wifi phones

A while back Netgear released its revolutionary (in idea, not in practice) wifi phone, in conjunction with Skype. I watched it on Amazon where it was unavailable(sold out?) for some time, saw negative reviews, not only for its high price of $250, but also for its quality, and decided not to bother buying it. It was limited in connecting to wifi networks, so it proved to be more of a sit-on-the-shelf item than a portable voip phone.

Afterwards, Belkin released a similar phone, and now Linksys has followed suit, with its new iPhone (not by Apple, by the way) called the WIP320. It is currently selling on Amazon, right here, but as there are no reviews as of yet, I think I will wait.
In the meantime, you could do what one Amazon commenter said: just get a smartphone that can run Skype on it. This neat skype blog shows various methods of doing mobile skype. Skype mobile can be downloaded for smartphones or pocket pcs here. This seems like the best option, as the device is not limited to skype only - duh!

So the news about a wifi phone is really all just hype? Yes and no. In the future, I believe all mobile phones will be VOIP - I know Sprint/Nextel is already working towards that, and in just a few years (2010?), it will be reality.