Product Reviews

Skype may have successfully jumped from Windows and Linux to the Mac, but peripheral manufacturers have been slow on the uptake. This, then, is the best we're going to get for some time. It's not particularly attractive, but it is fairly functional and draws its power over a USB connection. There are no Mac drivers, unfortunately, but OS X recognises it as a keyboard and sound input-output device, so you can dial SkypeOut numbers using the keypad.

The lack of drivers means that doing anything more ambitious requires some manual intervention. Skype's default setup doesn't drop any keyboard shortcuts into OS X's Keyboard and Mouse Preferences pane, so it doesn't immediately associate with the phone's extended function buttons for searching, hanging up or muting the call. We did try adding our own through the Preferences, by adapting the ones supplied for Windows, but were unsuccessful.

Still, you can use the phone to dial out and the audio quality is as good as a regular phone. Until developers commit to properly serving the Mac platform, though, we can't give it more than a conservative score.