Skype quality experience
 

I tested several Skype connections using N800 with my brother (using a laptop).
1) The sound quality using the N800 without headphones is almost unusable
2) The sound quality using headphones is offcourse much better, but the sound is pumping which is very annoying at both side of the Skype connection. Maybe the processing power if the N800 is not good enough?
3) Using a laptop at both sides of the Skype connection the sound quality was very good.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

the sound is pumping? could you elaborate?

i just did a skype call to my girlfriend in israel and it worked like a charm =]

EDIT: i'm in the US btw

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I have a crappy 11mbit wifi router... my brother uses it too for serving etc. At the moment he was behind his pc, i was on the upper floor with 2 stripes of wifi connection, i called my other brother in another country.

First i tested it without headphone, it was doable. After i put in the headphone he could hear me much clearer. Even with my lame connection! Sometimes though he couldn't hear me, but we are speaking about 2 words or so.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Glad to hear that it works great for you with the long distance. The pumping sound is like the effect of a hard working AGC (Automatic Gain Control).
Try to connect me via Skype: My skype name is sm0fob and my name is Kjell Bergqvist.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

That's odd to read. In my tests, sound without headphones was crystal clear, with no lag. Maybe your network is at fault?

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Sound in external speakers is good here, what I notice though (when testing on echo123) is that the mic sound I get back has a bit of static, compared to my laptop w/mic-headset. Haven't tried the Nokia earbuds/mic though (I can't use earbuds).

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I had problems with sound quality also moment ago when I tryed call to my friend who has Skype Linux version. Sound was bad with internal mic and speakers. I could hear him quite ok, but he told me that my speech was quite bad.. Then we tryed N800 earphones with mic.. Sound was lot better.. I was told. I did already think that mic is bad so I did download recorder software for N800.. No.. Mic is ok, it did record my speech just fine.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

SoSound is ok, but i've dropped several calls while multitasking-on ebay,
Gizmo chat open, and maybe the app manager. Even once while nothing
else was open.und is ok, but i've dropped several calls while multitasking-on ebay, Gizmo chat open, and maybe the app manager. Even once while nothinh else was open.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Actually (and not to start on off topic flame war) your post is the "odd" crystal clear one.

But thanks for the input :)

Has anyone else had a crystal clear experience without headphones?

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Sometimes I think i'm the only user with a good working n800. The update went fine for me and skype over the speakers is crystal clear.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

No, at least you're not alone here. For me the update went fine and Skype worked as well as on the PC in terms of audio quality, both with speakers and headphones/headset. I could finally toss Gizmo out of the window. I used Gizmo on my trip to Greece in early May and the PC-to-phone experience was so painful that I didn't want to remember it.

Besides wi-fi, I even tried to use Skype voice once while the N800 was connecting through my Treo 650's GPRS connection via bluetooth. To my surprise, voice transferred without any breaks although there was a longer delay after each sentence. The Treo 650 can't display whether it's using an EDGE connection but I assume it was on EDGE when I tried Skype. Plain GPRS probably can't handle Skype voice calls.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Crystal clear experience here, over a B router. Skype crash from time to time (no sound from the other side, unresponsive buttons) after 10 minutes+ calls, but besides that I can't complain.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Thanks all... for both your positive and negative replies. They have added the balance to this thread that I'm sure Textrat was looking for.

The more I'm using the upgrade the more I'm liking it. I haven't used Skype but it's good to know I have it on board.

Strange as it seems, as more and more inner city public places provide WiFi the less I see of working pay phones.

I might just buy some credit w/skype for the security of having a back-up for my cell service.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Well, I have to say I just concluded my first Skype conversation with the N800 (besides talking to the Skype Test Call lady). This was a just over 2 hr. call between the US and Europe, with the N800 connected to a 802.11g router (not sure of the connection on the Europe end, but it was with a notebook computer). Quality with the built-in gear was excellent, and the Nokia headset was very good (the sound on my end was a bit softer, but still clear). There was only a few seconds of skipping here and there (less than normal for Skype, in my experience). I closed all other running apps at the start of the call, so I didn't really tax the N800's CPU or memory much I guess. But my firmware upgrade went flawlessly (I just bought the N800 a week ago, so I didn't bother with a backup/restore), and I couldn't be more pleased with Skype on this first time out.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

A 2 hour continous call says it all for me. http://www.clicksmilies.com/auswahl/ernaehrung004.gif

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I get good quality without earphones.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

How I can make Skype test call with N800? I cant find option.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Just skype to "echo123"

Drop outs with Skype
 

Just did some major tests with the N800 and Skype, using the Nokia headset.

It was not too good. The general sound was a bit dull, and not very loud. But the problem were occasional drop outs. On both sides of the connection. The echo123-lady also had this often.

My conclusion: acceptable for a short call, but not much more. Tests with gizmo were better. But gizmo has a lot of background noise when calling a land line phone.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

It seems that skype is very sensitive to router settings, I would make sure that your wireless connection is a quality one before making assumptions about skype quality, I seem to be achieving laptop quality sound?

Re: Skype quality experience
 

My sound quality so far has been pretty good, the occasional click but on the whole quite good.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Skype couldnt find echo123

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Yep, I opened the skype port in my router and that seems to improve the sound a bit. But still there are drop outs and these are annoying.

