Has anyone tried using any of the USB "Skype" phones with VOIPo? I've had mixed luck with the soft phones apps on my Droid, so I was looking for something I could use in my office or while traveling to take calls to my home number with a real "phone" (verses talking to a laptop screen).

Since the website said it supports SIP, I decided to order one of these USB VoIP Phones to see what it would do. I had some Amazon credits that I had received for participating in an online study that were going to expire, so I ended up paying around $11, including shipping. I figured that if it didn't work, all I was out was about a day's lunch.

The device is about the size and shape of an early 2000's-era Nokia phone, and probably a little bit lighter. The cord is about 7 feet long, giving me enough length to lean back in my chair and not worry about pulling it out of the USB socket while talking.

When I opened the box I was a bit disappointed because the manual only explained connecting to Skype. The CD, however, had a program called "CounterPathMate" which seemed to be could be used, in a similar manner to the documented "SkypeMate" software, with a CounterPath softphone, i.e. X-Lite.

I installed X-Lite and CounterPathMate in a similar manner to that of the Skype instructions. X-Lite immeadiately discovered the device and allowed me to set "USB Audio Device" as my microphone, speaker, and "ring on" device. I have not been able to get CounterPathMate to recognize that X-Lite is running though, so I can't get X-Lite to recognize button presses on the phone. So, when I get a call, the USB phone rings, but I need to use the app to answer it.

At work I have a Mac, and the CD only came with a Windows version of CounterPathMate, so I initially tried to set it up in a VMWare Fusion VM. Going through the VM caused a lot of issues with sound quality (both through the device and through normal speakers). I couldn't get the device keypad to work correctly anyway, I decided to try installing the Mac version of X-Lite. It, too, recognized the device (as a sound card) and my voice quality issues disappeared.

I haven't tried configuring the device on my Windows-based laptop yet, but I have a hunch that the CounterPathMate software is designed to work with an older version on X-Lite and isn't compatible with version 4. So I don't have the pick-up-and-dial solution I was hoping to get, but it is a decent solution nonetheless.

This device is definitely not quite the same as talking on one of the new Avaya 9600-series phones that they are starting to use at work, but I have no complaints about the call quality. I just wish I could get the buttons to work--it is hard to break the habit of just clicking the green button when thing starts ringing.

Has anyone else used one of these? Any luck getting the buttons working?

--Jason