IP Phones - which to buy..?

We’re just getting into Asterisk and VOIP in my IT dept, and we’ve come to the bridge of phone choice.

We’ve read that the Cisco phones can be a pain when upgrading firmware but are user friendly, and the SNOMs are great for upgrading but are not so user friendly - either way both of these are probably out of our price range for upgrading our whole system.

The cheaper the better really (cue chants of ‘oh well, you get what you pay for…’). We’ve found the Grandstream GXP-2000 Enterprise, which is the cheapest we could find that still supports power over IP, which is a must have feature, and also the SipTone II.

So, has anyone had any experience with the GXP-2000 or the SipTone II…? If not then can anyone recommend a sub £100 phone that supports PoIP and keeps the technics and users relatively happy…?

Many thanks
R

Would highly recommend Cisco. Follow the directions on www.voip-info.org (somewhere) and you’ll have no problems with the 7940/7960 phones configuration or firmware updating (unless they’re older/used then you may trip over a small hiccup or two). Otherwise very straightforward, great build quality, nice interface, good level of functionality.