(my wifi connection is very good)

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I just signed up for Skype Unlimited, as $30 a year seemed like a better deal than my current Vonage $25 a month for a similar service. There was confusing dropout on one of my first calls, and the call quality didn't seem all that good to me. The person I was talking to, who was on a regular phone, didn't complain, though. I'm using a wifi router, but am not very expert in its use -- it just works. It's a Linksys WRT54G, I think. Is there some way I can optimize the quality of Skype calls?

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I also have a Linksys WRT54GL. According to the skype FAQ, you have to open the skype port for optimum quality. I switched off 443 and 80 in the connection settings and opened the remaining skype port 3xxxx in the router. Note that your N800 must have a local static IP for that.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

My N800 doesn't have a local static IP, isn't that something I would have to pay my ISP for? Where is the Skype faq? Sorry, I missed it!

Re: Skype quality experience
 

No, you can assign your N800 a static IP instead of letting it pick up a dynamic IP address using DHCP. In the Advanced connection settings on your N800, give your N800 a fixed IP address. Use an address outside of the range being used by your DHCP server, eg. 192.168.0.50, assuming your DHCP allocates addresses in the range 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.49.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Thanks!

It didn't work for me, but it was fun. I disconnected from the Internet, went into the Control Panel and Connectivity and Edited my settings, finding the Advanced area. Then I disabled automatic retrieval of the IP and put 192.168.0.50 in the IP address field, .255.255.255.0 in whatever that field is, and found the router ip listed in the setup program I get when I put 192.168.1.1 into my browser, and put that ip into the router ip field. But after doing that, I couldn't find any web sites after connecting and opening my browser.

What else should I have done? At least it was dead easy to restore a working connection, just a matter of checking automatic DNS retrieval again.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

My experience is very positive. Excellent sound. A bit quiet, indeed.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I just gave example addresses but everyone's network is different, so you needed to modify the addresses to suit your environment. Since it looks like you're on the 192.168.1.x subnet, try using a fixed IP address of 192.168.1.50 with mask 255.255.255.0 and router 192.168.1.1 - this should work.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

alternatively I think you can go into the router´s dhcp section and set it so that the n800 mac address always receives the same ip. my dlink does this at least, I assumed the 54g´s would as well.

rob.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Ok. Now I found it. Dont know if it makes difference that I wrote Echo123 this time, but yeasterday when I wrote echo123 it didnt find name like that.

Anyway.. Sound was good. No problem at all. For some reason when I did call before to my friends Skype Linux, sound was really bad. But Echo123 test call did sound/work really well.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

It is generally better to configure this on the router, leaving the N800 and DHCP as it is. You can tell your router that it always gives the same IP to devices specified by their MAC address.

The callme feature of echo123 seems to work only occasionally. But there is another, better skype echo robot: echo-chinese. It has a nicer girl and longer recording time.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

My experiences with Skype so far have been pretty good.

My first few calls were local, to my son and wife's cellphones. Call quality was great. Just sitting with the N800 on the desk the sound quality on both sides was excellent.

Yesterday I called a friend in Italy, and the sound quality was better than my cell, that's for sure, and with no lag time! Except...Skype froze, twice, and required a restart of the N800...ack!

I am thrilled with the inclusion of Skype, so this is not a knock. I mean, it could have been the network...I don't know, maybe dropped signal, though I wasn't moving. I have a lot of testing still to do, and expect that there will be some improvements on the back end that will resolve these issues, if indeed there are any...the jury's still out, so to speak.

The verdict is in, at least for me, on this N800 vs iphone debate. That's in another thread, I know, but here I want to say clearly that I LOVE my N800 and wouldn't trade it for even the fanciest new phonebrick on the block! The inclusion of Skype is just one more reason to use/love it. I'll post the rest o this rant elsewhere.

Peace

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Heh, yeah you're right but as I don't know my way around the configuration pages for the specific router in question it's much easier to provide instructions that configure the N800, if only to prove that it works and then refine the address assignment method later on. :)

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I got my N800 yesterday and went straight to getting it updated with the latest firmware. I had a couple of great-sounding N800 -> overseas landline conversations without headphones but both crashed after ~8 minutes.

I haven't been able to use Skype ever since. It usually loads and then crashes right after I see my contact list for a split second. All other tools and my wifi seem to be working fine. What's up with that? Has anyone had a similar experience? Should I return it or exchange it?

Re: Skype quality experience
 

Report your issues with as much information as possible in Skype developer bug tracking. https://developer.skype.com/jira

also see this thread.
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ead.php?t=7610

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I flashed it again, no restore this time... I logged in with a "clean" Skype account that doesn't have as many contacts and phone numbers to remember. It works very well so far and hopefully it will stay this way.

Did you have a ton of contacts in your list?

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I had only 3 contacts. I read the limit for the Nokia Skype client was 200.

Re: Skype quality experience
 

I have three contacts on this one too... My last skype to skype call timed out at ~10 minutes.

I skipped setting up google talk this time. The connected icon would blink on and off almost every time, so I don't trust it. All the other apps that I thought would interfere with Skype are back on. It works for now - I'll keep checking it every time I install something.