom Communicator C100S a great rating is absolutely correct. Under Windows XP this device is awesome. The sound quality is great on both ends. It doesn't take you long to realize that you are carrying on a conversation in a much more natural manner without a headset on.
  
  When you want to use this device on any operating system other than Windows XP, you'll find that the device is nothing more than a cheap speaker and desktop microphone. Of course it works with Skype on Linux, MacOS and Windows Vista, just like any other speaker and desktop microphone do. Crappily.
  
  The magic of this device is in the software. The echo cancellation and sound quality are all products of the drivers that lie between Skype and the device. Wihout those drivers, the device is just an expensive USB speaker/microphone. Those who say that the device works with MacOS and Vista are only partially right. The Skype integration buttons do not work on anything but XP and I could live with that. But the audio processing in the driver is what makes this device usable with Skype. Without it, there is terrible echo from your side that makes the device unusable. You may as well use a cheap pair of speakers and a cheap desktop microphone. You'll get the same performance and it'll cost you a lot less.
  
  Windows Vista has been available to the software developers at Polycom for over a year now and there is apparently no Vista driver in the works. This means that the Polycom Communicator C100S is useless for almost all new computer purchasers. (I did recently read that Dell is now offering Windows XP on some new PC purchases. I belive for enterprise level buyers only though.)
  
  There is apparently now no plan to release a Mac driver, as if there was ever one in development. Which I highly doubt. So, according to my spidey senses, unless you use Windows XP exclusively, and don't have any plans for a new computer, purchasing this device now is a waste of money.
  
  This is a terrible shame as the Polycom Communicator C100S is an awesome device and I was really looking forward to using it when I purchased it. So far I haven't been able to use it more than once, as they haven't released any Vista drivers. I did use it once with a VMWare virtual machine running Windows XP, just to make sure that my device wasn't broken, and it does work as advertised on Windows XP.
  
  Vista drivers were supposed to be released mid 2007, but it's almost mid 2008 now and there are no hints that they have ever assigned a software guy the task of writing them. My advice is to wait until Polycom shows some interest in supporting this device with current operating systems before shelling out any money for it. :o(
• Mac Leopard Compatible: I was hesitant to buy this product because I saw no direct reference to working with Leopard. When I received it, I couldn't get it to work, either. But today I upgraded to Skype version 2.7 (Beta) and it's working great. On the dialing dialog window of version 2.7 is a small headphone icon. I clicked on this icon and opened up another dialog box with choices for microphone and speaker and was able to quickly designate the polycom unit.
  
  The sound quality is terrific. I've just ordered another pair for some of my employees who use Skype as well. I recommend this product for Mac users who use Leopard.