Anybody use MagicJack?

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leh18621

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The wife wants to switch our home phone to this. Since my gaming pc (in sig) is the only non laptop we will probably install it on that pc. I was just wondering, will it cause any performance problems having magic jack plugged into my pc all the time? Will it affect gaming performance if I am gaming while my wife is talking on the phone at the same time?
 
quality is total crap. If you're looking for a free phone solution, look at ooma. It's quite a bit more, but it's completely stand alone and the quality is fantastic (but like all voip, your ISP depends on overall quality).

Now, that doesn't answer your question, I know. As far as performance goes -- there is a potential to impact your system while gaming. You most likely won't notice anything, but it could happen.
 
We had Vonage but it cost $33 a month and to be honest we only use the home phone maybe a few hours per month anyways. Plus, my router was always acting up and our internet was constantly a problem while we had vonage. We got rid of Vonage three months ago and we have not had a single internet/router problem since.

So, I don't mind if the quality isn't superb since we will sparingly use it and it will only cost $40 for the first year and $20 a year after that which is basically nothing as far as I am concerned. The reason my wife wants it is because she has several co workers who have it and they claim that it works great. The only thing I am concerned about is gaming performance LOL. Even then, this could be my excuse for having to upgrade my pc and she can't say no then!!! LOL
 
I had it for awhile and it worked fine, noticed no deficits in performance, with my computer.
 
TWolf79 said:
I had it for awhile and it worked fine, noticed no deficits in performance, with my computer.
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That makes me feel good since your pc is very similar in specs to mine (cpu, ram, mobo, even power supply lol).
 
I've used it for the past 6+ months, and have no complaints with it. Quality has been fine for me, before that we had AT&T Callvantage before they killed that service.

I've got an old 3GHz P4 that I run it through with no issues whatsoever. My only complaint is that it changes focus whenever you call or receive a call, so I don't have it on my main computer. My recommendation is that you find an old machine that you can leave on 24/7 that's not your primary machine and hook the MagicJack into that.

p.s. Also look for the unofficial MagicJack forum. There's tons of information there that you would find useful.
 
I have had one for a few months. It is just as clear as a land line. This is with either Mediacom or Knology.. I would suspect the same with Comcast.

If you want it totally seperated from your computers, it is possible to install it on a thin client.
 
I got one just so I could use it for our conf calls at work. BUT we use freeconferncecall.com and MJ blocks them.

So I wasted $40, as thats the only real reason I bought it. :-(
 
braamer said:
My only complaint is that it changes focus whenever you call or receive a call, so I don't have it on my main computer.
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What do you mean by "it changes focus"? I was reading somewhere that whenever you send or receive a call you get a window popping up on your screen that you have to minimize. Is this what you are refering to?

If so that won't be a problem since, as I mentioned, we don't use a home phone very often at all. It was very common for us to not use Vonage for a single call during some weeks. Plus I figure when I am gaming I can always just unplug Magic Jack if needed and if someone wants to call us they always have our cell phone #'s.

I really appreciate all the info/responses.
 
the quality is equal to that of skype which depends on how good your connection is, or how much bandwidth you have free

say you're downloading some stuff, it will sound like crap....however if you're by yourself it should be nearly perfect

anyways i gave mine up after i broke the usb connector off, i'm too lazy to solder it back on lol
 
no just reminders that u can buy the 5 year plan
I have had MJ for 2 years and on a good secondary pc with a solid connection it works GREAT the only time i had problems was due to charters BS router and torrents
 
I have been using it for going on 3 years. I have had ZERO problems with it. I have never seen a performance hit on the computer. True voice only requires 64Kb of bandwidth. If you have any decent internet connection at all, you will never even know it is there. As far as quality, I have never heard static, call breakup, or anything. Has been perfectly clear for me.

I would give it a 9.5/10 the .5 I take away is the $19.95 a year. LOL. Getting rid of the local phone company was the best move ever for me. I have Charter cable and the internet is very stable, so problems have never arisen.

Fish :cool:
 
I use one for a fax line. I have it as a startup task in task scheduler using an alternate account, so the software never displys in my interface. You can also set it to run as a service fairly trivially.

My wife has one she uses on her Mac for a business line when she doesn't want to use her cell for outgoing calls. She just uses a USB headset, and uses the software phone functionality instead of a physical phone.

As long as you have reliable Internet service, it works well.

Now that I have a device for doing remote USB over TCP/IP, I should be able to move it to being hung off of a VM running on my virutlization host, and still be able to put it where I need to provide the fax line and other USB stuff to my VMs. Hmmm. Have to play with that. :)
 
imyourzero said:
Here's a recent thread with more info & replies:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1520140
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I think my post is in that thread. I had MJ for 2 years. Worked decently, but sometimes you got an echo, dropped calls, mysterious weekends where it would be down and even customer service didn't know.

Was it worth the price? Sure. As long as you have a secondary phone in case it is blipping out (like a cell) and don't mind running a computer all of the time for it (I had it on my 100w media server box).

I moved us to Ooma and we've been on that for like 4 months now. Trouble free. I'd highly recommend it. Much more trouble free.
 
leh18621 said:
What do you mean by "it changes focus"? I was reading somewhere that whenever you send or receive a call you get a window popping up on your screen that you have to minimize. Is this what you are refering to?

If so that won't be a problem since, as I mentioned, we don't use a home phone very often at all. It was very common for us to not use Vonage for a single call during some weeks. Plus I figure when I am gaming I can always just unplug Magic Jack if needed and if someone wants to call us they always have our cell phone #'s.

I really appreciate all the info/responses.
Click to expand...

Yea that is what he was talking about.

My dad dropped his home phone for a magicjack. Thing seems to work fine most of the time but he has had some issues with the software. He just unplugs the magic jack and hooks it back in.

If I was going to get one I'd buy a cheap thinclient running xp embeded and hook it into it.
 
+1 for Ooma. I'd picked one up from my local Costco and I"ve ported my home phone number over to it. I've been very satisfied and can recommend it too.
 
I have MagicJack and it works well. The sound quality is decent I haven't had any issues. I still have a regular lan line and a cell though. I wouldn't count on it as the only phone line in your house. I have it hooked up to a laptop that is on for a large portion of the day. When the laptop is off the calls go to voice mail and a wav file of the message gets sent to my email, or I can call in and get it.
 
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