I recently installed Asterisk in the company I work for and we are in the stage of looking for a few good phones that are compatible with Asterisk. Please advice in which ones are the best phones and the most compatible.
I was told that Cisco and GrandStream phones. What do you recommend?
Thank you
[quote=“acortes”]I recently installed Asterisk in the company I work for and we are in the stage of looking for a few good phones that are compatible with Asterisk. Please advice in which ones are the best phones and the most compatible.
I was told that Cisco and GrandStream phones. What do you recommend?
Thank you[/quote]
Grandstream for elcheapo Asterisk supported, you get what you pay for though! Aastra for mid priced high quality business phones with decent if not extraordinary features (yet) with full Asterisk support. Polycom, Cisco for high quality phones with no official Asterisk support, difficult to obtain firmware upgrades, awkward configurations with high learning curves.
[quote=“acortes”]I recently installed Asterisk in the company I work for and we are in the stage of looking for a few good phones that are compatible with Asterisk. Please advice in which ones are the best phones and the most compatible.
I was told that Cisco and GrandStream phones. What do you recommend?
Thank you[/quote]
I can help you…contact me directly at bjerome@calgarytelecom.com so that I can send you a spreadsheet with all of our phones and pricing. All of our phones can work with IAX2/Sip/h323…of course IAX is the only way to go.
Thank you I send you an email with the info that I need. If anybody else has something to hesitate to tell me I need to have this info asap since I have a deadline to meet. Thanks guys 
As far as elcheapo, I’d recommend the Siprua 841 over the Grandstrem Budgetone line. MUCH better feature set, and better quality, IMO. Plus, you can get multiple call appearances on the Sipura (2, upgradable to 4), which is a nice feature in a business environment
Ummmm…the Grandstream GXP2000 has up to 11 line appearances, no extra charge.
I don’t own an 841 but from what I have read, people seem to think the GXP2000 is a better phone for the price.
The Bugetone is what I was referring to. Again, just my opinion in the end. Considering I haven’t worked with the GXP2000, I may be completely off base here.
Having worked with the 841, I was very happy with the web configurator, the overall feature set for the price, and the general quality of the phone (except the horrible speaker phone.) My biggest gripe about the 841 is the non-backlit display. I also understand some people don’t care for the rubbery keys, but that doesn’t bother me personally.
What about SoftPhones? Any suggestions?
As far as softphones, I’m really happy with X-Lite from X-ten. It’s not open source, but it’s cross platform and free as in free beer.
That is the one we tested and it works pretty good and the config is super easy.
Thanks
Ok my boss decided to buy the GrandStream BudgetTone 102 for testing and then decided what are we going to do about the phones. Any more help and comments are welcome.
Thanks
We’ve been using the Grandstream BT-102’s successfully and found the quality to beat PA168-based phones. I have a Polycom coming in today - the 301, I think is the model, and can report back later on it.
SNOM! SNOM! 
Polycom SoundPoint IP 301 - first impressions.
Feels like a solid, durable business phone. Plugged right in and started calling, after completing the setup for “registrations.” This phone takes a LONG time to boot, and of course config changes require a reboot.
Phone came with no docs, other than a CD full of marketing crap and a quick-start card. Will have to dig around online for a PDF to tell about how to program buttons.
This is a two-enet-port unit with 2 call displays, and supports registration at 6 SIP servers. Nice: headset port (for the expensive Plantronics headsets). Not nice: speaker is one-way only; many of the cheaper phones have speaker phone fully enabled.
After some initial testing, I’m pretty sure that we’re going to stick with the BT-102 from Grandstream; there is no human-discernable difference in sound quality, at either end, in our comparison of the BT-102 and the IP-301, and the BT-102 is nearly half the cost (though it doesn’t have a headset jack at all).
