Magic Jack........ Anyone know about it?

[mrbret]

Anyone know anything about the Magic Jack phone service?

Anyone have it?

Is it any good?

What are the up sided?

What are the down sides?

Can you call international?

What are your thoughts.......

Edited April 11, 2010 by mrbret

[redrocket04]

My gf had it. It does what its supposed to, when it works. I'm not sure about international calls.

[conn-e-rot]

I had looked into it and found a lot of reports where they billed peoples cards double and would not stop billing when service was canceled and most of the time it doesn't work at all

[SWing'R]

Anyone know anything about the Magic Jack phone service?

Anyone have it?

Is it any good?

What are the up sided?

What are the down sides?

Can you call international?

What are your thoughts.......

I have it. Use it as a second line. It works great. If you are gonna use it, hook it up to a good quality cordless phone that way you are not stuck using a phone near your pc.

Drawbacks... pc has to be on and connected to internet at all times for it to work.

[SWing'R]

...and most of the time it doesn't work at all

Absolute lie. Mine has NEVER not worked.

[conn-e-rot]

wow I might have to pick one up then.... the only reason I didn't get one was read reviews saying it rarely worked

[chevysoldier]

I have heard the same reviews that say it's crap. Never actually tried it though. I've been thinking about it.

[SWing'R]

For $20 a year its worth it just to have your own phone number with voicemail even if you don't use the damn thing. If you get a voicemail it sends you the voicemail as a wav file to your email. The service really is pretty damn good and only on rare occassions is the quality not good.

The only problem I have had with it was that when my year was up they turned my number off without warning, I never got an email reminder to renew, I think my credit card info was invalid (expired dates) and they couldn't rebill. Once I realized it was off it took me all of two minutes to go online and reactivate it.

[Fazerlady]

Have had it for months....love it, love it, love it....

International calls are not a problem at all..you just have to buy minutes beforehand....but it is only 2 cents a minute to call to Germany it sounds like they are next door...very good connection.

the only downfall is that you have to have a computer on for it to work. so we took an old lappy we had and just hooked it to that. not a problem at all. :-)

Mel

[mello dude]

I looked into it. You have to have you PC on 24/7 if you want somebody to call you. I suppose it fits a niche, but I have gone to Skype at $2.99 a month. Its totally anonymous and you have unlimited time. If somebody wants to call me I give them my cell. - I have no hardwire at all.

Edited April 11, 2010 by mello dude

[SWing'R]

I looked into it. You have to have you PC on 24/7 if you want somebody to call you. I suppose it fits a niche, but I have gone to Skype at $2.99 a month. Its totally anonymous and you have unlimited time. If somebody wants to call me I give them my cell. - I have no hardwire at all.

Ahhh, doesn't you pc have to be on also in order to use skype, and don't you have to use a funky headset.

MJ is $1.66 a month ($19.95/yr), its unlimited and it uses a regular phone, has voicemail AND 911 works thru it. Skype doesn't support 911.

So tell me whats the better value?

Also,just remembered something else, MJ can go with you and can be simply installed on any other pc if need be.

MJ also provides you a local phone number, not sure if Skype does that.

Edited April 11, 2010 by SWing'R

[mrbret]

We were thinking of getting it to replace out home phone.

We never use it & 99% of the calls are people selling shit or wanting us to donate money for other shit so even if the PC is not on & we don't get a call it's no biggie.

For making most calls we have the cell phones & anyone that calls us that we want to speak to calls them & never the home phone anyway.

Sounds like it may be worth doing, $39.95 for the first year (including the device & a year of service) the $19.95 per year after that sounds like it will work for us.

Thanks all

[chevysoldier]

.

MJ is $1.66 a month ($19.95/yr)' date='

Also,just remembered something else, MJ can go with you .

MJ also provides you a local phone number[/quote']

j/k

[mello dude]

Ahhh' date=' doesn't you pc have to be on also in order to use skype, and don't you have to use a funky headset.

MJ is $1.66 a month ($19.95/yr), its unlimited and it uses a regular phone, has voicemail AND 911 works thru it. Skype doesn't support 911.

So tell me whats the better value?

Also,just remembered something else, MJ can go with you and can be simply installed on any other pc if need be.

MJ also provides you a local phone number, not sure if Skype does that.[/quote']

We were thinking of getting it to replace out home phone.

We never use it & 99% of the calls are people selling shit or wanting us to donate money for other shit so even if the PC is not on & we don't get a call it's no biggie.

For making most calls we have the cell phones & anyone that calls us that we want to speak to calls them & never the home phone anyway.

Sounds like it may be worth doing, $39.95 for the first year (including the device & a year of service) the $19.95 per year after that sounds like it will work for us.

Thanks all

Both are fairly cheap so I guess its mostly up to what you are after, seems like both are a good way to go. I wanted to ditch the hardwire but still have something I could call with for a longish conversations and not burn cell phone minutes. The phone solitcitors were driving me nutz. So, for me the Skype is on only when I want it on. No idiot callers coming in. I did get a lite weight 20 buck headset for the skype, no big deal there. I like that its software based, with no hardware to worry about. Download it on any PC.

The way its going, the cell is the primary phone - I'm probly 80% cell calls and 20% skype calls.

[SWing'R]

...I did get a lite weight 20 buck headset for the skype, no big deal there. I like that its software based, with no hardware to worry about. Download it on any PC.

- No headset with MJ, uses a regular phone.

- USB based, plug-it-in on any pc (WinXp or higher I think), software self-contained in the unit, updates automatically when plugging it into a different pc.

Sorry, I think MJ beats Skype hands down man.

We have a hardwire line since we have a security system that uses the line, I lowered the features

to basic and we use either our cells or the MJ for all of our outgoing LD calls.