The Grandstream 2000 series have :
Multi Line appearance ( 4 ),
Large Multi Line Display ( swivel ),
4 registrations,
Handsfree Speaker Phone,
Headset jack,
Extension Console Port,
7 x Programmable keys,
Phonebook,
Have the ability to work with Asterisk in order to display Extensions in use via the “HINT” feature
And the list goes on …
My 2 sheckles worth they are a great phone to use and provide for customers seeking a good priced solution in replacement for the standard wired telephones.
Kev
I’m definitly considering telling my boss about this phone especifically since the features are a lot better plus it has handsfree which is a plus especially in our business.
How do you operate the “Conference” on this phone? Because I’m trying to use it on our BT-102’s and I can, now I was reading the manual for this series of phone and it says that is Reserved for future products. Is that true or is it that I don’t know how to use it.
Ok… So, I have a very generous boss when it comes to getting different types of phones to try. (He’s an ebay junkie.)
I also have a friend with a good VOIP budget so, between the two sources, I’ve managed to setup and sample:
Cisco 7960
Snom 200
Grandstream GPX2000
Sipura-841 (both a 2 and a 4 line version)
Polycom IP500
I’ve also played with both X-Lite and SJphone softphones.
First of all, none of the phones were perfect. Each had something I would have changed or fixed. Each had something I like very much too. So here goes.
The Cisco and Polycom phones were my favorites for sound (especially the speakerphone) but they take forever to boot up. They were both messy to setup, but after they were setup they worked just fine. They had very good options such as line by line auto answer on the Cisco, and standard business headset support on the Polycom. But I wish the SIP setup was easier. I’d hate to have to deploy a whole lot of them.
The Sipura-841’s were very nice if all you want is a good phone. It has an ok speakerphone. The display would benefit from a backlight, but they boot quickly and have a very good web interface. They do have a tiny, hard to notice message waiting lamp, and I’d also add power over ethernet. They do have the WORST handset cords. If you buy one of those, buy a handset cord too. In my opinion, it would make an excellent wall phone. Mounted at eye level, the display shortcomings wouldn’t be much of a problem. (Downside, it would have to be near a power outlet.) You can easily add ringtones too. 2 or 4 line doesn’t seem to matter much, however, the 4 line phone has to blank the screen (hiding the line appearance status) when there are messages like “Missed calls” to display.
I’m liking the Grandstream 2000 very much now that they’ve fixed the speakerphone. It has a good web interface, and a nice big easy to read display with a backlight that can even be set to stay on constantly. It’s not easily wall mountable, no matter what the ad’s say, but it could be wall mounted if you wanted to. (you’d need an inclined shelf.) I’d keep it on a desk though. It would make a great bedroom or guest room phone in a hotel. The nice backlit display has a big easy to read clock. The message waiting indicator is big, bright, flashes nicely, and would be very hard to ignore.
The Snom 200 was my least favorite. The overall engineering was poor. The hookswitch was problematic, the display was clunky, and the buttons stuck frequently. I hated the ringtones, but those could be changed easily. Happily, they’re manufacturer discontinued. On the positive side, the web interface was detailed and easy to understand, and they boot very quickly. Handset sound is good and clear. Still, I think there are far better choices for the money.
It doesn’t matter which softphone you use. They’re both good. However, the free versions do have some differences. The X-lite phone has no message waiting indicator, which the SJ phone has. It also has some functions disabled. (Conference and transfer come to mind.) I like the look and feel of the xlite over the sjphone, but the sjphone has more active features. In both cases though, using softphone software introduces considerable delay. If you don’t like delay, use a real phone. Use the softphone to check voicemail from the coffee shop with the free Wi-Fi service.
That’s my 2 cents. Feel free to ask me any specific questions.
please realize, that almost NONE of these phones support IAX which is the biggest reason enterprise users use Asterisk
X-Lite is AWESOME, but it doesnt support IAX. go with firefly from verbiage
I met X-Lite’s author a year ago, he is a very nicce guy, and a down-to-earth CEO… Cool man!
Iaxcomm is an iax2 softphone which i’ve used and quite like: